Modders working on ‘demake’ of Half-Life 2 in Half-Life 1 engine

There are several mods and remakes that have given the graphics of Half-Life 1 and 2 a lot of polish. The team making Half-Life 2: Classic takes a different approach: their goal is to completely recreate the second part of Half-Life in the Half-Life 1 engine.

A team of five modders are working on the so-called demake. Sockman111 has uploaded a first playable demo to ModDB and uploaded a video showing an alpha version. The demo contains the first chapter, but it is incomplete and contains many errors. For example, the characters’ mouths don’t move when they talk and players can get hurt when they get on the train.

The makers say they downgrade Half-Life 2 simply because they like it, but also give the reason that many people like the feel of the GoldSrc engine or find the gameplay of Half-Life better than that of Half-Life 2. Whether the team will be able to port the complete game to the old engine remains to be seen. Elements like the Gravity Gun and the Striders are likely to be difficult to transfer.

Players do not need to own Half-Life 2 to play the mod, but do need to own a copy of the original Half-Life. That game is from 1998 and is made in the GoldSrc engine. That is a heavily modified version of the Quake engine and GoldSrc formed the basis for the Source engine, which was used for Half-Life 2.