Valve patches CS2, Cache FACEIT row
- Valve added Cache back to Counter-Strike 2 in an April 28 update, putting the map into Competitive, Casual, Deathmatch and Retakes after years away. - The dispute started a week earlier, when FACEIT made Cache its eighth Elo map on April 22 and creator FMPONE called that build unfinished. - The clash put map vetting and competitive integrity on FACEIT’s Season 8 launch agenda. (faceit.com)
Valve put Cache back into Counter-Strike 2 on April 28, restoring one of the game’s best-known maps to official matchmaking. (counter-strike.net) The patch added Cache to Competitive, Casual, Deathmatch and Retakes. The same update also changed Dust II, Office, two Workshop maps, and several animation and crash bugs. (counter-strike.net) That official release landed six days after FACEIT brought Cache into Season 8 as its eighth matchmaking map on April 22. FACEIT said Cache uses standard competitive rules, awards Elo, and can be disabled without Premium. (faceit.com 1) (faceit.com 2) The row started because the FACEIT version was not universally treated as competition-ready. In comments reported last week, Cache creator Shawn “FMPONE” Snelling said that build was “quite literally unfinished” and that he would have preferred it not be used yet. (community.skin.club) FACEIT had framed the map vote as a test of adding non-Active Duty maps without changing its normal queue rules. Its support page said the platform would monitor feedback and could deactivate the map on short notice if gameplay bugs, performance problems, or critical frame-rate issues appeared. (faceit.com) The demand was easy to measure. FACEIT said Cache joined after a community vote, and outside reporting on launch day said the platform was hit with 360,000 requests per minute as Season 8 opened. (faceit.com) (dust2.us) FACEIT’s own FAQ said the three finalists were Cache, Train and Vertigo, chosen from nominations by the top 1,000 Elo players. The company also said it only considered maps with an official Counter-Strike 2 version from their original creators. (faceit.com) Cache has been out of Valve’s official competitive pool since March 2019, when it was replaced by Vertigo. That long gap helped turn its return into two separate events: a player-driven FACEIT comeback on April 22 and Valve’s own release on April 28. (dexerto.com) (counter-strike.net) The immediate fight was not over whether players wanted Cache back. It was over who gets to decide when a map is finished enough for ranked play. (community.skin.club) (faceit.com)
