2016-05-20

Announced in August 2013, the CS: GO Arms Deal update was intended to help boost the prize purses at CS: GO competitive events, and thus their visibility amongst gamers and the e-sports audience. It appears to have worked: The number of Global Offensive players has grown by more than 250 percent over the past year, while three million unique viewers tuned in to the ESL One Cologne event.

There’s also some lingering sound problems on the map, especially with Z-axis audio behavior. Despite these issues, it remains a mainstay: the same asymmetry that makes it tough for the csgo skins Ts gives it a unique feel: no other map stacks its bombsites atop one another, for example.

Do you even yoga, bro? This is actually a really nice gym. But it kind of looks like a school? Anyway, Workout is a colorful three-lane map with some interesting stuff happening around T spawn (an awkward middle stairway; a pool area with plentiful hiding spots). I’ve had enjoyable rounds on Workout, but mid, the long lane to T spawn, and the middle fountain area are a bit too spacious for 5-on-5 play. It can suck the fun out of the map if the hostages spawn closely together, too. I also don’t like how viable the autosniper can be for Ts on this map, but Workout gets points for style and color from me.

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