I started playing Halo: The Master Chief Collection last night, which was basically a goddamn disaster given the problems 343 Industries are having with their servers at the moment, but I still managed to get a couple of games in. Of course, I played Slayer on Lockout. Goddamn that map is a masterpiece.
It got me wondering: what are some of your favourite multiplayer maps of all time?
(I’m sure we’ve done this topic before, but let’s do it again!)
When I think of multiplayer maps I always think of Halo. I think of Hang ‘Em High in the original Halo, Midship on Halo 2, The Pit in Halo 3. So many quality maps.I also think of Temple in Goldeneye, de_dust in Counter-Strike…
So many.
What are some of your favourites?
Comments
88 responses to “Tell Us Dammit: Best Multiplayer Maps”
Q3DM17…
That and Q3DM6 (Camping Grounds) , Q2DM3 (The Frag Pipe), and DM2 from the original Quake (Claustrophobopolis)
Love those maps.
The best map ever is a Quake map for sure, and probably a map from Quake III if you ask me.
The level design in Quake III is brilliant. Fast, flowing, well balanced and with a great use of verticality. Also completely sh*thouse to play without a mouse and keyboard!
I think the rise of console/ PC multiplatform FPS set the evolution of the map back about 10 years (and it’s only now that we’re seeing verticality all the rage again). The rise of the Counterstrike/ COD/ Battlefield (to a lesser extend) plodding military team shooter that needs to be playable with a controller really put a spanner in the works of any kind of creative design.
I think you have a point there. I had to stop playing Q3 because it angried up the blood too much, but nothing since has given me that urge to get back into competitive multiplayer shooters. I don’t want team work, I want pure twitch based action!
Well, Quake Live is on Steam…
Funnily enough, Q3 (Revolution?) on the PS2 is the only console FPS I’ve ever been any good at. Also, counter-strike is definitely best played with a keyboard and mouse, and if you don’t think there are any creative counter-strike maps you HAVE to check out the Steam Workshop. There are some fantastic maps out there
Q1dm4
OH hells yeah brother!!! haven’t done me a rocket jump in years 🙂
Beat me to it. THE best 1v1 deathmatch map ever created, and lots of fun with other numbers of players too.
Frigging rail guns. They light up the sky like fireworks in that place!
I was also partial to q3dm9. It had the potential for all sorts of crazy jump antics, including:
– clearing the gap in the main chamber with a strafe-run-jump, hitting somebody with a rail gun mid-jump as they land to pick up the rocket launcher
– running off the side of the booster near the rocket launcher, so that you can jump over to collect the quad damage before somebody who is already mid-drop towards it.
– trying to get the drop on someone with a rocket jump, hitting someone else coming off a booster, landing on the bounce pad as they land in the lava.
I had some epic 1-on-1s with a lab partner on this level.
ztn2dm3 for Quake II
tbh, all the ztndm maps were fantastic.. 3 struck a cord however.
I don’t remember the name of the map, but in the original Unreal, there was one in like a warehouse (?), where there was a perfect sniper spot to camp, where I would just take down low AI bots for hours and hours….
Haven’t played it, but dmbayc perhaps?
The Felicity – Perfect Dark
The block tower one- Mario Kart 64
(Yes, I haven’t really enjoyed multiplayer since the N64)
God I loved Perfect Dark.
The 360 version is really good.
just upped the graphics so they look good on LCD, kept all the bad acting & everything
Yeah, I replayed it a couple years ago. The death animations/voicework is so great. “Whyyyy me?! Ughhhh.”
“That wasn’t meant to happen!”
*gasses himself*
Perfect Dark nailed the balance between canned animation and reactive movement that made the deaths more satisfying than just about any other game I’ve played since.
The slow motion cheat in particular really brought it to the forefront.
Hit a guy in the neck with the Falcon and trigger the canned animation where he grasps at the side of his neck as he slowly goes down, then run in close triggering the gangster sideways pistol hold animation as you get within a few feet of your now defenceless victim.
Use the manual aim to target him right in the middle of the face. BAM! The bullet hits him in the face with that super-satisfying THUD, his face reddened with blood where the bullet hit as his head whips back independently of the ongoing death animation. BAM! THUD. BAM! THUD. BAM! THUD.
His face is now a red mask and his head whips back repeatedly as he hits the ground leaving a satisfying smear of blood on the wall behind him.
Ok I loved that way too much.
This. I re-purchased PD on the 360 and went back and 100%-ed it, including on all campaign and bonus missions and firing range. Things I was never able to do when I was younger with the N64.
same n64 was the era of multiplayer for me
My fav was Goldeneye – The Facility (I think)
Mario Kart 64 had a few good ones
The original Halo was pretty kick ass now I think about it. We used to get 4 Xboxes in one room running off 4 tvs … took awhile to setup but hours of fun were had
Felt sorry for the person on the small screen hahahah
Q2 – The Edge
THIS!! so much this!!! ^5!
Bootcamp – Half-Life
There’s a fantastic map still doing the rounds on Warcraft 3. I think it’s called Dota 6.82c these days.
Almost forgot – UT – Facing Worlds
Came on here to post the same thing. Was not disappointed at seeing it posted already. 🙂
Yep I’m in that same boat too, love that map
Yep just came on to mention Facing Worlds.
Add me to the chain of “came here to post that”!
When it comes to Halo, I’m going to have to say Blood Gulch and the updated versions of Blood Gulch they’ve had in the sequels.
For other games, I love the entire No Mercy campaign in Left 4 Dead.
Moo Moo Meadows.
Facility/Felicity, Complex, Temple. What more do you need?
I came here to say Complex!
Me toooo!
Even more Temple.
Hard Rain in Left 4 Dead, oh god yes.
That one was great. Loved the future of the rain even making it hard to hear people over voip
Goldeneye – Stack
Goldeneye – Complex
UT – Facing Worlds
UT – Lava Giant
Halo 1 – Blood Gulch
Halo 3 – Guardian
Halo 3 – High Ground
MW2 – Rust
MW2 – Favela
Black Ops – Nuketown
MW3 – Dome
Edit: how could I forget Goldeneye maps -_-
Stack on Golden Gun with one prick* being Oddjob. Those were the days.
I was the prick.Slappers!
I don’t know why but I always liked Powerhouse in Halo: Reach.
I have a soft spot for the Cemetery map in X-Com:EU.
Everybody is in cover, but the headstone crumble quicker than an assault only team armed with basic level shotguns.
Plus, you know, grappling a sniper with squadsight up to the top of the mausoleum.
2fort & Gold Rush from TF2.
It’s about the only multiplayer game I play
and Turbine
Wow, all those three are pretty much my least favorite TF2 maps. Interesting choices though, I guess they are heavily played for a reason. I tend to prefer the more ‘competitive’ (although I don’t play competitively) maps like cp_process and pl_upward. I did love 2fort for its sniper battles though when I first started playing though.
Halo 3 had some truly good maps; Guardian, The Pit, Valhalla.
Bf3 had some really well designed ones too like Noshahar Canals, Firestorm.
Can’t pick a singular favourite tho.
Halo 3 is my multiplayer obsession, despite it being supplanted by MW2 and Reach, so I will mostly wax on about a sampling of Halo 3 maps.
Halo 3
– The Pit: perfectly symmetrical, makes for fantastic team objective gametypes. Mastering chokepoints becomes critical in deathmatch. Underperforms a little in free for all but a solid performer that supports completely different playstyles depending on where you’re standing.
– Guardian: Asymmetry done right. Multiple routes, multiple levels, traversing this map itself is an art and really seperates the masters of the game from the dabblers.
– Last Resort: aka Zanzibar (Halo 2). I love to hate this map. I never really mastered it beyond learning to stay out of the way of snipers. Just enough open space for some hectic vehicle play.
– Rat’s Nest: Another symmetrical map, this was a big road circuit with intersecting paths through the central area. Great for objectives. A truly co-ordinated team is probably feared here more than anywhere else, including Valhalla.
– Valhalla: tied for first as my favourite Halo 3 map. People compare it to Blood Gulch/Coagulation but it’s really not the same beast at all. Vehicles are powerful but don’t dominate. The central hill is both a high ground and a slaughterhouse. No matter your playstyle, you can contribute to victory here.
– Standoff: My other number one favourite. It looks cluttered but there’s enough room for a couple of Wathogs to really mix it up, and that’s going to be the featured action most of the time as teams harry them from the sidelines in an endless struggle for the upper hand. I’d say this is Halo 3’s equivalent to Halo’s Beaver Creek in that it’s two opposing bases inexplicably placed about 30 feet apart with nothing but a couple of rocks defining the border (as opposed to Beaver Creek’s river). I’ve had some of my best games on this map.
There were plenty of other great maps (Sand Trap for one, which gave us the wonderful Elephant vehicle to play with) but the above are the ones that I’m most fodly reminiscient of.
Block Fort and Double Deck.
Icicle Pyramid.
Hyrule Castle, Sector Z, Saffron City.
Koopa Beach, Mario Circuit 2, Battle Course 2, Battle Course 4.
Sunset Beach, Port Blue, Southern Island.
Warehouse.
Hangar, School II, Marseille.
cs_office was my home in Counter Strike: Source
Best CS:S map for sure
Dust 2
Definitely my second favourite map.
Yes! And assault. Something about the while attacking/defending made that map a blast.
Hang ’em High in Halo and Lockout in Halo 2 are both great.
I was always a massive fan of Thunderdome and Wrath No More from Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity respectively. Was really happy when Thunderdome got remade in Halo though it never played as well. Also enjoyed playing Duality (remade in Halo 2 as Gemini). Some of Marathon’s fan-made expansions / total conversions had some maps that were excellent as well. I made a few myself, but they weren’t memorable or particularly good.
There were a few I enjoyed a lot in UT but I can’t remember their names, and I don’t think I’ve gotten into anything else heavily enough to remember names there either.
Dust
Dust 2
Blood Gulch/Coagulation
Hang ’em High
Battle Creek
Socom 2 maps – crossroads, fish hook etc
Warlords from Red Faction one on PS2, my god the hours I spend tunnelling from one side to the other. Those were the days. God I miss the days when I wouldn’t get clipped on a rail or backed into a corner that for some reason has obstructions all around it so that any sort of explosive almost guarantees a hit… furthermore I miss the days when explosives didn’t clear entire rooms.
Doom2 Level 7 – BFG Cone of Death
Inferno.
+1
Simple, but lots of tricks to it
Fond memories of Facing Worlds in UT.
Also, most of the maps in Timesplitters 1 and 2 were great from memory.
I’m not much of a fan of the Crucible, but Firebase Delphi does produce some fun firefights.
(Still nowhere near as much fun as some of the Goldeneye/Q3/UT maps, of course)
Yeah Firebase Delphi is a good time. As is Exodus Blue. The one I hate is Bastion on Mars. So annoying.
katabatic – tribes 2
As soon as I saw the article I knew I had to come in to say de_dust.
You had two major chokepoints, the main one being an indoor section. The idea was to surprise the opposing team by either pushing forward through the indoor section, take defensive positions in the indoor section and/or send one or two guys around the other chokepoint to try to flank the other side. It was so damn fun to constantly mix up between these strategies, eg. Hey, let’s ALL go the other chokepoint and overwhelm the one dude they probably left there.
DM2, DM4 & DM6 for 1v1
DM3 for 4v4
Nothing will ever beat original Quake 🙂
de_Dust 2 apparently
Not apparently no dust two all the way m8 also office
TF2
2 Fort – just brilliant – nothing better than setting up a sentry right outside the opposition’s fort – so much fun
Dust bowl – a match on Dustbowl ya always epic, my favourite being the final stage of the map – it is perfectly designed to get harder for the attackers at each stage
*nothing like setting up a lvl 3 sentry and dispencer on the bridge and listing to kids cry and report you for hacking XD
Both of those maps I’ve grown to hate because they are both (dust bowl first especially) so easy to spawn camp, basically with a half decent medic, demo and engie communicating on either of these maps and you can’t really be broken through. I’ll agree though that dust bowl last is a lot of fun.
Halo: Combat Evolved map Sidewinder. Played some insanely long and fun ctf lan matches on that puppy. Always wished for it to be remade but they never did.
Did you ever check out Avalanche from I think the third (and final) DLC? It was supposed to be a Sidewinder stand-in. It wasn’t the same, but it produced similar results.
Battlefield BC2
Arica Harbour (Conquest) just total chaos and destruction on an infantry scale
Splinter Cell Blacklist
Virus Vault. – 3 very distinct areas that you can exploit on either side – the helipad in the snow is the best cat and mouse area in the game
Black Ops II
nuke town 2020 – a complete cluster**** beautiful frenzied map
Cs_italy
ctf_2fort
plr_bad_water
cp_steel
Cornaria off star fox assault.
And many many more.
Whoa, somebody played Assault!
And in multiplayer too!
Me and my bro grew up on it. Must of had at least 1000 hours.
that game got me on to CS and that got me onto shooters.
We even had our own rule sets. Cardboard box splitting the screen and no charge shot or remote missiles. The amount of times it turned into a physical fight due to rule breaking XD
Man, you’re a rarity 😛
Me, I grew up more on Lylat Wars, and went through the whole outrage phase that came with Assault not living up to expectations or whatever. But then I got it for cheap and… it really wasn’t that bad at all. And I definitely saw loads of potential in the multiplayer, I remember thinking it felt like a more viable contender to Halo than Metroid Prime ever could be (as it was constantly being labeled at the time). Still needed a bit of polish though. Also can’t forgive their turning the Landmaster into a quad bike.
Me and my brother got it for 100$ back in the day.
My only gripe is that enemys are highlighted :/
Dust 2 and 2fort mabie metro 2(bf4) its raining 2s 222 three twos half life 3 confirmed
BC2: Panama Canal
Final Destination from the Super Smash Bros. series.
I found Battlefield and Smashville to be more enjoyable.
Facing Worlds.
Aztec and Vertigo.
Also have a soft spot for TF2’s arena maps, namely Lumberyard and Watchtower, just love those maps.
HM to Blood Gulch though.
Unreal Tournament – Two Towers
Probably going to cop some flack for this.
But i really enjoyed Favellain MW2 ? or 1 ? can’t remember but we used to play it at my place with 3 of my brothers lots of fun!