CS2 Ancient Callouts: Every Name on de_ancient

Ancient labels its own bombsites. There is a sign bolted to the wall at each one: PLAZA A on an amber plate, PLAZA B on a pale blue plate, colour-matched to the tarps and paint around them. The Counter-Strike Wiki records the same thing in prose — each bombsite is called a plaza in the signage, A themed orange and B themed pale blue.

That is where the map stops helping you. Every other name on de_ancient — Donut, Jaguar, Cave, Triple, Sniper's Nest — you learn from other players, and the most complete public reference I found for them has problems. The Counter-Strike Wiki's interactive callout data places 30 markers on the map, two of them carrying an A-site label at coordinates that sit next to bombsite B, and the page's update list is at least 13 Counter-Strike 2 patches behind Valve's own release notes.

So here is the whole vocabulary, area by area, with the coordinates it was plotted at and the patch-note paper trail for the names Valve has actually written down.

Ancient in 30 seconds

Per the Counter-Strike Wiki, Ancient shipped on December 3, 2020 with Operation Broken Fang, and the May 3, 2021 update moved it into the Active Duty map group, replacing Train. It was the third original Valve-created map for CS:GO, after Overpass in 2013 and Canals in 2017.

In Counter-Strike 2 it has never left. As our CS2 Active Duty map pool history sets out, Valve's release notes contain no entry removing Ancient from Active Duty since the game launched on September 27, 2023, and it is in the pool today — 1,071 days after launch.

Two structural facts matter for callouts:

• The map is a four-leaf clover, not a puzzle box. The wiki compares its layout to Mirage and Dust II, and contrasts it with Vertigo. Two sites, one mid, no stacked floors — which is why Ancient needs nothing like the split-level vocabulary in our CS2 Nuke callouts guide.
• The bombsites are colour-coded in-world. A is amber-orange with tarps, paint and signs; B is pale blue. If you are new and cannot remember which plaza you are standing in, look at the sign.

Thirty markers on the callout map

The wiki's Map:Ancient data plots 30 markers on a 1024x1024 radar with the origin at the bottom-left. They break down as:

Twenty-six of those are callout names rather than sites or spawns, and they carry 25 distinct labels — because Default is plotted twice, once inside each bombsite. It is the only name on the map that appears in two places, and the ambiguity is real: "he is on Default" means nothing without a site attached to it.

Orientation, so the tables below read cleanly: on the radar, bombsite A is upper-left, bombsite B is on the right, CT spawn is top-centre and T spawn is bottom-centre. Splitting the 30 markers by their x-coordinate (cutting at x = 420 and x = 600) gives 11 on the A side, 6 in the middle band including both spawns, and 13 on the B side. More of Ancient's vocabulary lives around B than around A.

The A side

Eleven markers, of which five are inner-site names — the densest cluster of plant-spot vocabulary on the map. Positions are from the wiki's own marker coordinates.

Two of those names have real definitions on the wiki rather than just a pin, and a third is a probable match:

• A Main is the entrance leading directly from T spawn. The wiki describes it as split between two corridors, funnelling to the left of the bombsite.
• Donut is the room the mid corridor feeds through on its way onto A. Valve's release notes call it that too — twice, once in CS:GO and once in CS2.
• A Plat is a pin with no written definition. The page's prose does list a plateau opposite A Main among the CT holding positions — alongside the boost by A Main, Donut, Temple and the boxes on the site — but nothing on the page connects that phrase to the A Plat marker.

The two boost names on the A side — Flowers / Tree Boost and the planter by A Main — are the ones most likely to have moved under you. Valve has patched that ground three times in the release notes: the CS:GO May 13, 2021 update sparsed the foliage and improved clipping on the "boost planter near A main"; the CS2 November 30, 2023 update adjusted "clipping around tree base on A-site boost"; and the November 6, 2024 update removed a tree at A site outright, describing it as "creating a distracting shadow." Any A-side boost lineup recorded before November 2024 is worth re-checking in a practice server.

Middle and the mid connectors

Six markers, and two of them are spawns. Mid is the thinnest part of Ancient's vocabulary, which is why the connectors carry the weight.

Cubby is a Valve word in CS:GO's notes, not just a community one. The May 13, 2021 update reads "Implemented Cubby 2.0 in mid connector to A, to remove cheap shoulder angle towards site," and the December 16, 2022 update "Flattened out cubbies in red house top of mid." The same December 2022 patch pushed CT spawn back 256 units, delaying CTs by roughly a second, and increased the bomb radius on Ancient to 650 from 500.

The B side

Thirteen markers — the biggest cluster on the map, and the one where the wiki's labels get shaky.

The wiki's own description of B gives you the routes those names hang off: Terrorists have two entrances, one through B ramp and one through a corridor on the mid side, while Counter-Terrorists have two retake pathways that approach the site to the left and the right of the pillar and double as defensive positions.

The names Valve itself uses

When the wiki and the community disagree, the tiebreaker is what Valve writes in its own release notes. These are the Ancient location names I found in Counter-Strike 2 release notes and their CS:GO predecessors, with the update each one came from:

Nine of those eleven have a matching marker on the wiki's callout data. "T side of B" is a description rather than a callout name, and house has no marker at all. Valve has used that one three times — "red house top of mid" in the December 16, 2022 CS:GO notes, the stuck spots "in house" on November 6, 2024, and the quoted "house" near CT spawn on August 18, 2025 — while the wiki's callout data has no marker by that name. That is the same gap we found on Cache, where Valve's notes used Outside A and the wiki radar had never heard of it; the CS2 Cache callouts guide has that case.

Where the wiki argues with itself

Four places where the Counter-Strike Wiki's Ancient data contradicts the Counter-Strike Wiki's Ancient data. None of these are fatal — the page is still the most complete single reference I found for this map — but each one will bite a guide that copies it uncritically.

1. Two A-site labels plotted at B. The markers titled A Short / Left Square and A Long / Right Square sit at coordinates 724, 695 and 843, 695. Bombsite B is at 792, 602 and bombsite A is at 306, 756. Both markers are therefore roughly 110 units from B and more than 400 from A, in the strip between B and CT spawn — exactly where the page's own prose puts the two Counter-Terrorist retake pathways that pass "to the left and the right of the pillar." The Left Square and Right Square halves of those labels agree with the coordinates. The A Short and A Long halves do not.

2. Cheetah and Vent exist in the prose and nowhere on the map. The page's Bombsite B section routes the second Terrorist entrance through "Cheetah," which leads to "Vent" and then onto the site. Neither name has a marker. The marker on that side of B is Jaguar — which is also the name Valve used in its November 30, 2023 release note. Say Jaguar.

3. The plateau has two different opening dates on one page. The prose says the plateau opposite A Main "was opened up on the May 27, 2021 update." The page's own update list puts "Opened up ledge in A site" under May 3, 2021, and its May 27, 2021 entry is an art revision of bombsite B and its surroundings. One of the two is wrong, and the update list is the one quoting Valve.

4. Default is plotted twice. Once at A, once at B, as noted above. Attach a site to it every time.

Thirteen updates the wiki did not record

The wiki's Ancient update list runs from August 2023 to February 8, 2024, then jumps straight to May 28, 2026. That is a gap of 840 days, and Valve's release notes carried an Ancient section thirteen times inside it:

Thirteen is the count of updates that gave Ancient its own map section. Three more inside the same window named Ancient outside one, and the wiki records none of those either: February 25, 2026 ("Map guides for de_ancient can now be used on de_ancient_night and vice versa"), April 1, 2026 ("Various map audio adjustments in Baggage, Shoots, Ancient, Nuke, and Vertigo") and May 7, 2026, the map-guide load fix quoted below.

Two practical consequences. First, anything about wallbangs, boosts or grenade lineups on Ancient that predates November 2024 needs re-testing, because twelve of those thirteen entries touch collision, clipping, geometry or a wallbang surface — every one except the August 14, 2025 materials-and-lighting pass. Second, the map has been quiet since: no Counter-Strike 2 release note has carried an Ancient entry since May 28, 2026, which is 97 days as of publication.

The lag shows up in the categories, too. The wiki's infobox files Ancient under Defusal Group Sigma; the most recent group listing Valve has published, in the May 7, 2025 update, puts it in Defusal Group Delta, alongside Train, Anubis, Overpass and Nuke.

Night Ancient does not change the words

On August 14, 2025, Valve added nighttime versions of Ancient and Shoots, refreshed Ancient's materials to the latest CS2 shaders and added new blending options including wetness and moss. The announcement is specific about where you will meet it: "The nighttime version of Ancient is only available in Casual and Deathmatch."

Two follow-ups confirm it stayed a separate build rather than a replacement. The August 26, 2025 update fixed "a bug where matchmaking was avoiding servers playing the nighttime version of Ancient," and the May 7, 2026 update fixed "a case where map guides for Ancient wouldn't load in the nighttime version."

So the Ancient you get in Premier and Competitive is the daytime one, and the release notes for that August 2025 pass describe material and lighting work rather than layout changes. Valve treats the two builds as interchangeable for navigation: the February 25, 2026 update made map guides for de_ancient usable on de_ancient_night "and vice versa," which is the clearest public statement that the vocabulary carries across. What changes is your read on distance and contrast, not the name of the room.

How to call it on Ancient

Four habits that follow directly from the data above rather than from taste:

• Name the plaza, then the spot. Default, Dark, Triple and Box are useless on their own; Default exists at both sites and Ancient gives you a signposted A or B to prefix it with.
• Name the B entrance you came through. B Ramp, Jaguar side and B Doors are three different arrivals with three different rotations behind them.
• Use Jaguar, not Cheetah. Valve wrote Jaguar into a release note; Cheetah appears only in one paragraph of wiki prose with no marker attached.
• Agree on Left Square and Right Square before the match. The Counter-Strike Wiki's callout map ships those two positions with an A-site prefix at B-site coordinates, and a name that points at the wrong site is worse than no name at all.

The rest of the pool is covered in the CS2 Dust 2 callouts guide, the CS2 Mirage callouts guide and the CS2 Inferno callouts guide. Everything else lives on the Counter-Strike 2 coverage hub, and the wider archive is on the Mythras blog.

What I could not verify

• Whether A Short and A Long are current names for any position on Ancient. The coordinates say those two markers are at B; I found no primary source naming them at A either.
• Whether Cheetah and Jaguar are two names for the same corridor. Their descriptions are compatible; nothing I could open says so outright.
• Whether the "red house" of December 2022 and the "house" of August 2025 are the same structure. Both are Valve's words, and both sit on the CT half, but no note connects them.
• Whether Ancient's 650-unit bomb radius, set in the December 16, 2022 CS:GO update, still applies in Counter-Strike 2. No CS2 release note revisits it.
• Whether A Plat is the plateau opposite A Main that the wiki's prose describes. The marker is the leftmost on the map and the identification is the obvious one, but the page never states it.
• The four wiki captures of bombsite A, bombsite B, Middle and Sniper's Nest used above were uploaded between May 2021 and December 2022, before the August 14, 2025 material refresh. The signage and geometry they show are what the callouts are named after; the lighting and materials are dated. The overview shot at the top of this post is a later capture, uploaded August 15, 2025.
• Whether the nighttime version is still Casual and Deathmatch only. That was Valve's wording in August 2025 and no later note changes it, but I could not confirm it in-client.

Quick Action Checklist

• Ancient signposts its bombsites: PLAZA A in amber, PLAZA B in pale blue. Use the signs when you are lost.
• The wiki's callout map holds 30 markers — 2 bombsites, 2 spawns, 19 area callouts and 7 inner-site names — carrying 25 distinct labels.
• Default appears at both bombsites. Always prefix it with A or B.
• Eleven Ancient location names appear in Valve's own release notes; one of them, "house", has no marker on the wiki callout map.
• Treat "A Short / Left Square" and "A Long / Right Square" as B-side positions — that is where their coordinates are.
• Say Jaguar, not Cheetah. Valve uses Jaguar.
• Re-test any Ancient boost, wallbang or grenade lineup recorded before November 2024.
• Nothing has changed on Ancient since May 28, 2026 — 97 days of stability as of publication.
• The nighttime version is a Casual and Deathmatch build; Premier and Competitive Ancient is the daytime map, and Valve made de_ancient map guides usable on de_ancient_night in February 2026.