The team behind CS: Legacy announces an independent IP

The development team behind Counter-Strike: Legacy published a long post on X, affirming their dedication towards the classic Counter-Strike project and dropping a few updates regarding the path ahead if incase Valve pulls a "Classic-Offensive" again. A Counter-Strike mod- "Classic Offensive" previously green-lit by Valve was shut down hours before release citing guidelines violations. Classic Offensive combined the popular elements across all Counter-Strike iterations into a mod that would run on the base Counter-Strike: Global Offensive game.

CS: Legacy, is a similar project that surfaced after Valve blocked Classic Offensive's release. Unlike Classic Offensive, CS: Legacy is a "fully standalone remake of Counter-Strike 1.6, built from the ground up on Valve's official Source Engine SDK", meaning which CS: Legacy is not a mod for any iteration of Counter-Strike but a Counter-Strike iteration itself. The project involves developers from the famous CSPromod venture that aimed to integrate classic and nostalgic elements from Counter-Strike 1.6 into Counter-Strike Source. CS: Legacy features entirely new assets and code, reusing nothing from any existing Counter-Strike games.

Despite our repeated attempts over the past few months to get clarification, and to see how we could adapt the project to be able to release it on their terms, they unfortunately never replied.
CS: Legacy's development team

The team behind CS: Legacy made their skepticism clear when it came to Valve permitting a full scale release of their title and in a significant announcement, they revealed their own game engine. The "Godot Engine" unveiled by CS: Legacy is said to be a light-weight game engine like the Source series, allowing the developers to replicate the gameplay and overall feel of Counter-Strike.

However the CS: Legacy team has also expressed their intent to have one last go at their original plans in an attempt to reopen their communication with Valve. "That said, should we find a solution that allows a release, we will resume development, release the project, and let the community contribute content ASAP", said the development team in their post on X.

Here are a few sneak-peeks from the Godot Engine provided by the CS: Legacy team: