The story behind Memento!
With the update of the 26 June 2024, we saw a couple of new maps introduced to Counter-Strike 2.
In “The Real MVP” update we have gotten one if not the best looking and most gorgeous map in the entirety of Counter-Strike 2!
As we already teased in a previouse article, Memento entchanted us!
We are quite fond of this map and instantly saw its potential. This whole article is dedicated to Memento, its history, origin and reference.
We go into depth about its backstory, its inspiration, the team working on it, we talk a bit about the map itself and we even got two of the four makers of Memento to give us a short interview on their work and creation!
Memento
Sunny Italy: Memento has to be one of the most beautiful maps that we ever got in Counter-Strike history!
A lovely Italian town near a lake, with some apartments, old buildings, old towers and even a wedding!
Not to mention all of the lovely easter eggs that this map possesses and all of its gorgeous looks and graphics give it quite a stunning appeal!
All this as a courtesy of the four talented minds behind this map:
Mads Kressner: Level design, level composition, colour composition and set dressing/detailing the map.
Twinnie: Assisted heavily with the level design, as well as some level composition. Colour composition, environment art (creating custom assets and textures) and set dressing/detailing, as well as optimizing the map.
Timur Aisin: Assisted Twinnie with creating his assets, as well as creating hero props (big tree in T spawn for example) and wedding-themed props. He also worked extensively on the 3D skybox, but a lot of that content was unfortunately cut in the final version.
ynel: Did Early sketches for certain areas, illustrations and paintings/murals. The mural on the bombsite is one key example.
The History of Memento
“Memento started back in April 2022, originally just as level art practice for myself while I was working on other projects. I didn't get very far with that though, so when Twinnie (@iiTwinx) reached out to me in November 2022, asking if I wanted to work on a project together, I only had limited screenshots to show him of a super rough visual idea. I can't remember if there was even a layout at that point in time, but basically, we started that month converting the project to a wingman map, originally called deivy. The name Memento came later when I was searching for a name that would fit with the wedding theme.” - Mads
Inspiration
Did you know, that the whole location of the map is based on Villa del Balbianello, which overlooks Lake Como in Italy? Mads is hoping to one day visit it himself.
This location was featured in Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones as it became the planet Naboo.
On Memento there is a reference to one of the most iconic scenes of the movie, “I don’t like sand”, which is near T-Spawn written in a book (you can read it while scoped in).
On the table with the wedding cake on Bombsite-A, you can see multiple names written down on cards. The initiated eye might recognise some of these names as other map creators or from the Mapcore community. Homage is paid to the vigorous help and support of the Mapping community.
Interview Questions
We were fortunate enough to ask Mads Kressner and Twinnie a few interview questions about this map, its mapping process, inspiration, ideas and why they chose the wedding theme.
Here are a few of their answers regarding these topics and more!
What was your favourite moment from your map-making journey?
“I would say my favourite part of the whole project has been creating the level composition. I’m usually responsible for that on the projects that I work on. It's 3D photography, placing geometry in certain ways that is pleasing to the eyes.” - Mads
”My favourite moment has to be Memento getting added to the game! :)” - Twinnie
How did you like creating the map with a small team?
“We started out as two initially, but I needed G3om and Ynel to make very specific stuff for the map to be awesome. The whole experience was quite nice and we worked well together.” - Twinnie
“Some mappers can make a wingman map by themselves or as a team of 2 or 3 people. 4 people is pretty high. But everyone on the team contributed with a specific skill, which worked out well in the end.” -Mads
What was the inspiration for the map?
“@QuotingDev's wingman maps were a huge inspiration on the level design and of course, also other wingman maps that has been uploaded to the workshop over the years (de_guard by @poLemin especially).
The visual inspiration as I mentioned before, comes from areas around Lake Como and the well-known Villa del Balbianello.” - Mads
Why the wedding theme?
“The wedding idea came to me simply because the Italy theme has been done so much in CS maps, so I wanted a sub-theme that was easily recognizable to stand out from the rest. While I was researching the location, I found out that the Villa del Balbianello hosts wedding events during summer, which seemed like the perfect sub-theme for the level. I think we managed to create a pretty dreamy place, which is only enhanced by the wedding-themed assets and colours. I've already heard people refer to the map as "the wedding map", which I'm happy about.” - Mads
How did Hammer 2 aid you in creating this map?
“Conveniently, CS2 workshop tools were released during the Memento's development while we were starting to work on the map. Before these tools came out, Twinnie had already ported the Source 1 map to Source 2 using the Half-Life: Alyx workshop tools. I think it took a few days or weeks to complete that process, but having a head start was great. Source 2 significantly sped up development with features like PBR materials, improved lighting previews, and better geometry editing tools. We also made use of assets from the CS2 remakes of de_inferno and cs_italy, mixing them with Twinnie's and g3om's assets. Many of these props were later customised with our own materials. I've tried revisiting Source 1 just to see how it was, and honestly, I can't believe we used that engine for so long!” -Mads
“Source 2 is a big step up from Source 1. It's much more enjoyable to make maps inside source 2 cause it’s a more modern approach to levels. Source 2 is also great for iterating. You can be very fast with it!” - Twinnie
Who came up with the Hotel and its unique elevator?
“I was mainly responsible for the art direction and colours in this part of the map. The interior was heavily inspired by an interior at the Villa del Balbianello. If you search "Villa del Balbianello library" you'll find it instantly. Me and Twinnie both wanted this interior space somewhere, which just happened to fit in the big hotel building.” - Mads
“Madsen and I came up with the Big apartment building and turned that into a Hotel. Later on G3om came up with the idea for the paternoster (also known as “death elevator”). We instantly added it to the map since it was such a unique idea.” - Twinnie
What was the process of blending the map like?
“Blending areas naturally was fairly easy. The focal point is the old castle ruins in the very centre of the map, with newer Italian buildings built around it. What I tried to do with the layout to help blend stuff together, was make it very angled. This allowed me to build the geometry more accurately as I saw it in reference pictures - although it does become slightly harder to work on the map when everything isn't placed as squares on the grid, since you have to know some tricks and techniques. But to me personally, there's a certain magic to a map when the level composition feels well thought out and natural with unconventional angles, as it can sometimes help to make a space believable (depending on the theme).” - Mads
Is this your favourite work that you have created or taken part in?
“Yes, but I also have more projects in the works that could take the cake.” - Mads
“My favourite work was definitely working on the bombsite area, we had lots of cool ideas for it that I could execute.” - Twinnie
Do you have plans to work on another map?
“Currently we are working on a project with g3om, Laszlo and Roald (Level designer of de_anubis).
It's a 5v5 bomb/defuse map called de_skyline, that will be set on a skyscraper for the new 5v5 Mapcore mapping contest. But the layout is being spearheaded by the talented Roald this time.” - Mads & Twinnie
The beauty of Memento
This map is gorgeously and skillfully crafted and blended together. It has a very distinct form of a map, not only by looks but also by how it plays and interacts with the players and the environment. The slopes on the old tower is quite a nice feature, the same goes with the one-way drop-off to the A-site. You have to put risk in to be rewarded.
Aforementioned one way drop to A-site.
Memento has a lot of different angles, features and playstyles, which is why we think it is so interesting. You can either play on longer angles, try to be sneaky or just rush the old tower. Counter-Terrorists also have a lot of options, which makes this map, at least what we could tell, quite balanced.
T-Spawn depicts beautiful scenery with the whole wedding theme, same with the Bombsite. Departing from T-Spawn you get into a lovely apartment which looks like an old 1930s Hotel lobby. It even features a paternoster to give it an even more antiquated feel.
Diverging from the “Lobby” of the Hotel you can go to an apartment, where a window can give you the first encounter with the enemy. Going through this small passage you have the opportunity to either go left or go into a part of the old tower that is imposing over the whole map. But enough said- you should REALLY try out the map for yourself and be enchanted by it!
This map is not only the most stunning map we got to date, but it also plays quite well. During the short time that this map has been in Counter-Strike, it already has collected a small cult following. A map to not only look good but also play well can be the nightmare of many map creators. We are very glad about how well Memento turned out, and we are quite excited about the new map de_skyline by some of the Memento team!
Conclusion
Thank you for reading our article. Memento has already established itself as quite a fun Counter-Strike map, and we are glad that Valve decided to put it in the game. The theme and style of Memento are quite unique, and we are very happy that we got some insight from two of the four creators.
We would also like to send out a huge thank you to Mads and Twinx for answering our questions and creating this beautiful map!
