The main winter maps in Counter-Strike are Office and Militia (hostage maps), the operation maps Rails and Royal, plus Subzero and Frostbite from the Workshop. Only Office made it to CS2 officially; the rest belong to the CS:GO era and now survive at most as community versions. Snowy maps are rare for technical reasons too: snow put extra load on the graphics card, which mattered in the early years of CS:GO, and player models read differently against a white background, which affects gameplay.
Hostage Maps
The best-known winter map is Office. It was carried over to CS2 and is still popular in casual modes, even though it is more than twenty years old: it first appeared in the beta of the original Counter-Strike. Most of the action takes place inside an office building where players rescue hostages, but you can also see a small part of a snow-covered city. Many consider the map unbalanced, since its many narrow corridors favor the terrorists. People keep playing it anyway.
Another popular hostage map is Militia. The action takes place in a mountain village. Interestingly, it did not start out as a winter map: after it left competitive play, a patch replaced the summer setting with a snowy landscape, Christmas lights and other decorations. In CS:GO it remained only in Casual mode, and it was not carried over to CS2.
Winter maps from operations
A couple more winter maps were available only for a limited time. Operation Bloodhound added Rails, but it was removed after the event and can no longer be played on official servers. Royal from Operation Wildfire shared the same fate. Most likely neither was popular enough with players, so the developers chose not to keep supporting them.
Winter maps from the Workshop
Versions of maps that left the official pool can be found in the Steam Workshop, along with many other snowy maps. Keep in mind that CS2 only runs maps their authors have ported to the new engine; old CS:GO versions will not load. How to launch such a map together with your friends is explained in how to launch a map with friends in CS2. One of the most polished winter maps is Subzero by FMPONE. In October 2018 it even made it into matchmaking, but it did not stay long and was eventually removed. It is a pity the author stopped working on it and moved on to other projects.
Fans of Danger Zone, a CS:GO mode that did not make it to CS2, will remember Frostbite, a map built by several community members. Its open snowy spaces, where it was hard to hide from enemies, added extra tension.
If you are after maps for practice rather than atmosphere, check out the best aim maps in CS2 and the best prefire training maps.
