Players always dislike maps. Some want Cache back, and others dream about the permanent ban of Vertigo in their sleep. And then there are those who want to see the return of Tuscan. Is this the first time you’ve heard of this map? The history of its creation, the approval of the community, and the reasons why the map isn’t in CS:GO now — read about it in the new post of the CS.MONEY blog.
A bit of history
In the early 2000s, maps were a real disaster in CS:GO. Just remember some “hits” of those years — Assault, the first Dust, and other maps that never knew balance. There were good maps that were selected for the competition, but they were very few.
Cyberathlete Professional League was the first serious company to arrange CS tournaments. The cool things about the CPL included exclusive maps. The company attracted the best mapmakers, who created well-balanced and exciting maps.
Cpl_strike, cpl_fire, cpl_mill — these maps were the pinnacle of map design in those years. But they were only played at Cyberathlete Professional League competitions. Other tournament operators also wanted to play matches on those locations. That’s how the map de_tuscan emerged.
The birth of de_tuscan
Since only the CPL had the rights to the map, many companies began to look for ways to bypass the copyright to use it in their tournaments. In 2005, tournament operator CEVO ordered a modified version of cpl_mill from game designer Brute called de_tuscan. All textures were replaced and alternative ground paths to B Site were added instead of underground passages.
In 2006, the CPL started to lose its leadership in the market of eSports tournaments organization. In 2008, the company closed down, so there was no longer any competition between cpl_mill and de_tuscan, which certainly contributed to the popularity of the latter. The map began to pop up in many LAN tournaments, as CEVO didn’t forbid other operators to use it in their events.
Apart from tournaments, the map leaked into communities and became a favorite. A genuine, long-lasting tour de force!
Life of the map in Counter-Strike: Source
Despite the lesser success of CS:Source in eSports, it still had its pro teams and tournaments. That’s why in 2007, a new version of de_tuscan was released for the new installment of the shooter series. As far as design was concerned, the map was absolutely the same, but the differences in the physics engine caused players to come up with new grenade throws.
In other respects, it was the already familiar de_tuscan, which was still most enjoyable, even after almost ten years since cpl_mill had appeared.
CS:GO without Tuscan
Despite a literal decade of popularity and success, the map Tuscan didn’t make it into CS:GO. At the release, tournament operators used maps like Season or Cache. Things finally settled down after the first Major.
It was as if Valve said: there are five maps in the game and that’s it. These were Nuke, Dust II, Inferno, Train, and Mirage. As you can see, Tuscan didn’t get on that list. After DreamHack Winter 2013, the first Major, it became clear that CS:GO was without Tuscan.
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Several reasons contributed to this development. First, the map had a bad experience with the mechanics’ update. The emergence of incendiary grenades made the life of the defense on Tuscan miserable. It had to be refined. Second, Brute, the guy who worked on the map, said that he simply didn’t have time to “file” Tuscan.
First step to a comeback
Last September, things finally got moving. First, insider Nors3 shared info about the development. In December of the same year, Catfood published the first screenshot of the map, and in February, the map was shown in its entirety. By April, the page of a map appeared in the Steam Workshop, and an open beta test began.
Brute himself, who worked on the map earlier, noted:
When I approached catfood about updating the map, we had a very long discussion and tried out various improvements and changes that would allow Tuscan to fit into the CS:GO themed map pool. In this shooter, all maps have a distinctive style, and we wanted our location to stand out as well.
The pace of work on the map isn’t exactly record-breaking. Rather, it’s evocative of Slowpoke. On April 16, the map was added to the Workshop, and the last update was made on the 25th. At this rate, we shouldn’t expect Tuscan to appear in the upcoming Majors.
But to completely write off the emergence of the map in the official map pool wouldn’t be fair. There have long been rumors in the game’s community about replacing Mirage, née cpl_strike, as the map needs a visual update. It’s quite possible that Tuscan will be that very replacement, which will undoubtedly make all fans happy.
