Counter-Strike

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I’ve worked on four official Counter-Strike levels, across Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Counter-Strike 2, that have been available to tens of millions of monthly active players.

Quick primer if you don’t play: Counter-Strike is a first-person shooter that has been running for over two decades, with millions of players a day. Levels, also called maps, are the cornerstone of the franchise, and many of the most famous ones ever created started out made by the community, picked up and brought into the various versions of the game. That still continues to this day: Valve lets anyone in the world build levels using the full Source 2 engine (before that, Source 1 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive), and the ones that meet a triple-A standard are sometimes selected to be added to the game officially.

I first started playing Counter-Strike around 2016, and I quickly fell in love with actually playing it, but also with creating levels for it. I’ve always liked to make and build things: Lego, then later Minecraft, and building levels for a game with so many players, where levels actually get picked up and played by so many people, felt like the next logical step. So that’s when I started.

I found my way into the mapping community and got to know the people in it. It’s a small online scene, only a handful of people worldwide. Over time I got good at it and specialised in what’s called level design: taking responsibility for how a level plays as well as how it’s designed, and carrying it from a layout on paper to a fully playable level, while the texturing is left to environment artists. That side of the work also comes with a fair amount of team coordination: bringing people onto a project, organising the work, and keeping it all on track.

The four levels

Frostbite (dz_frostbite)

Dec 2020, Danger Zone, CS:GO

A winter resort, with ski slopes, a town and a bunker, built for Danger Zone and shipped in Operation Broken Fang for CS:GO.

Calavera (de_calavera)

May 2021, Wingman, CS:GO

A small, fast-paced, colourful Wingman map set during Day of the Dead in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Vineyard (dz_vineyard)

Feb 2022, Danger Zone, CS:GO

Sun-soaked Tuscan hills, with farms, a fort, ruins, a winery and a castle. The second Danger Zone map I worked on.

Stronghold (de_stronghold)

Jan 2026, Bomb defusal, Counter-Strike 2

A 5v5 competitive defusal map set between the World War II bunkers of Gibraltar and an even older castle. My first map to ship in Counter-Strike 2.

These are only the four levels that have officially been added to the game. I’ve designed more, sometimes for mapping contests, sometimes just for fun or to explore an idea, and there are potentially still a few I’ll finish over time; some are still being worked on by teams, and I may add them to this page in the future. But above all, these four have been available to millions of players. If you have any questions about the maps, or would ever like to collaborate on one, feel free to reach out. I generally like to hear about game-development opportunities; it’s not something I’m actively pursuing right now, but I’m always interested in learning about what’s happening in the gaming space.