Yup. You read that right. Legendary Counter-Strike map de_dust is now a healthy preteen. Dave Johnston, who created the iconic multiplayer map (plus its counterpart de_dust2) posted about the birthday yesterday on Twitter. He later went on to amend that first tweet (in which he claimed that it was 13 instead of 12) with this follow-up correction.
Johnston currently works as a Senior Level Designer for Splash Damage, creators of the newly released FPS Brink. Kind of crazy to consider the fact that he made such a hugely popular level (and really, one that stands among the greatest of any multiplayer mode) at such a young age. Makes me wonder what I was doing at 16. Oh yeah, playing video games.
So let me be the first here to say happy birthday to Dust. I’ll always remember de_dust as being one of the things I saw the most in college. For me, it’s practically synonymous with the time I spent at school, locked away in my room, trying to gain some epic headshots. It was actually my introduction to online gaming as a whole.
What about you guys? What memories do you have of de_dust? Go!