Czech Creators’ Counter-Strike Map Lands Valve Contract
They dedicated nearly two years of their free time to crafting a map for the video game Counter-Strike, achieving fifth place in a competition of three hundred entries. Their work didn’t go unnoticed by the game’s developer, Valve, who have now offered them a contract. Now, any of the roughly 25 million monthly Counter-Strike players can experience their creation.
The team has also made history as the first Czech creative team to have a map selected for the game’s most played rotations.
“When valve emailed us expressing interest in the map, I initially couldn’t believe it and suspected it might be a joke or even a scam attempt,” recalls Jiří “vachinski” Kubík.
However, it was no hoax. It’s a testament to the years of passionate effort Marko “wavybby” Kukačka poured into the map. “Today, we have a contract with Valve and are compensated daily for as long as the map remains in the game,” Kubík explains.
A Counter-Strike map serves as a virtual battlefield where two teams compete, attempting to neutralize each other. In the Czech team’s map, terrorists may attempt to plant a bomb while counter-terrorist units strive to prevent detonation.
Kubík’s surprise at Valve’s interest is understandable – only a select few maps gain recognition from the thousands created annually. Their map, Golden, is now among just four chosen. Notably, only two maps were added to the game’s main “competitive” mode, and the Czech creation was one of them.
The quality of the project is reflected in its creators. “I work as an art director at De Tomaso Automobili, a company producing luxury sports cars. I lead a small creative team responsible for 3D visualizations, creative marketing campaigns, and the brand’s overall presentation,” Kubík shares.
Previously, as part of the Automobilist project, he worked as a 3D Artist on products and campaigns for motorsport brands like Formula 1, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, and Porsche.
Kukačka also works at De Tomaso, managing the technical aspects of 3D graphics.Samuel sandelin,a concept artist at Avalanche Games in Stockholm,and lukáš Krejčiřík,a level designer and student whose own map placed second in the competition,also contributed to the map’s development.
The Faceit mapcore Contest sparked the creation of Golden, providing a specific theme, deadline, and framework. It also offered a valuable learning opportunity and potential community visibility.
Kubík discovered the game during the COVID-19 pandemic, playing with friends to pass the time. He was impressed by its simplicity and the welcoming community of contributors.
This is where Lukáš Krejčiřík also came into the project, who helped to solve many problems that arose when testing the map layout. This was followed by a texturing and modeling phase, in which the gray boxes gradually became the final shape of the map.
“This part certainly took the longest, as it was necessary to model all the objects in detail and place them thematically in the chosen habitat so that the map works visually as a whole,” the man who makes a living as an art director explains the process.
For its setting,they chose the Far East because of the theme of the competition “Big Adventures”,although they also thought about the domestic environment. “The original concept was a Prague metro station under construction. Czech realities are of course an attractive topic that we will certainly discuss for future maps,” explains Kubík.
In the Asian location, which eventually won for them, they were most attracted by the challenge itself. It is said that many designers have already tried to successfully fit into such a space, and almost no one at Valve has had success with it.
“It’s been kind of hanging in the air in the mapping community that this theming is a no-go for Counter-strike maps,” adds a player with the nickname “vachinski”.
Photo Jiří kubík and Marek Kukačka.Photo Jiří Kubík and Marek Kukačka.
Czech Mapmakers Strike Gold with Counter-Strike 2 Inclusion, Earning Potential Millions
A pair of Czech mapmakers, known online as “vachinski” and “wavybby,” have achieved significant success with their creation, “Golden,” which was recently added to the popular first-person shooter Counter-Strike 2. The map’s inclusion has not only garnered them recognition within the gaming community but also a substantial financial reward, estimated to be between three and six million Czech crowns (approximately $130,000 – $260,000 USD as of December 4, 2025). https://www.forbes.cz/cesi-vytvorili-mapu-do-counter-strike-2-a-vydelali-miliony/
The map was initially showcased at a competition earlier this year, where it caught the eye of Valve, the developers of counter-Strike 2. Shortly after the competition, Valve expressed their enthusiasm for the map and indicated their intention to integrate it into the game.
“The whole process was actually very fast – from the first contact to the moment when the map was officially in the game, not even a week passed,” explained Jiří kubík, who represents the mapmakers. Notably, Valve did not request any alterations to the map’s design, publishing it in its original form as submitted by the creators.
following its release, the map required ongoing maintenance and bug fixes. Kubík detailed the intensive work involved in addressing player feedback. “Especially the first week after the addition, it was very intense. Although we tested the map quite conscientiously, suddenly several orders of magnitude more players were moving around on it than before and they were finding things that none of us had any idea about. So we sat on it every day into the night, reading the inbox and fixing it.”
Despite their recent financial success, “vachinski” and “wavybby” remain dedicated to creating content for the Counter-Strike community. They are currently working on new projects for the game and plan to continue mapmaking even after these projects are completed.
Kubík emphasized their passion for the craft, stating, “It’s a bit of a lottery as to whether the invested time will pay off commercially as well, as it was now, but at the moment we both see creating maps primarily as a joy, so we don’t primarily look at the economic side. In the case of the Golden map, this approach worked, you can see it in the result, and I believe that this is still the right path. We’ll see where it takes us.”
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