The use of water in CS:GO could really be something interesting. However, the developers never wanted to take advantage of these opportunities.
On community maps, you can sometimes find bodies of water in which you can actually drown. A character in CS:GO needs to be roughly 32 seconds underwater to actually drown. The swimming animations, however, make it quite entertaining.
The depth of water in which a character is able to drown is evenly 47 units. The official maps have 20-23 units each. This makes it so that you are not really able to drown. And what would it look like if there was such a possibility?
Drowning in CS:GO
Valve hasn’t created a swimming animation, so it looks pretty funny. Under water, you can walk normally until you receive enough damage. Then the body floats to the surface.
The moment of drowning itself is as follows:
The Youtuber who showed the footage, namely 3kliksphilip, as well as other players, commented that it would be safe to use the swimming mechanics in a way that Fortnite did, for example. There, swimming became one of the ways to surprise the opponent and opened up new possibilities for movement and combat.