Counter-Strike 2 is doing exceptionally well. As of Saturday March 15, Valve’s multiplayer shooter achieved a new concurrent player count record, with a staggering 1,824,989 people playing CS2 simultaneously. Deadlock is standing strong. Half-Life 3…might still happen. Needless to say, the House of Gabe is alive and kicking. But what about the glory days? What about Counter-Strike 1.6, the greatest game (yes) in the entire series? You can still play the original, of course, but if you want a refreshed version, a complete CS 1.6 remake is now in the works, and it’s made by some of the best modders in the series’ history.
Welcome to CS: Legacy, a top-to-bottom remake of Counter-Strike 1.6 built using Valve’s 2013 Source SDK (software development kit). All the assets and code are custom-made. The FPS game is completely standalone – this isn’t a mod for CS:GO, Counter-Strike 2, or any of the other shooters in the series. According to the development team, some parts of the SDK have been rewritten to improve the rendering, shader, and other systems. The result looks fantastic. It’s the gameplay of CS 1.6, complete with crouch running and jumping, viewmodel bobs, and wallbangs, but with modern visuals. Pay particular attention to CS: Legacy’s versions of Nuke and Pool Day:
CS: Legacy comes from some of the developers previously involved with CS ProMod, the erstwhile fan remake that mixed old-school Counter-Strike mechanics and movement with enhanced visuals. After the launch of Global Offensive back in 2012, development of ProMod fell by the wayside – most of the improvements and features of ProMod were present in CSGO itself. Nevertheless, if you’ve been hoping for a remake of CS 1.6, it’s hard to think of a group of modders that is better suited to bring it to launch.
Keep in mind, CS: Legacy is separate from Classic Offensive, which takes the movement and gameplay of classic Counter-Strike and combines them with the visuals of CSGO. That mod was originally scheduled to release this month, but its creator has been contacted by Valve over concerns that Classic Offensive does not comply with the Half-Life maker’s company guidelines. As it stands, there is no release date yet for CS: Legacy.
If you’re a big classic CS fan, check out the other best old games that you can still run on your PC today, or maybe get a load of the best multiplayer games available right now.
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