Half-Life Legacy
2025 (Steam)
Half-Life Legacy is a fan-made restoration project developed by The Phoenix Project Software. Originally released on February 22, 2020 under the name Half-Life Classic, it is the first entry in Half-Life: The Legacy Collection, a series of enhanced versions of 
Half-Life, 
Half-Life: Opposing Force, and 
Half-Life: Blue Shift. The project's goal is to preserve the original 1998-2001 experience of the games, including menus, intro movies, sounds, and more, while integrating modern technical improvements, bug fixes, and Steamworks features.
On September 14, 2025, it was announced that Half-Life Legacy would be launching on Steam at an unannounced date.
Overview
Originally announced as Half-Life Classic in 2020, the project was renamed in 2025 to coincide with its Steam release. Additionally, The Phoenix Project Software announced the game would become part of an "anthology" known as The Legacy Collection, featuring the expansions with the same fixes and restorations applied.
Features
When it originally released in 2020, Half-Life Legacy's aim was to simply restore features and quirks of the launch version of Half-Life, that had been cut by Valve during updates throughout the 2000s. However, the 2023 GoldSrc (25th anniversary) update made a few of the changes reduntant, so the project's focus has moved on to more subtle and in-depth details that still haven't been restored officially.
Restorations & bug-fixes
- Viewmodel bob tilt & viewroll (not applied in Multiplayer)
- HD-compatible HUD scaling
- OpenGL texture filtering option
- Removal of bunnyhop speed-cap (still applied in Multiplayer)
- Resolved Z-fighting issues in and around the Half-Life campaign maps
New features
- Steam Achievements
- Dynamic weapon lighting
- Autojump option
- Enhanced controller support (PS light bar, vibration, impulse triggers) using Steam Input
- Censorship filter option mimicking the 1998 German release
Updates
Half-Life Legacy has received a few updates since its initial February 2020 release, with each update restoring, adding, and fixing different features.
1.0 (February 2020)
- Restored viewmodel bob tilt
- Restored viewroll
1.1 (April 2020)
- Restored charge-sensitive Tau cannon lighting
- Removed OpenGL texture filtering
1.2 (April 2020)
- Restored the Glock's "chambered bullet" mechanism.
- Fixed game stuttering issues.
- Made in-game text bigger.
- Added an option to switch between the "WON fire-rate" and "Steam fire-rate" for the MP5.
1.3 (February 2022)
- Added menu options.
- Fixed Glock not reloading on 18 bullets.
- Set the "fall-punch" to move forward, and not sideways, for more parity with the original Half-Life release.
- Added dynamic lighting effects for all weapons and muzzle-flash events.
- Added native Linux support.
- Dropped native macOS support.
1.4 (October 2024)
Version 1.4 was released on October 17, 2024 and is currently the latest version of the mod. As it was the first to release post-25th anniversary, this update focuses on more subtle changes and details, with quality-of-life improvements.
- Full compatibility with the 25th Anniversary Version of Half-Life.
- Complete rewrite of codebase, based on the latest version of the Half-Life Updated SDK.
- Added deathmatch.
- Recreated the original WON version menu with all listings intact.
- Restored the original Sierra & Valve intro video.
- Removed all unnecessary files, as the Half-Life base-game folder is used as a fallback.
- Removed the option to change the MP5's fire-rate as it was not authentic to the original version of the game.
1.5 (upcoming)
Version 1.5 is an upcoming update to launch alongside the Steam release. The Phoenix Project Software has detailed its new features compared to 1.4 on the mod's Steam store page.
- Added enhanced controller support with Steam Input - vibration & lightbar reactivity.
- Added German censorship mode - mimics the original censored German release of Half-Life.
- Added an option to toggle autojump.
- Added an option to toggle OpenGL texture filtering.
- Added Steam Achievements.
- Resolved Z-fighting issues throughout the game's campaign.
- Higher quality textures for weapon viewmodels restored.
It has also been reported that Steam Workshop (also in 
) support for the mod is in the works.