If you’re an avid Counter-Strike player – or a casual one, for that matter – it’s highly likely that you have heard of Dust II, one of the most iconic maps in the shooter. Just recently, Valve announced that the very popular map will no longer see competitive play, marking the end of an era.

Replacing Dust II in competitive play is none other than Inferno, which has been reworked not too long ago. Valve’s decision to take out Dust II in favour of Inferno for tournaments came right after the ELEAGUE Major, and considering the fact that Dust II was developed 16 years ago, it may have been time for the map to be retired.

Despite being removed from the competitive map pool (and out of the Active Duty group), Dust II is still playable in Competitive mode on CSGO, much like other classic maps such as the original Dust and Assault maps. It’s also worth noting that the waiting time for Dust II is still the shortest for our region – even among competitive maps. As a sort of testament to the iconic status of Dust II, players can now choose to play only that map in Casual and Deathmatch modes too.

While the fact that Dust II is no longer a competitive map may be disheartening news to some players, it may just encourage them – myself included – to start learning other maps in Competitive matchmaking.

(Source: Counter-Strike Blog via Kotaku)