Valve buys fan favourite Counter-Strike map from creator: ‘They reached out to buy it on day 1…. a great honor and I don’t want anyone to think we hesitated for one moment’

Cache co-creator Shawn “FMPHONE” Snelling has announced that Valve has bought the map outright, following its addition to the CS2 Workshop in early March, and a mention in the background of the game’s latest update. Responding to player Aqua saying “this pretty much confirms that Valve bought Cache,” FMPHONE confirmed the news:

“Thank you for playing Cache,” said FMPHONE on X. “Thank you to Sal Garozzo for allowing me to work on his original creation for so many years. Thank you to

Counter-Strike for being Counter-Strike!”

Sal Garozzo, who goes by the handle Volcano, is the original creator of Cache and, in a nice full-circle moment, is the co-lead on Riot’s CS2 competitor Valorant. FMPHONE went on to give a little more detail on the purchase.

“Out of respect for the development team I withheld comment,” said FMPHONE, “but they reached out to buy it on day 1 of [the recent Workshop] release. It was a great honor and I don’t want anyone to think we hesitated for one moment.

“Valve previously offered to buy the map one other time, around 2013-2015 (can’t remember). They gave the option to keep it in our own hands and ride out the Operations, or let them buy it. At that time we rode out the Operations because we had total confidence in the map’s popularity.”

In response to a player expressing gratitude that the map would now permanently be a part of Counter-Strike, FMPHONE said he “agreed completely” and “the map is in great hands now.” One more query relates to a piece of graffiti, which was removed in the CS2 version, celebrating s1mple’s absurd no-scope double AWP kill on Cache during ESL One Cologne in 2016: it’s not in the current Workshop version, but FMPHONE confirmed that “Valve has the rights to this art now as well.”

Cache first released in 2014, and was a part of CS:GO’s competitive map pool until 2019 (it was last played competitively at IEM Katowice 2019). CS2 arrived with enhanced and reworked versions of many classic maps, but Cache was left to FMPHONE: who certainly delivered, because the Workshop version is gorgeous and great to play. Valve is likely to have its own fiddle with this, but I wouldn’t expect huge changes to what’s already in the Workshop.

As for Valve, the official Counter-Strike account simply responded to FMPHONE’s confirmation with an emoji of a handshake.

Cache has been a fan favourite ever since it appeared on the scene, initially as a custom CS:GO map and then in a reworked and Valve-sanctioned version. It’ll clearly find its way into the competitive pool soon, and Valve has added another chapter to Counter-Strike’s long and proud history of community development.