Counter-Strike 2

Level Design Project

Map: de_Citizen

“An old town on the outskirts of the city became a highly contested location due to its close proximity of a nuclear reactor. With the area fallen into Combine control, the Resistance plan to destroy any attempt to siphon nuclear power.”

—-Map is a Work in Progress…—-

Play latest version of the map!

5v5 Competitive Map

Brief:

Now that Counter-Strike 2 has been officially released I wanted to take the opportunity to dive into the game but also build a map! I also wanted to learn how to use Source 2 and check out what the new tools had to offer. I really wanted to challenge myself as well, building a level for a hyper competitive game such as CS seemed like a good LD exercise. After putting in around 150+hours into the game I felt that I had a solid grasp on what made the gameplay fun and how the level design complimented it. Took some notes on things I liked/things I didn’t like and other experimental ideas I wanted to try for my map.

Then I got to work on a paper and pen layout!

Theme:

Taking inspiration from the Half-Life series for the environment mostly because a cross over would be cool to see. The dystopian Half-Life setting opened up a couple avenues for me in terms of level design, small resistance hideout areas, broken wall areas for players to throw utility into etc. Also the Combine architecture helped establish some landmarks/points of interest within the map.

Also thought it would be a nice call back since Counter-Strike originally started as a Half-Life mod!

Level Design:

From an LD standpoint, I really wanted to create a map that offered a little bit more verticality and player choice around bomb-site locations. While at the same time, maintaining a level of simplicity so the map is easy to learn. This meant tapering the complexity of the layout IE. start simple (from spawn to the bombsite) and then gradually get more complex towards the bomb-site locations. Complexity is also a loaded term, I mean generally in terms of lines of sight, cover, 1 or 2 more routes options and landmarks. I also wanted there to be room in the map layout for higher skilled play, for example I have a couple props placed within the map that will help players line up smokes to block specific defensive options for CT’s. As well as some crouch jump locations to either shorten travel times between bombsites or get into high risk/high reward perches. These options aren’t mandatory to be successful but are there for the players that wish to have a higher level of play. A goal of mine was to make sure the map was equally viable for both casual play and competitive play.

Map Screenshots