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Valve is bringing Cache back to CS2, but Premier will have to wait

The April 29 update will restore the map to Casual, Deathmatch, Competitive, and Retakes, while the Premier pool stays untouched for now.

Angel Kicevski April 29, 2026

59 1 minute read

Valve will add Cache back to Counter-Strike 2 in the April 29 update, returning the classic map to Casual, Deathmatch, Competitive, and Retakes after years away from the regular rotation.

The map was originally created by Shawn “FMPONE” Snelling, and Valve said in its Steam announcement, “Welcome back, Cache,” with a reminder for players to clear Forklift before taking a fight. The return also marks a full overhaul from Valve after Cache left the pool in 2019 and later sat out the active map lineup for years.

A community remake of Cache had already shown up at ESL One New York 2019’s showmatch, but it never made its way into the Active Duty Map Pool. The map also ran into performance problems because of the thick foliage across the layout, which is part of why this new version looks much cleaner and far easier to read at a glance.

Valve bought the map outright from FMPONE in 2025, which set the stage for this rework. The April 29 update will still leave Cache out of Premier and the pro map pool for now, with that change expected after the IEM Cologne Major 2026.

Dust2, Office, and knife animations are also getting touched up

Cache is the headline, but it is not the only change arriving with the update. Dust2 will get the Xbox cover adjustment that briefly appeared earlier in March, giving players a new angle for A Short, and Valve said in the Steam update notes that the tweak was “on purpose this time.”

Office will also see a small collision fix around the tarps near CT spawn, while Stronghold and Poseidon will move to their latest Workshop versions. Valve is also updating some AnimGraph 2 knife animations for the Talon and Karambit, alongside a few other bug fixes across the game.

Cache’s return should give CS2 players plenty to test once the patch lands, especially if the classic routes and utility lineups come back the way long-time players remember them. Tell us what you think in the comments, and follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram.

Counter-Strike 2 is a free-to-play multiplayer tactical first-person shooter developed and published by Valve. Released in September 2023, it is the fifth main entry in the Counter-Strike series and serves as a direct replacement for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on Steam. Two teams, Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists, compete in objective-based rounds across modes such as bomb defusal and hostage rescue. Built on the Source 2 engine, the game introduced volumetric smoke physics, revised weapon handling, and a new sub-tick server architecture. It inherited all cosmetic items from its predecessor and features both a map-specific Competitive mode and a numerically ranked Premier mode.