Counter-Strike modders are remaking the classic shooter, and they’re using Valve’s official Source Engine SDK to do it

There are two shooters that I imagine will never die, because they just seem to hang on despite being incredibly old and plenty of other games coming out in the mean-time: Team Fortress 2, and Counter-Strike (both Valve games, funnily enough – they’ve clearly got the Source (sorry)). Counter-Strike 2, which came out back in 2023, is the most played shooter of all time on Steam in fact, but even now the original game is still pretty popular. There’s literally more than 16,000 people playing it right now. And though it might not be official, a group of modders have come together to remake the 1.6 version of the game.

Titled CS: Legacy, the team behind it want you to know that this isn’t just a fancy mod of the classic shooter, but a “from the ground up” remaking made with completely custom code and original assets. It should still have that same Valve feel to it, though, as the entire thing is being made in the developer’s official 2013 Source Engine SDK, albeit with some tinkering with its renderer, shaders, and a few other systems.

According to the trailer (which you can have a gander at above), it’ll be coming to Steam in early access some time this year. It being a standalone thing certainly might suggest that it has the all-clear from Valve, which wouldn’t be that surprising given how chill the studio is with this kind of thing – I’ll remind you of that OG Half-Life remake Black Mesa that came out… half a decade ago apparently!

I’m not much of a shooty person, nor have I ever even played Counter-Strike, but I do love a good fan project like this, and judging from the comments on the trailer, fans of the original shooter seem pretty pumped about this one.