The best version of Counter-Strike is getting a ground-up remake

Counter-Strike 1.6 is getting a full remake, courtesy of the ProMod team. Dubbed CS: Legacy, this remake will be a ground-up rebuild using the official Source Engine SDK. If you aren’t familiar with ProMod, it was a mod created after the community (mostly unanimously) agreed that CS: Source didn’t live up to its potential. ProMod was designed to provide competitive players with a more streamlined, focused experience that revolved around high-level gameplay.

Counter-Strike 1.6 is widely considered to be the best entry in the franchise, so news of a remake from a celebrated modding team is exciting — especially when Counter-Strike 2 just broke its all-time player record over the weekend. While details remain scarce, the team says the game features “fully custom assets and game code” as well as “rewrites to the renderer, shaders, and various systems.”

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The social media announcement is accompanied by a two-minute trailer that shows off some of the maps, movement, and more. The most obvious change is the updated graphics, but it’s not hard to see a jump from a game first released in 2003. Even though the look of the maps are more polished, don’t worry: it still retains that classic, gritty Counter-Strike feel.

Introducing CS:Legacy, a fully standalone remake of Counter-Strike 1.6, built from the ground up on Valve’s official Source Engine SDK, and our follow up project to CSPromod.
The game features fully custom assets and game code, on top of our own major rewrites to the renderer,…

— CS:Legacy (@CSLegacyGame) March 16, 2025

The custom graphics system gives the game a more modern look, but if we had to guess, it won’t be too demanding even on older systems. The trailer only demoed a few guns, but each had a heavy, visceral sound that fit the original game. Everything we’ve seen so far suggests CS: Legacy will capture everything that set Counter-Strike 1.6 apart from the crowd and will breathe new life into the competitive shooter scene.

The team didn’t provide a release date, but says the game is launching later this year in early access. Anyone interested in supporting the team can do so through CS: Legacy‘s Patreon page. Updates are available through most social media platforms, and there’s a Discord interested players can join.