Dust II, the successor to Dust, has been one of the most widely played maps by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players since the release of the game in 2004. With a simple map layout, easy callouts, and quick queue times due to the number of players that have it selected to play, Dust II is the map that every CS:GO player knows well. Sadly, the all-too-popular map has now bitten the Dust, as it has been removed from the game.

This morning, in a small update released via the Steam platform, Valve removed the popular map from both casual and competitive rotations. While this lack of communication with the playerbase before an update has been common for the game's developer, Valve had promised more communication after a previous update completely changed the spray patterns for certain guns. While players can still play Dust II on private servers, official Steam servers will not allow it to be queued for anymore.

We reached out to Valve for comment, and received the following reply:

We decided to remove the map for many of the same reasons that we made the modifications to rifle spray patterns - people were just playing the map too much. Dust II is an over-played map in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and we felt that in order to move this game forward, we needed to shake things up. So, we felt players should switch it up and go play Cobble or Vertigo, and try something new. With the removal of Dust II from the game, we'd also like to announce that we currently have no plans for Dust III.

A brief look at the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive hub on Reddit shows that most users are not happy, either. One user, going by the name of "GR8R8M8" commented on the patch notes saying: "here's volvo yet again IGNORING the community and changing something that we liked. Dust II was ez wins, ez skins. Fix it!" Another user, going by the name of "DennyS" had a more favorable response, saying: "Thank GabeN! now all you noobs can play a map that isnt Dust II, and I don't have to wait 6 freaking minutes just to queue for Cobble anymore."

Dust II has been a highly favored map since Counter-Strike: Global Offensive launched, and the outrage from the community is definitely to be expected. We've seen Valve do a full 180 shortly after a major change like this before, so the question is whether or not they'll reverse their decision to remove Dust II from the rotation of maps available to players.

What do you think of this change? Do you actually play maps other than Dust II?