CSGO map based on Ukraine war allegedly blocked by Valve

CSGO map ‘de_voyna’ is designed to offer uncensored news on the invasion of Ukraine to players in Russia, but its creators claim it has been blocked by Valve.

Ed Smith

Published: Jun 1, 2023

A CSGO map that contains a hidden room full of uncensored information about the invasion of Ukraine has allegedly been blocked by Valve, making it inaccessible to players who have Russian IP addresses. The map, ‘de_voyna,’ is created by Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, and is partially decorated with images, news reports, and video footage outlining Russian military actions in Ukraine. The purpose of the FPS game map is to circumvent news censorship in Russian, and provide unfiltered information regarding the war to Russian CSGO players. Helsingin Sanomat however now alleges that Valve has blocked Russian players from accessing de_voyna.

Resembling a war-torn, Eastern Europen city, de_voyna takes advantage of CSGO's free-roaming spectator camera, allowing players who have been eliminated from the current round to clip through walls and locate a secret room, which contains information and reports on Russian actions in Ukraine. You can see more of de_voyna here.

As news and media are censored in Russia, Helsingin Sanomat designed de_voyna to provide Russian CSGO players with unedited information about the invasion of Ukraine. However, the newspaper now alleges that Valve has specifically blocked the map for players with Russian IP addresses.

"Censoring a single custom map from Russia or any other country is probably impossible, because it would be impossible to target the censorship so precisely," Helsingin Sanomat claims.

"If the Russian authorities wanted to prevent the spread of the map, they would probably have to block players from accessing the entire Steam service through which Valve's games are played. Thus, it is obvious that the blocking has been done on the end of the game service provider Valve in the United States."

PCGamesN has contacted both Valve and Helsingin Sanomat for comment and will update this story with any further information.

In the meantime, get the latest on the Counter-Strike 2 release date and check out the Counter-Strike 2 system requirements that we expect to be announced by Valve.