Source-enhanced Counterstrike coming this summer

By Kristan Reed Published 12 May, 2004

Plus all original Half-Life content to be made available in updated form at the same time...

The legendary online FPS Counter-Strike is to receive a Souce-engine makeover and re-released this summer, Valve boss Gabe Newell revealed at E3 this morning.

Following the latest showing of numerous gameplay demos of Half-Life 2 (which will be available for download via Eurogamer later today), Newell surprised the 20-strong audience by showing off the Aztec level of Counter-Strike running in Source.

When quizzed, he said that the game would not be a free update, but would in fact be released commercially via retail and for download via Steam at the same time as Half-Life 2, at the end of this summer.

All other Half-Life content would also be made available in enhanced form, he said, including Half-Life itself, Team Fortress, Opposing Force and Blue Shift. It is not known what the retail price will be, but it is thought to be at standard budget price.

Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

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Comments (16) Latest comment 8 years ago

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  • Dabs #1 8 years ago

    What does this mean? Counter-strike, Half-Life, etc. will be released in Source and actually look like a Source-engined game (ie. massively improved graphically, brought up to modern standards) or will just be they'll same-looking games running on a spiffier engine? If it's the former, Wow!

  • krudster #2 8 years ago

    They will look like Source engined games, with all the physics and character model upgrades basically. Saw Aztec map running and it was very nice indeed...check out the video we've just posted in the files section.

  • Dabs #3 8 years ago

    Cool, will do that now. Cheers Kristan. :)

  • Shivoa #4 8 years ago

    I suspect the artists have gone over the old and updated it (models higher poly, textures increased in side to add details, bumpmaps created for the textures, surfaces defined so pixel shaders work) just like blue shift gave us updated weapon models in HL and CS has regularly updated with higher detail textures and models. Of course as this is a new engine it unlocks all the pixel shader goodness and probably adds a bit in terms of physics. Remember id talking about the possibilty of doing a Quake 2 rerelease with the Doom 3 engine and such, same plan by the sounds of it.

    I can't say I'm that enthusiastic and I hope the people working on the update are external as after all the problems with content creation slowing down the HL2 release it would be a shame to hear that those same artists were slowed down even more by also having to update the old content to release at about the same time. If they did a GoTY type package will all the titles above, redone, in one box for £20 I might go for it but I can't see nostalgia making this a huge hit when the other option os buying a game built from the ground up to use the new tech (HL2) or similarly competent competition (Doom3, assuming it makes a similar release date).

  • Mant #5 8 years ago

    Your not alone Spiffae, i was thinking the same thing after watching all of the Doug movie, which was good btw EG.

  • Shinji #6 8 years ago

    Half-Life 2 and CounterStrike video is now in the files section... Clicketty click :)

  • Freek #7 8 years ago

    Seems they putt Counterstrike into the Source engine with a few graphical upgrades but it's still just regular Counterstrike.
    But like they said when asked about "It's not Counterstrike 2", so ok they're not bullsh*tting us.

    It looks like they're just updating old games, sort of an almost remake, at budget prices so it's alright.

  • Dabs #8 8 years ago

    I don't normally gratuitously swear but Fucking Hell!

    My eyes were literally watering tears of disbelief/joy when I watched that. Very blurry but the HL2 characters look and act so lifelike and believable. The G-Man close up? Sinister as ever. And I was expecting it to look worse after a year, but it looks as good as it did back then, if not better.

    I can't wait, this has just 10-fold increased my wanting for this game and it was already my number-one most wanted.

  • groovychainsaw #9 8 years ago

    Sounds like a great idea to me - good work valve....

  • groovychainsaw #10 8 years ago

    oh, and 9600xt IS a budget card - you can get a 9800 pro for the same price now, with about 20-25% more power....

  • Whizzo #11 8 years ago

    9600*XT* is definately not a budget card.

    It was always the lesser of the two ranges when the 9600 and 9800 cards were launched.


    From the video the water looked damned spiffy when the guys above were shooting at those below, not really important but very nice.

  • HarryB #12 8 years ago

    If they release a special edition box with Half-Life 2 and all of these updates it would be pretty good as long as it was only about £50

    They should do Day of Defeat as well since that has struggled with the crappy half life 1 engine for ages when they try so hard to get more and more out of it :)

  • HarryB #13 8 years ago

    .... and 9600XT was never worth the money, it's a 9600 pro with higher speeds a little bit

    the 9500 pro was much better in my opinion

  • MikeD #14 8 years ago

    the 9600 series was a middle-end series. there's buget (9000-9200). 'normal' (9500-9600) and highend (9700-9800xt).

  • WoodenSpoon #15 8 years ago

    You forgot the screen.

    I'm no expert by a long way, but is it really £40 for an 80GB HDD?

    Anyway, then there's the fact that not everyone can assemble their own PC, so they either get someone to do it for them - further cost, get a pre-built comp - more then £395 (Or learn, I suppose).

  • MikeD #16 8 years ago

    Quite right woody, but i think his point was that some people exaggerate greatly.

    HP (and their brand compaq) are finally going to do decent gamepc's so that should be good. Dell should follow suit.