The most hated map title is Vertigo’s. Casual players, professionals, commentators and analysts often criticize Vertigo. They are calling for it to be replaced with something else, or better yet, removed from Counter-Strike 2 entirely. But why? The CS.MONEY blog explores the reasons behind this snub.

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Vertigo Replaced Cache

Vertigo is one of the oldest maps in the CS series, dating back to the earliest versions of the game. However, in the CS 1.6 era it was less popular and certainly not played in big tournaments. This remained the case for a long time—until 2019. That year, Valve removed Cache from its active duty map pool and added Vertigo, making it a regular feature in Major tournaments.

The problem lies in the replacement itself:

• The cache is a bit stale but still actively played. It’s the top choice in tournaments, and finding a match in the Cache in matchmaking is never a problem.
• The version of Vertigo added to the map pool isn’t quite as good.

This scenario immediately sparked a backlash against the new map—it replaced a balanced and familiar, if overused, map with something half-baked.

Failed Gimmick

Vertigo has a unique feature: you can fall off the map. Of course, you can take fall damage on any map in the pool, but Vertigo is the only map where you can easily and quickly fall to your death. While this gimmick may sound fun, in practice, it’s bad.

Yes, it’s cool to “boost” teammates across the map, but when the trick fails, the consequence isn’t just damage or loss of your position—it’s also losing teammates entirely. The imbalance between risk and reward undermines the unique nature of the map. Another attack on Vertigo.

Verti-GO A

In CS2 maps, certain key areas become focal points of debate. The battle for these spots was fierce, and the outcome often determined the final outcome. For example A long in Dust 2 or banana in Inferno. If the attacker dominates the banana early with minimal losses, the defender often has no choice but to make the save.

But in Vertigo, the problem is that the main battleground is the A site. Most of the round revolves around pushing the lane and fighting the defenders at this one point. Round after round. After the round. After a round… This makes watching pro matches in Vertigo quickly become uninteresting, and if you’re playing the map you’ll tire more quickly.

Too Much Change In Too Little Time

In the Counter-Strike series, updates are rare. The last major was played on Dust 2, a map older than half of the tournament participants. And everyone is fine with this stagnation, especially if it is occasionally spiced up with small changes: a bench in Mirage, a few chests in Dust 2, and slightly wider corridors in Nuke. This slow but sure adjustment keeps people satisfied.

With Vertigo, the story is very different. While maps like Mirage or Dust 2 are polished with fine brush strokes, Vertigo is painted with the brushes used by ravers. In less than five years, the map underwent four significant overhauls. By CS2 standards, this is a very rapid and frequent rate of change. The meta in Vertigo barely had time to settle before it had to be rebuilt from scratch.
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Too Much Verticality

The final reason to hate Vertigo is its layout. CS2 struggles with multi-level maps. Because of its two-story design, Vertigo feels like two maps crammed into one—and neither one is any good. A similar situation occurs in Nuke, but this is offset by large outdoor areas, and rotation between locations takes just five seconds.

In Vertigo, the two-story structure makes it difficult for attackers to take out the site. They should check not only left and right but also up and down. The defenders also had difficulties, because there were no comfortable positions to hold. And we’re not the only ones saying it—it’s straight from FaZe Clan star Robin “ropz” Kool.

Vertigo is like a bull in a china shop. It rambles through the map pool, undergoes constant changes, and fails to bring anything new or interesting. Now, after five years of hate, the community can only hope that by 2025, Valve will finally remove this map from the competitive scene.