Now that CS:GO has a battle-royale mode with
its own HUGE map, it’s time to investigate
just how big it is compared with other maps
from CS:GO and from other games.
The island is roughly 400 metres across and
400 metres… this way. It took me just over
a minute to run across it.
Even if you were to go diagonally, which is
the furthest you can possibly travel in a
straight line, it’s still under 600 metres
in distance, taking me… 85 seconds to complete!
You won’t need vehicles to traverse this
map, and given how cluttered it is, you probably
wouldn’t want to use them, either.
But we would still like func_vehicle support,
Valve.
Here is how other maps in the game compare.
The smallest was Agency with a playable area
of just 75 by 104 metres.
Canals wasn’t much bigger at 88 by 94 metres.
I know, I can’t believe it either since
it struck me as a big, open map. Well I guess
from this spot at CT spawn you can pretty
much see across the entire map in 2 directions.
Let’s put these maps into perspective. What
we’re saying is that a HUGE part of the
map, Canals, is no bigger than the radio courtyard
in the centre of Blacksite. The one that’s
got a building taking up a quarter of it that
doesn’t even feel that big. This didn’t
seem right to me.
So I ran, side-by-side to see how they compared.
How about that.
This same courtyard on Blacksite is as long
as the distance from the car at Dust 2’s
bombsite A to the entrance to bombsite B.
From this van on Mirage, through to this bit
here near T spawn.
And about the length from here on Train, through
to the far, far side of the map.
Here is how Blacksite compares to Austria,
Biome, Cache, Inferno, Office and Overpass.
I think you’ll agree,
I have no life.
But which is the largest normal map?
First, a disclaimer: to find the largest maps,
I am only measuring their width and… that
other distance. And then multiplying them
together. This is a very primitive method
that massively overestimates how much playable
space the map actually has. For example, a
huge open arena would be calculated to have
the same area as this one that’s just 2
long corridors, even though the arena one
is obviously the ‘bigger’ map. I’m aware
of this limitation. But, since these map overviews
are to scale, you can use your EYES to roughly
calculate playable area if you really care
about such a thing.
According to my primitive measurements,
Cbble is the 3rd biggest. It’s an absolute
unit of a map, even after a quarter of it
was lopped off in the Halloween update. If
you want your playable-surface-area winner
then pre-halloween Cbble is a good choice.
But an even bigger version was around back
with the map’s release in 2013! If you ever
wondered why the radar image for this map
isn’t centralised, that’s because it USED
to be until they removed a load of areas from
it, like this bit from the back of B. I still
think of 2013 as relatively recent history
but the radar for the map at this time has
almost been lost from the face of the Earth!
It’s a good thing I did a video about it
at the time.
I’m on a roll now. Go back even further
and you’ll find that Cbble has always been
too big! I believe its original maker, Dave
Johnston, made it back in the year 2000 in
about 8 hours and didn’t even check the
scale until he had finished. But that was
acceptable back then. Even its predecessor,
cs_cstle… was too big.
Any way, why am I talking about this. Back
to the present and onto the second largest
current map.
Which is Nuke, thanks to its ridiculous length!
As you can see, a lot of this space can’t
be accessed, but then the map does have multiple
levels to it. I think it’s a worthy pick
as a ‘big’ map.
And I know what you’re thinking- why are
there these pointless bits at either end of
the map? Once again it’s a relic of a time
long gone, because people used to spawn here,
but Valve finally saw sense and moved the
spawns closer since we were wasting 5 seconds
of our life every round running and being
blocked down the same bit of path.
So perhaps these bits shouldn’t count as
the map any more. Maybe the only reason they’re
still there is because Nuke is vain and wants
to win an award for being the largest map!
It’s not like it will win any other awards.
AND YET IT FAILS EVEN THIS! Because the largest
is… subzero! I’ve kind of botched the
map image here, since the original cuts either
side off. You can see this when playing on
the map around Terrorist spawn in particular.
But even Subzero is still under 9% the surface
area of Blacksite’s island.
There have got to be larger maps to compare
it to! And there are. There was a map that
was around for a few operations called Insertion.
You’d choose a starting point and then would
have a huge, open world to explore with the
aim of rescuing the hostages. This map was
9700 by 8000 units in size. That’s 29% of
the surface area of blacksite.
But there is a CS:GO map that’s even bigger!
This map is from Kinsi’s Battle Royale gamemode,
released a year ago. The area you can see
here is the largest size possible in the editor-
nearly 4 times the area of Blacksite’s.
But that’s not all! Head into these clouds
and you pop into ANOTHER zone, that’s also
the largest size possible.
In total, there are 4 of these zones, cleverly
stacked on top of each other in the editor
and linked with TELEPORTS to create a map
that’s bigger than should be possible.
And it works, too. Weapons were modded for
longer ranges and to feature bullet-drop.
The experience was closer to that of PUBG
than it was to CS:GO. I covered it in a video
a while ago.
This is how Blacksite compares to Kinsi’s
4-part Battle Royale map for his Go4thekill
gamemode.
Before we move to other games, let’s see
which map is the most ‘detailed’.
I counted the props in the map. ‘Props’
are kind of what you’d expect. A TV would
be a prop. So would a tree. These rocks here
are a prop. So how many are there in Blacksite?
9,200. This has got to be far more than a
normal Counter-Strike map, surely! And it
is more than most. But Inferno still has 6,400,
which is impressive for a map that’s so
much smaller. But the most is in Biome, with
9,700. More than on the whole of Blacksite
island. I counted them myself.
Displacements are bumpy bits of floor. You
piece lots of these together like a patchwork
quilt to create an island… so you’d expect
Blacksite to beat the other maps for this,
hands down. And it does have 4,500 of these!
…and yet is beaten by Dust2 with its 6,940
displacements. Because in that map, almost
everything is made of them, even walls. Which
is cheating if you ask me.
In total though, Blacksite is the most complex
map with almost 23,000… things in total.
That’s counting everything, from lights
to sound cues to birds flying in the sky.
Biome is second most complicated with 18,800
and Inferno is third with 15,000 things in
total.
BEYOND COUNTER STRIKE
Now for the next step: How large is Dust2,
Blacksite and Kinsi’s Battle-Royale map
compared to other games?
Urgh. I can’t accurately measure this since
I don’t have the same experience with these
games, so I’ve had to rely on what the internet
seems to think. While doing this, I got a
bit concerned. Although only comparing map-sizes,
I began to worry that I might still manage
to offend fans of these games. This is NOT
my intention. I am doing this out of curiosity
and have the utmost respect for these games
and their playerbases. So if you feel offended
by what I say about these games, then I apologise
in advance, I try my best to get accurate
measurements and the last thing I want to
do is to upset anybody.
Fortnite, a TERRIBLE Battle-Royale game, appears
to have a map that’s 2.5 x 2.5 Km, meaning
that Counter-Strike’s maps look like THIS
in comparison. Dust2 is barely visible- unless
you have 4K!, Blacksite is but a tiny blob,
and only Kinsi’s map comes anywhere close
to the size of Fortnite’s map.
Moving onto Blackops 4, the game that dropped
the only bit of Call of Duty worth playing
by going fully multiplayer, now has its own
battle royale map. The dimensions for this
abomination were harder to get. It’s apparently
1,500 times the size of Nuketown… which
Drift0r calculated to be between 4.5 and 7.4
Km². I went for somewhere in the middle of
these 2, making it just a little bit smaller
than Fortnite.
Which means Fortnite’s is better.
PUB:G next! They may not have a clue about
game design, but they’re GREAT at showcasing
their maps over on their website. I got the
sizes of all 3 maps from here. But also the
% of each map that’s land, as opposed to
water- which is great! I haven’t been doing
this with the maps I’ve covered up ‘til
now. And won’t be starting now.
Sanhok is the smallest of these and is 4x4
km. I considered this to be a small map, but
it’s MUCH bigger than Fortnite’s and Block
Ap’s. And far, FAR bigger than anything
Counter-Strike has.
But even this is tiny compared to PUBG’s
other 2 maps, which are a stonking 8x8 Km
in size.
But wait? What about Skyrim? Well, turns out
it’s only 7 x 5.5 Km in size, making it
smaller than PUBG’s maps! PUB:G better than
Skyrim, confirmed.
Finding GTA 5’s map size was HARD. I even
had to click to the second page of a Google
search! I thought it would be easy to find
measurments for such a popular game, but the
internet has people confidently claiming anywhere
between 50 and 250 Km². Does nobody bother
doing the work themselves any more?! I couldn’t
be bothered, but couldn’t settle on a ‘square’
size when clearly the map isn’t square,
so settled for 9 by 14 Km which makes it the
best map yet.
Before we lose track of the CS:GO maps entirely,
let’s zoom in to see what’s left of them.
They really do look tiny compared to the other
games and their giant maps, don’t they.
But don’t worry CS:GO, I still love you.
BUT LET’S GO BIGGER STILL!
Arma 2 is 225 Km². Does that mean it’s
15x15, or that the LAND is 225, and the water
is extra? I erred on the side of caution and
opted for the 15x15, making it only twice
the size of GTA 5’s.
Assuming that Arma 2 was only 15 x 15 Km also
makes this last map more dramatic. I have
Arma 3 installed and it has a handy Km-sized
grid which leads me to believe that the LAND
is 270 Km², but the area it covers is actually
26 x 21… making it dwarf the others! Bye
bye, CS:GO maps.
That’s a big island. A big, big island.
I should know, I’ve run across it.
And here’s the Earth.
Water included, this is an area of 510 million
Km², which is big enough for 930 thousand
Arma 3’s, 82 million Fortnites, 3 billion
Blacksites, or 47 billion Dust2’s… which,
for fans of CS:GO, might finally be enough.
I’m hoping to make another video talking
about all the cool stuff I’ve discovered
about the Blacksite map. But until that appears,
check out this video where 2kliksphilip finds
out what the SECOND tallest mountain in Skyrim
is.
