May 3rd is World Press Freedom Day, here to raise awareness of the importance of a press
that can freely report on topics, and to pay tribute to those who have been imprisoned or
killed in the line of journalistic duty. And it makes its way to Counter Strike in
an unusual way. De_voyna is a map that was released a few days ago. On the surface,
it looks like a war-torn Slavic city. But beneath is a hidden room,
containing information and pictures showing what’s going on in Ukraine,
and how Russia is involved. I apologise for my pronunciation
of words in this video- those pronunciation sites are worse than useless at this point.
For instance: ‘?????’
So anyway, I think it’s pronounced Voyna, and this map was a project by the largest
subscription newspaper in Finland, which I believe is pronounced Helsingin Sanomat,
but I’ll shorten it to HS just because. Early in 2023, the HS newspaper commissioned two
well-known map designers to create this map. The reason for this project? HS states that
countless Russians are unaware of what is happening in Ukraine. In this room, they
are forced to see the truth with their own eyes’. Because in Russia, citizens can’t just access the
same sources of news and information as most of the world can- it is instead heavily vetted and
censored, with access blocked to most sources of western media, including the Finnish newspaper
behind this project! However, people living in Russia are still able to play Counter-Strike. So
what if HS were to use Counter-Strike as the medium to broadcast what’s going on?
…and that is why this map was made. With ‘voyna’ chosen as the name, meaning ‘war’ in Russian.
In case you’re unfamiliar with Counter-Strike, the game comes with a bunch of ‘officially included’
maps which you can immediately play on, whenever you want to. De_voyna is not one such map. To
get access to this one, and the many thousands of other user-made maps for the game, you must visit
the community workshop. This is where anybody can create and upload their own maps. Just like every
other map made, de_voyna has its own page, which you can visit in this video’s description even if
you don’t play Counter-Strike. But if you do have Counter-Strike installed and wish to play on this
level, then you click the SUBSCRIBE button. And once it’s downloaded, you can play the map in
Counter-Strike like you can with any other. On the surface, de_voyna is a defuse map,
containing two bombsites and various routes to reach them. And I guess its layout sort
of works. I don’t think it’s going to win any awards for graphics or gameplay- it’s a little
unusual for a map to be hosted solely within one single large open area like this one is,
using grassy banks as make-shift walls and with blades of grass obscuring your visibility across
the battlefield. But of course, that isn’t really what this map’s really about, is it.
On the map, there is this monument of Eternal Flame. This is apparently a common sight in
Russian and Ukrainian cities, serving as memorials of World War 2. HOWEVER, they claim the one in
this map serves a different purpose. You can read their wording over on their page about this,
but I took away from it that they want Russians to understand that war is happening in a place
that looks very similar to where they live, since Ukrainian and Russian villages look quite similar.
And then they use a series of fires and lights to lure players to this recessed corner,
where they’ll find a locked door. I can’t find a way of unlocking this-
I even decompiled the map and it doesn’t show any sort of trigger that would allow you to,
so while I can’t rule out there being a clever way of bypassing it,
it’s pretty difficult to gain entry to this hidden room without using cheats of some kind.
I simply used noclip to fly straight through it. You can do this when playing the map on
your own server, and with sv_cheats set to 1. And inside this room is a series of images,
strings of text and a map on the wall, detailing what’s going on inside Ukraine. Walk close to an
image and a Russian voice-over begins talking about what is being pictured.
This room contains information about missile strikes hitting civilian homes, mass graves,
and other images and information about the conflict that is otherwise banned in Russia.
Normally I imagine my audience knows the game Counter-Strike pretty well already, but for this
one I’m assuming 0 knowledge, and so need to give this mapping project some context, and to answer
some questions I think you might have about it. Namely: how likely is it that this map becomes
successful? And anybody familiar with the game knows the answer to this already. An outsider
might think that the big hurdle is getting a map like this made and released. And that now it is,
people will start playing it and they’ll discover the room natrurally and so on. But that isn’t what
will happen. In fact, the much bigger challenge for any map made for Counter-Strike is to get
it PLAYED. And there’s practically 0 chance that this map would have achieved success on its own,
were it left to the game’s playerbase to naturally discover and to play it.
Why? Because right now, there are currently over 133,000
custom maps on Counter-Strike’s workshop. There are bots upvoting spam entries, and downvoting
proper maps, and so even if a map is very good, there’s little chance of it gaining traction. It’s
a thoroughly saturated market out there, and if you take a look at the top few thousand maps on
the workshop, the mapping standard is sky-high. It isn’t enough for a map to be good and to look
good any more. It needs to be INCREDIBLE. And even when an incredible map IS released,
the game’s player base isn’t exactly queuing up to play on it. There was a time when they were- and
that was about 23 years ago. Today, Counter-Strike is a mature gaming series- people have established
their favourite maps and gamemodes, which they loyally stick to for comfort gaming,
or simply to remain good at. So most current counter-strike players will stick to practicing
on just the few maps officially featured in the game, since that is what it’s important
to be good at. So it would be highly unlikely for this map to naturally gain a following,
even if hosted on servers, and if advertised. And even if it did achieve moderate success,
it needs to be played in a very specific way in order for the room to be viewed. Competitive mode
doesn’t allow for your camera after death to stray through walls, and while playing
offline against bots- which let’s face it, is how most maps like this one will be played-
the player is alive most of the time anyway. But for people playing it on casual gamemode,
and especially those who take the time to explore a new map from a spectator’s perspective,
they may indeed discover this room by chance. Though I do suspect that most discoveries will
be made intentionally, and was probably the reason the map was played in the first place.
Again, I’m saying stuff that’s obvious to players of the game, but most people in
Counter-Strike don’t think twice about a locked door. Because a locked door commonly just means
a dead end in this game. Lots of maps commonly have them dotted about the place just to give
the illusion that the map is bigger than it really is- so I don’t think a player’s first
thought when they find this door is that there has to be a secret on the other side of it.
So honestly… had this map been silently released, even if it had been played on, I doubt its secret
room would ever have been something that more than a handful of players would have discovered.
And I’m not sure how much of a help it would be any way. Counter-Strike is apparently played by
4 million Russian players. But among those, who isn’t aware of the situation in Ukraine
already? These are young people, with access to the internet, who are already playing on
an online game with and against people from across the globe. It’s highly unlikely that
this hidden room is going to be their first discovery of this sort of information. And
even if it is… is it going to change their minds? But it’s symbolic, isn’t it. It’s a free map, for
a free game, which for now at least, remains free to play in places like Russia where other sources
of information have already been restricted. It reminds me of Minecraft’s Uncensored Library,
which contains a virtual library with hundreds of books inside which people can access,
even if those books are banned in the countries where they’re from. Now I can’t imagine a worse
way of reading a book than to read it in minecraft, but it’s nice that it’s there,
isn’t it. For people with no other way of accessing it. Hopefully there’s some
another way. Hopefully several! But it’s nice that this is here, just in case there isn’t.
So this map is a talking point. A statement. Something that will get the conflict talked about,
mostly by people who don’t play Counter-Strike, and even among those who do, I suspect very few
will visit the room to see it for themselves. But again, it’s there, just in case. And it’s
got me talking about it, and it’s got you watching this, and I think that it’s stuff like THIS, that
was the real purpose of making this map all along. And it’s weird- I shouldn’t have any problem with
covering this sort of thing. Yet my spidey senses are tingling. The mappers behind this project wish
to remain anonymous, in fear of backlash. So should I, as a youtuber covering this topic,
expect a backlash for covering this? Does the very fact that I worry I might, mean that my freedom of
press is at risk in some way? Maybe this is as good a reason as any for me to cover this topic.
And of course, it’s a fascinating new chapter in Counter-Strike’s history,
at how the line between real life and videogame can blur in unexpected ways.