Esports
It's not just the players or the rules that make a game into a great esport. It's also the map. Here, Counter–Strike's creators and stars tell the history of the best video game level ever designed.
Dust 2, Dust2, Dust II, de_dust2. Whatever you know it by, the classic Counter–Strike map needs no introduction for any first-person shooter fans. The level, set in a dusty Moroccan souk, has been a staple of every version of Counter–Strike – Valve's iconic two-decade old tactical shooter born from a popular Half–Life mod of the same name – and is beloved for its tight design and staggering balance in a game of asymmetric goals for T and CT.
Making a new map is hard. Just ask the creators of the exciting new 2v2 levels for Red Bull Flick. However, making one that not only defines a game, series or a genre, but esports as a whole, is something else entirely. Here, we speak to those responsible about Dust 2's growth from one teenage hacker's Team Fortress tribute to its place in million dollar tournaments.
1999: From mod to mainstream
Counter–Strike started off as a fan project, meaning its creators were bedroom coders, not professional game designers. Not that that stopped anyone...
Minh Le (Counter–Strike co-creator): I made the original Counter–Strike mod for Valve's Half–Life during my first year of university. I was around 20-years-old and I'd previously worked on a couple mods in the past that were focused on contemporary warfare. I grew up watching action movies like Rambo and they influenced my taste in games.
I always felt that there was a lack of team play in the popular first-person shooter games at the time, such as Quake and Unreal Tournament. This was my impetus for creating Counter–Strike, to fill that void.
Dave Johnston (Dust 2 creator): Half-Life wasn't the first game I'd tinkered with. The first game I ever modded was a little game I found on a magazine coverdisk, called Deeplair, which also happened to be the first competitive multiplayer game I played. It was a simple little two-player 2D game in which you pilot a submarine around and shoot each other.
The thing that amazed me was that I could load the game 'map' in Canvas (a bitmap editor) and change it, adding new rocks and obstacles wherever I pleased. So, of course, I modified it to make sure I always won when playing against my brothers.
Minh Le: At the beginning, I knew it was far too much work for myself to program, create the weapons and characters, sounds and create levels, so my partner, Jess Cliffe, suggested we rely on the community to submit maps for our game and we could evaluate the maps and decide which ones to include in our official release. The community provided copious feedback that helped guide our game design decisions and this allowed me to correct any game imbalances early on.
Dave Johnston: I discovered the first beta of Counter–Strike sometime in 1999, a few months after I'd turned 16, so I was still living at home with my parents. I was instantly hooked by how fresh it was compared to every other mod I was playing at the time.
For me, the fun didn't really start until I discovered the mod included a real-world texture pack. For months I'd been trying to make authentic-looking Half–Life maps, with scientists, underground labs, research complexes – everything I could that would fit perfectly within that universe. However, this texture pack opened up an entirely new universe to me, the Counter–Strike universe, which was much more rooted in the real-world, and far more relatable. My first Counter–Strike map, a hostage rescue scenario set in a war-torn retirement home, was born very soon thereafter.
2000: de first dust
After Counter–Strike blew-up online, Valve acquired the game and officially released it for PC in 2000, but modders continued to work on their own maps for the game.
Minh Le: Valve contacted us after we released our third version of the game (CS Beta 3), and eventually hired me after CS Beta 5.
Dave Johnston: I first got in touch with Jess Cliffe and Minh Le shortly after I released my war-torn retirement home map, when they asked my permission to include it in the third beta release. I can't claim any credit for the idea or the theme behind Dust – the theme and entire CT spawn area were shamelessly lifted from very early screenshots of Team Fortress 2, long before it became the hatstravaganza it is today.
Fortunately, after releasing my initial Counter–Strike map set in the retirement home, Jess Cliffe and Minh Le approached me to make another map for the mod of their brand new 'bomb defusion' game mode. They even put me in touch with Chris Ashton, the artist behind the texture pack that got me so excited about mapping for Counter-Strike in the first place, to make some brand new textures for me. I pretty much just sent him those same Team Fortress 2 screenshots and asked, "Could you make these for me?"
I can't remember exactly how long I spent creating Dust, but it was in the order of weeks, maybe even a month that I spent hunched over our family PC trying to replicate what I'd seen. I had to extrapolate what I'd seen into an entire map that was not only thematically correct, but would play well.
Minh Le: Dave contacted me to submit the first de_dust. During the peak period of Counter–Strike's popularity, Cliffe would sort through hundreds of maps per week. The few maps that had potential Cliffe passed on to me and we would organise internal play tests with a select group of players. We evaluated the maps thoroughly before including them in an official release.
de_dust was a huge hit right away. If I remember correctly, it was our most popular map for several years and Dave made de_dust2 after the final version of CS was released (CS 1.0).
Dave Johnston: The reaction to Dust was incredible. I can remember waking up the day after the new version of Counter–Strike was released, hurriedly heading downstairs, flicking on the PC, downloading the update and launching the game to see hundreds of full servers running my map, a sight I never expected to see. I'd not even had a chance to play it myself yet!
Over the following days, the server list just grew and grew and it wasn't long before there were servers solely playing Dust, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
2001: A sequel odyssey
de_dust spawned many imitators, and raised the bar for map makers to clear once more – its own creator included.
Dave Johnston: Eventually, I decided to give making a new Dust map another go, although I think this was partly just to prove to myself and everyone else that Dust was a one-off and I couldn't create a worthy sequel.
I scribbled a few basic designs down on paper, created a rough facsimile of these in the map editor and ended up with a map that was somewhere between the complexity of Dust and my other map, Cobble, but nothing I was particularly proud of due to its rather alien, non-linear layout that was quite a departure from Dust.
I didn't even bother sending this map to Jess, who by this time was in the employment of Valve, who'd recently bought Counter–Strike and released it as its own boxed product. Instead, I enlisted Joe Markert from GameHelper.com, who was willing to publish it on his website in exchange for some computer hardware. I duly covered the map with GameHelper.com banners and figured that would be the last I would hear of it, until Jess Cliffe (who was now at Valve) found out and pushed for its inclusion.
I never saw any further payment after that, nor did I expect to receive any, regardless of how popular Dust 2 became.
Fatih 'gob b' Dayik (German Counter-Strike player and manager, now BIG's Counter–Strike: Global Offensive team head): This map was never as good as DUST ONE!
Dave Johnston: I think Dust 2's success came down to a few things. Firstly, it was familiar to fans of the original Dust, so it immediately had a warmer reception than most new maps. Secondly, it was an evolution of the Dust formula, maintaining the clean, bright and accessible aesthetic that players seemed to appreciate. Thirdly, it added just enough extra depth and strategic agency over the original map to make it interesting and replayable.
However, while I wish I could claim credit for all this, it was equal shares of luck, fear and input from Jess Cliffe, who chose the optimal locations for the bomb and spawn positions, that helped make it a success.
Minh Le: Dust 2 is just perfectly balanced in that it has routes that are perfectly sized and encourage players to engage in firefights in specific hot zones. There's not too many routes as to keep the flow of player traffic simple. It also helps that the color palette allows players to easily distinguish players from the background.
Stephanie 'missharvey' Harvey (Streamer, former pro player and Counterlogic Gaming director of esports franchise development and outreach): The landmarks and the size of the map help tremendously to the level orientation and the details in the design make it very easy to call out information to your team-mates. Tunnels, double doors, pit, long a, catwalk; those are naming conventions that are being used across the world.
Dave Johnston: I find it hard to pin down exactly what makes Dust 2 so balanced for a game as asymmetric as Counter–Strike. It seems clear to me that Dust 2 benefits from being much better connected than my earlier maps, offering players more opportunity to try new tactics and counteract their opponents. I feel this degree of connectivity dampens the impact of CS's asymmetry and helps surface individual team and player skill instead.
Minh Le: I believe Dust 2 is the quintessential CS map, because it perfectly encapsulates the style of gameplay that I envisioned Counter–Strike to have.
Counter-Strike 1.6: The game that built an industry
With version 1.6, released in late 2000, Valve had all but perfected Counter–Strike and development tailed off after this. As such, CS 1.6 became the preferred version of the game and the one that built team esports as we know them now. Counter–Strike 1.6 teams were the first in the West to pay top gamers salaries and the version of de_dust2 used in competitions for over a decade remains largely unchanged, creating many memories along the way.
Dave Johnston: My last involvement with Dust 2 was Counter–Strike 1.1, when ownership of the map transferred to Valve. It's been in their care ever since.
gob b: Dust 2 was one of my favourite CS 1.6 maps. I would describe it as much harder to improve on, because there were no videos or anything to help you learn nades and smokes. It was just so much fun, so you kept playing anyway.
Kenny 'kennyS' Schrub (French professional CS:GO player with G2 Esports): My earliest memory of Dust 2 that I can recall is an AWP Ace on long. I was A site as CT and they all peeked me one-by-one. Every version of Dust 2 has been successful, but I think 1.6 was the best.
Malek 'maleK' Bennouioua (French professional CS:GO player with G2 Esports): My first memory of Dust 2 was about the time I started the game, in 2002. I spent so many hours playing free for all with my friends. The 1.6 version was super good.
Dave Johnston: By the time Dust 2 had become the dominant map in competitive circles, I was rather disconnected from the game and had been following other pursuits. While I obviously remained observant of Counter–Strike's competitive scene, I don't think I ever truly appreciated quite how big the game – and Dust 2 – had become. Even seeing photos taken in huge exhibition halls of tournaments featuring the top competitive teams playing Dust 2 incessantly really washed over me and, to a degree, still do to this day. It's quite unreal.
gob b: My fondest memory of competitive 1.6 on the map was when we played Fnatic, who hadn't lost a Best of Three in 2009 – until the day we played them on that map. I studied them for a long time, so I was very confident, even though they hadn't lost. We managed to win the game on Dust 2 16–9 and also won the second map 16–9. It wasn't a big tournament, but that match is special in my mind.
Audric 'JaCkz' Jug (French professional CS:GO player with G2 Esports): My favourite Dust 2 moment was Danny 'zonic' Sørensen's ace when he was playing for mTw against H2k at DreamHack Summer 2010. Simply magical.
Dust 2 in Counter–Strike:Source
To tie-in with the launch of Half–Life 2 – and to make amends for the tepid reception to sequel Counter–Strike: Condition Zero, released earlier that year – Valve released Counter–Strike: Source in 2004. Though more telegenic than 1.6, it never became the established competitive version of the game, but reimagined maps, like Dust 2, came to define its biggest moments.
Dave Johnston: I distinctly remember the first time I saw a sneak-peek of Dust 2 for Counter–Strike: Source and how amazed and humbled I was that Valve had put so much love and attention into renewing and beautifying the map for a brand new generation of gamers.
It was such a technological leap, now filled with decorative artwork, dust motes dancing in the strong, golden sun rays of the central atrium, barrels and beer cans dancing around with real physics, as gusts of dust appeared across the ground. It was incredible and yet, thankfully, it was still very much the bright, clean, golden Dust that I remembered.
kennyS: My main memory of the map? I would say EMS online finals against Tt.Dragons in 2012 with VeryGames. It was possibly one of my best games and one of the most important I played on Counter–Strike: Source. It meant a lot to me to win that event.
2012 – 2020: A new offensive
After much anticipation, in 2012 Valve released a major new version of the game for a new generation of gamers, Counter–Strike: Global Offensive. The game took time to take off, but after several updates, from 2013 onwards began to establish itself as a major new esport, with top 1.6 players moving over and major international tournaments appearing in the calendar. In that time, Dust 2 has been out of competitive rotation just once.
Dave Johnston: I had a slightly different, but no less positive reaction when I first saw Dust in Global Offensive. Gone were the golden hues, replaced with a grittier, more believably lived-in environment that was simply impossible to imagine achieving in the original map.
While I slightly lamented the loss of the golden, bright, simple walls of the original, this was more than supplanted by the feeling of appreciation for the level of care and attention Valve had invested in keeping the map alive and preparing it for yet another generation of gamers and technologies.
missharvey: Dust 2 laid the foundation of Counter–Strike as we know it. It has the perfect level design balance that's important to create tension in asymmetrical gameplay. The game of Counter–Strike is very pure, especially if you compare it to other modern shooters, and it's the combination of details that provide balance and tension in a high-level competition.
maLeK: One of the things that comes to my mind is how Dust 2 is built – it's simple and well balanced. It leans towards a true first-person shooter experience, where you can often showcase your shooting skills, taking duels.
There's a big mid-area, where you can contest or create contacts between T/CTs, as well as legendary spots and long distances, where we can see AWPers shine. It's very central and mythic. Anyone can quickly understand it as a player, as a team and as a spectator. Then, you simply have two other entries on each extremity: B tunnel, A house. Tactically, it's got all the fundamentals and it's nice to showcase aim and skill as well.
gob b: I really like the dynamic. You can play fast and you can play slow. It can be messy, or it can be structured. There are so many different approaches to this map, that's why I like it.
JACKZ: The different boxes that are present in the map, the warm colours, as well as the neutral areas, make the mechanics of the map very fluid. The neutral zones like the short, or the long, where the pit is, there are many ways to take the zone in attack, that's why I like this map. You can have a great variation of calls. The warm colours make it more pleasant and bring better visibility, except for the tunnel. The map is clear and I like it.
kennyS: Since the map is a big part of Counter–Strike history, we tend to like it naturally, without questioning the map. I think it's always been one of the most balanced maps overall. I think one of the strengths of the map is the fact that it's among the 'small' maps, which makes reactions, rotations and switch of paces particularly interesting and dynamic.
It's a really complete map that fits a lot of game styles. Comebacks are always possible, even though it's known for being mostly T-sided. Dust 2 also offers lots of possibilities as CT, such as several AWPer positions, playing well with the nades and inflicting damages can be game-changing. It's a good map, because even though the mechanisms seem easy to understand, the map has a big tactical depth.
The future for an old map
Dust 2 has been overhauled and redesigned over the years, but there's always scope for improvement, right?
gob B: I think playing slow was initially the way to go. Then, it shifted to playing more loose and fast. Nowadays, it feels like you have to have both.
kennyS: I think a lot of things are really similar [to how it was originally played], people are just much more disciplined and aren't taking any risks. For example, the 3/2B has always been there, as far as I can remember, same as the split A from long and short, except the fact that now we're changing details and timings. Overall it's looking like the same for a lot of things.
maLeK: I like the current CS:GO, but I wish they would reverse the doors on B, like it was on 1.6, and it would be great to see a thinner gap at double doors mid to make it perfect to my personal taste.
JaCkz: It's always possible to improve a map. In the current meta, the map has an advantage for the attack, because there are four openings that lead to a bomb site and are very difficult to defend if the attack is meticulous when they take the zones. So, I would change something so that the defense can control certain areas more easily.
Dave Johnston: These days, I feel Dust 2 maintains its spot as one of the most-played maps simply because it's familiar and constant. Regardless of the version of Counter–Strike you first played, or the platform you play on, Dust 2 is largely the same and everyone knows the map in such intricate detail that skill becomes the overwhelmingly dominant factor in determining the victor of any round.
It's in those moments where I do find myself able to reflect and appreciate what it has become. It's still somewhat hard to believe, but I do find some solace in knowing so many thousands of people have enjoyed and continue to enjoy something I made so long ago. In that regard, I feel incredibly lucky.
JaCkz: de_dust2 is timeless. It could still be in competitive play in 10 years.
Dave Johnston: I'm sure one day a map will come along that radically improves upon Dust 2's success. In fact, I'm pretty sure they already exist, but simply can't compete with the legacy of Dust 2 to be able to supplant it. One day, though, Dust 2's popularity will wane, players will find something better and it'll take the crown.
gob B: Dust 2, I love you.
