A CS:GO map making exercise

Hi! Welcome! I am about to embark on a journey to make a map for Counter Strike: Global Offensive. I don't have a name for it yet and I don't have any idea of what it is going to look like. I want to practice some level design and I have played the game a lot and the CS:GO SDK is free to use so I reckon this is a good place to start.

My design will start with an analysis of four maps. These maps will be the ones I know the best. This will help me understand the designs and find similarities between them. This will ultimately help me when I get to creating my map. Next would be create a 2D layout (on paper or computer) based on what I have learnt from studying the current maps. After that I can head over to SDK to create the map in 3D.

The Analysis

The four maps that I have chosen for this analysis are Dust II, Cache, Mirage and Inferno. All maps are of the 'Bomb Defusal' type ('Terrorists' try to plant a bomb while 'Counter-Terrorists' try to stop them). These maps are currently in the ranked playlist, which means these maps are deemed balanced enough for high level competitive play. While Dust II and Inferno have been around since Counter-Strike 1.1, Mirage and Cache are community made maps that were added after the release of Global Offensive. I have played this game with my friends for a while now and I am hoping my experience with the game will help with the final design. These four maps are my favorite in the game and they share similarities that we will go into further.

The four maps have implemented a grid style layout. In this layout, both teams start at the opposite sides of the map and the two 'bomb sites' are located equidistant from both teams. The bomb sites are located such that the Counter-Terrorists (CTs) always reach the site before the Terrorists (Ts). This is so that the CTs, being the defending team, will have some time to get in position and set up defenses.

The maps also have a 'middle-lane', which is the central choke point of the levels. Mid-lane has paths leading to both objectives and player spawns and therefore is a very important feature of the levels. Within the first few seconds of a round, one of the two teams will always reach Mid first, thus having full control over this lane. For example, in Dust II the Terrorists have Mid control at the start of the round, whereas in Mirage, it is the Counter-Terrorists who reach Mid first. Having control of Mid-lane is of strategic importance since it becomes much harder for the opposition to push through there, hence slowing them down.

Dust II

Inferno

Mirage

Cache

The maps also have several other choke points carefully designed to funnel players and have key conflicts occur in specific locations. These choke points are seen in areas leading into bomb sites. For example, on Dust II, these choke points are 'A Long' leading to A site, 'A Short' leading to A site through Middle, 'Mid Double Doors' leading to CT Spawn, and finally 'B Tunnels' opening into B site.

Alternate path running A to B

Inferno's alternate mid lane

There is also a pathway connecting both bomb sites passing through Mid. This is another important piece of design as it acts as a alternate route to quickly move from one bomb site to another and allows players some freedom of movement. In the case of Inferno, this route is the Middle lane. Additionally, Inferno also has an 'alternate middle' running parallel to Mid. This allows the players a direct route to the apartments area without having to go through Mid.

B Site, Dust II

A Site, Cache

A Site, Mirage

B Site, Inferno

The maps in CS:GO are built with each weapon type in consideration. Along with weapons, economy is huge part of the game. As teams gain or lose money each round, their weapon choices change, and with it so do their strategies. Designing maps in a way where every weapons has its place allows fluidity in strategies and encourages players to try different weapons. Key locations have multiple holding angles, including near and far ranges.

Conclusion

A good map must be easy to learn, the player must be able to quickly understand the layout, at least the main routes to all the key locations on the map. Timing is important. Objectives should not be so far apart that the players spend most of the round travelling instead of fighting. The objectives must also be placed such that the defending team gets to it first, allowing them to set up defenses. There must be a route connecting the two objectives, providing direct access. The map can have a decent amount of chokepoints where conflict is meant to happen. Key areas of the map such as the objectives should have multiple paths leading to them so the players have more choices. A map may also have smaller sub-routes connecting to different parts of the map for the same reason. Maps must be built with different weapon types in consideration to prevent any one weapon type to become the dominant choice. And lastly, the map must be fun to play. Nothing else matters if the map is not fun to play on (this is something that will take a lot of testing!).

Over the next 7 days I will get to work on some paper designs creating 2D layouts for my map. Thank you very much for reading my first article of the series. I hope to see you next week!