After working on Chinatown that was a very small map designed for casual play, I wanted to work on something that was aimed more towards competitive play so I got to work on the layout for Pakistan. It was designed to be quite traditional with the 4 square layout, but I wanted the map to make much more use of gameplay elements that are only present in the Global Offensive version of Counterstrike such as the ability to sky flash and smoke as well as incendiary grenades. To do this, a vast majority of buildings should be quite low, easily allowing you to get grenades where you want them to go before assaulting an area. I also missed being able to wallbang in 1.6, so this map was also designed quite heavily with this in mind. After testing and adjusting the dev-block layout and being happy with it, I got to work on the visuals.

Initially, the map was to be set in an ultra-modern shopping centre in London, but due to the low buildings and wanting to keep the playable space as clutter free as possible to aid gameplay, it was proving near on impossible to make visually interesting. I had decided early on to have a lot of inaccessible shop interiors to create nice visuals at player height, but having both sleek and low buildings were making the map very boring to play in. After a long time trying to think of a solution for this, I came to the realisation that the theme just wasn’t possible with the gameplay I had in mind. Looking at images of various cities around the globe, I noticed that cities in Pakistan had an unusually high amount of shop signs as well as very uniquely shaped buildings that could work with the gameplay I had in mind.  Therefore I had no choice but to completely overhaul the visuals and work towards a theme loosely based on the city of Lahore.

Luckily the change in theme solved almost all of the problems I was having while working on the map and from here the map progressed at a very rapid pace, slowing down only for necessary changes needed based on play testing.

Brooktown is a bomb/defuse map based on neighborhoods in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York City. The map is inspired by the buildings and architectural style in those boroughs rather than being an accurate recreation of the neighborhoods.

The layout is a variation of the standard dust2 (figure of 8) layout. The map was built 100% from scratch basing its layout on the dust2 layout (the topographic map if you want) for reference. This layout gives players a familiar place to fight yet it's different to give a new experience. The heights, widths, brushwork size/place and props, cover spots, some routes, angles/line of sights and corresponding tactics are different from the standard dust2 if you want to compare. The ultimate goal is to give players a layout they all know (by heart) and like, yet be different to refresh the fighting experience.

Story-wise, this map is a sequel to my map cs_east_borough where a SWAT team managed to raid a gang hideout and rescued the captive undercover cops while inflicting heavy damage to the gang infrastructure. The remaining gang members are seeking revenge and will attempt to bomb the city hall or the police headquarters.

The map shares most of the assets (textures, models) that I created for cs_east_borough, in addition to new textures that I made specifically for Brooktown. The map is very realistic and authentic, and I tried to incorporate all the elements and details that make New York so unique: storefronts (with the exception of couple of them), road and traffic signs, sidewalks, manholes, graffiti and buildings... were all taken from actual NYC photos. The storefront signs are mostly from landmark stores in New York (brand names edited) and the traffic signs are taken from the Department of Transportation (DOT) and are specific to NYC. I built the sidewalk, curbs and ramps according more or less to the specifications found in the road manual of the NYCDOT. Even the orange traffic lights and the famous orange NYC taxi have the RGB color values as in their real life counterparts :)

When i first started working on de_mw2_favela, I just wanted to get inspiration from the Cod:MW2's Favela, and then, as the developpement was going on, I realised that making a remake on CS:GO could be a good idea, and that its gameplay could easily fit to CS:GO.

So, I started by taking some screenshots from the original map in order to reproduce it the best way possible, up to import some mw2 textures to CS:GO. To compare, here are some small examples :

MW2 map on the left, the CSGO remake on the right

The map is still in beta and took a lot of time to get released. I started it in last April, with some breaks due to a lack of motivation and repeated bugs that are pretty discouraging. Plus, I've never made a bomb/defuse map before. Finally, I find the result faithful enough to the original, even if there is still a lot of work on the content.

By the way, I would like to thank Skill who helped me by finding a huge amount of bugs, and for giving me precious advices.