David Johnston

David Johnston, or more commonly simply Dave, is the creator of several Counter-Strike maps. He is well known for creating the popular map Dust2.

Biography

David Johnston began level designing with Wolfenstein 3D when he was around 10 years old. Eventually he moved on to newer games like Doom and Quake until he settled mapping for Half-Life and its modifications (including Counter-Strike and Team Fortress Classic).^[1] Johnston was one of the more successful mappers for Counter-Strike as most of his maps enjoyed great popularity when they were released.

Dave, like many other amateur level designers at the time, attracted the attention of Gearbox Software when they were developing Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. The fact that he was living in the United Kingdom and had not yet finished his studies,^[2] led to him being contractually employed so that he could work for them off-site. He designed two maps for the game during this time,^[3] one of which ended up in the final game (Tides), and also designed a few levels for the PC version of James Bond 007: Nightfire after Gearbox Software moved on to that title. After this contract ended, Dave managed to squeeze in yet another map into Condition Zero, Sienna, which he worked on when he was supposed to be studying.^[4]

In 2007, he was hired by Splash Damage where he contributed to the level design of their upcoming titles.

Currently he works at Improbable and is no longer working on level design. Although he has retired from making Counter-Strike maps, his reputation is remembered as Dust2 is still played.

List of maps

Official maps

Map Name	Game(s)	Responsibilities	Year
Cbble		Level designer	2000
Dust		Level designer	1999
Dust2		Level designer	2001
Radio	(cut)	Level designer	2001
Sienna		Level designer	2004
Tides		Level designer	2003
Tire		Level designer	1999