A "from-the-ground-up" fan remake of Counter-Strike 1.6 has just been announced with an impressive new trailer. And better yet, it is expected to arrive in Early Access on Steam sometime later this year (thanks PC Gamer!)
CS: Legacy is described as "a fully standalone remake of Counter-Strike 1.6" and has been built using Valve's official Source Engine SDK.
According to the announcement, it is being developed by a bunch of veteran Counter-Strike modders, some of whom previously worked on CSPromod — a famous community version of Counter-Strike that aimed to improve the experience of playing and broadcasting Counter-Strike for competitive eSports settings.
As the team reports, the remake will feature full custom assets and game code, and will also see the developers doing a rewrite of the renderer, shaders, and various other systems to try to bring the classic shooter up to date.
Asked for his thoughts, Minh "Gooseman" Lee — the co-creator of the Counter-Strike series — seemed to give his approval to the project, stating below the announcement post on Twitter/X, "Wow, it really gives me old CS 1.6 vibes. I love it! They even used the original animations for the character deaths and weapons."
He did, however, also express some fears about whether Valve would let the team release it "without any issues".
After all, the company recently "retired" an ambitious mod called Counter-Strike: Classic Offensive earlier this year, which aimed to emulate the Counter-Strike 1.6 experience inside Counter-Strike Global Offensive, with the developer of that project currently talking to Valve to try and come up with a solution.
This has set members of the Counter-Strike community slightly on edge, especially when it comes to releasing games on Steam featuring Valve's IP.
You can watch the trailer for the project below: