A Counter-Strike 1.6 remake by some of the most experienced modders in the game’s history has been announced and is coming to Steam. The game is called Counter-Strike: Legacy, will apparently launch in early access this year, and is built using Valve’s 2013 Source software development kit “on top of our own major rewrites to the renderer, shaders and various systems.”

The project has been announced with a trailer that shows, yep, this sure looks like a much prettier version of 1.6 but is fundamentally still 1.6. I’m far from an expert but everything about the way this moves seems perfect, and the footage goes out of its way to showcase the movement around environments and various skill shots.

“Wow, it really gives me old CS 1.6 vibes,” says Minh ‘Gooseman’ Le, one of the co-creators of Counter-Strike. “I love it! They even used the original animations for the character deaths and weapons. Hopefully Valve allows this to get released without any issues…”

The teaser suggests a veneer of legitimacy to this, and Valve is obviously a generally pro-modding company that has allowed, for example, the Half-Life remake Black Mesa to officially release on Steam. However, it’s also recently blocked a similar-ish CS:GO 1.6 mod, Classic Offensive, from being on Steam.

I’ve reached out to ask whether CS: Legacy has Valve’s blessing (and what the CS2 team thinks of it), and will update with any response.

Watch the Official Announcement Trailer on YouTube

The teaser also mentions that this comes from some of the team behind ProMod, a fan remake project dating back to 2006 that had its origins in dissatisfaction with 2004’s Counter-Strike: Source. The idea there was basically 1.6 but with better graphics, but then Counter-Strike: Global Offensive launched in 2012 and ProMod’s development also ground to a halt.