In March 2025, we informed you about a fan remake of Counter-Strike 1.6 in the Source Engine, CS:Legacy. However, it appears that this fan remake is now running into some legal trouble with Valve.
For those who did not know, CS:Legacy is built from the ground up with 100% custom code and game assets. The game will be using Valve’s official 2013 Source Engine SDK codebase, with its own major rewrites to the renderer, shaders and various systems.
Midnight Madness wants to bring back everything people loved about the original game. It will keep the classic CS style but will also add better graphics, and smoother gameplay. Players can also expect new tech to make it feel more modern.
The devs said they got a message from someone at Valve. That person warned them that using the name and content from Counter-Strike might not be allowed anymore unless they get a special license. If this is true, it could stop them from releasing CS:Legacy as a free remake of CS 1.6. So now, Midnight Madness has two choices: cancel the game, or change it so it doesn’t use anything from Counter-Strike.
Midnight Madness reached out to Valve’s legal team to make sure they get a clear, official stance on this specific matter. They also made sure to tell Valve that they were are ready to make any changes, adaptations or restrictions to their project that they see fit. So far, Valve has not responded to that email.
The good news is that Valve has allowed fan-made remakes before. One of the most famous is Black Mesa, a remake of Half-Life. But Half-Life is a single-player game. Counter-Strike, on the other hand, is an online game that still makes Valve a lot of money. So, a fan remake of CS 1.6 might be something Valve wants to stop.
We’ll be monitoring this story and we’ll be sure to share an update as soon as we get one. Until then, you can read Midnight Madness’s full statement about these legal issues.
Below, you can find the debut trailer for CS:Legacy. As you will see, it looks pretty great. So, that might be another reason why Valve would want to shut it down. And if that’s the plan, I hope Midnight Madness will remove all references to CS so that it can release it as a new standalone game.
Stay tuned for more!
— CS:Legacy (@CSLegacyGame) July 2, 2025
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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But …. but …. but I though Valve/Steam were the good guys !!!!
What is "soylent fagshit" about this? It doesn't look bad at all honestly. In fact, it looks pretty good actually.
as someone who never played global offensive, can someone explain me what is going on? Do the classic 1.6 maps not exist anymore?
Anyone can make these maps for Counter-Strike 2 in Source 2 Engine. There is no need to make an entirely new competing game using Valve owned IPs and putting Valve in an awkward position to come with an legitimate excuse to block them without any community pushback. And besides both the maps shown in the trailer are currently in CS2 using Source 2 Engine and look much better than the ones in the trailer since they are using Source 1 Engine for CS Legacy.
so i can find all the classic maps from 1.5?
Yes you can find hundreds of CS 1.6 and CSGO maps ported to CS2 on the CS2 steam workshop.
Thats why you never ever ever ever announce anything, you just do it secretly then RELEASE IT EVERYWHERE AT ONCE… so they cant stop you.
Been saying the same thing about all those Nintendo Hire This Man projects for years. Stop showing off WIP, keep your head down until you can launch, then launch. At that point the product is in people's hands and the company trying to shut you down must openly antagonize the CUSTOMER instead of just you.
Yep, exactly!
I was doing a couple of arts in the last couple of months, I was preparing a couple of them but never uploaded many of them publicly, because I wanted to make more and upload them all at around the same time, but then the roblox of life intervened.
I sure would've felt so bad if I uploaded some of them whenever one of them was uploaded and then had to take my time to read the comments (which sadly I don't have the time to sit down and cheer the comments due to life troubles).
"The fan remake of Counter-Strike 1.6 is encountering legal issues"
Say it how it is. VALVE ARE SHUTTING DOWN YET ANOTHER MOD. Don't protect Valve by leaving them out of the headline. Valve have chosen to go the "corporate" route despite not being publicly owned. Their greed knows no bounds and they are acting completely the opposite of how they used to act regarding mods. They used to allow everything and then BUY the best stuff and publish it themselves. That's how CS happened. Now they shut down mod projects, terrified they might impact their skins gambling bottom line on CS2.
Valve is the new Nintendon't. 😃👍
Fu** them anyway.
Here's a list of much better (new and old) tactical shooters for you:
Arma 3, Easy Red 2, Ground Branch, Insurgency Sandstorm(not a Source mod like the first game), Ready or Not, SWAT 4, and last but not least, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six – Rogue Spear + Black Ops 2.0 MOD.
Who the hell still play Counter-Strike in 2025?
It's as bad as paying Fortnite.