In the spirit of "why the hell not", a group of five modders is recreating Half-Life 2 in the Half-Life engine. There may be practical reasons for using this mod – maybe you don't own a copy of Half-Life 2 but you do own a copy of Half-Life – but these demakes are usually done just to see if they're possible. 

So far, so good: the team has already completed the game's first chapter, but they need help – especially from programmers and modelers. The mod's demo is currently available on ModDB, where you can also follow its progress.

"You might be aware that this has already been attempted already, but none of these have actually panned out," the description reads. "With Half-Life 2 Classic, we hope to communicate more with the community, so that even if we don't manage to recreate the whole game, we can still release a substantial part of it, which can be continued by someone else in the future."

Meanwhile, whether the mod will be a deliberately retro-styled outing, or whether they'll try to match Half-Life 2's fidelity, is yet to be seen. "We're still debating if we should stick close to Half-Life 2's graphics, or if we should downgrade them on purpose, and if so, how much. We may even make optional high-res models for the hd model pack, while keeping the base game's models low-res. But it depends on what most people want."

Check out the mod in action below. Cheers, Kotaku.

Glitches, at least to some degree, are a tolerated part of gaming. We expect that, every once in awhile, something is bound to break. Sometimes these glitches are harmless bugs that make characters move weird or objects act unexpectedly. But sometimes you encounter a whole different kind of glitch that either ruins the game entirely or leaves you scratching your head as you try and figure out what the hell is going on.

Last week we asked our readers to share stories of their best encounters with glitches. Over 100 of you responded and we’ve taken our favorites and compiled them below. Some are sad, some are bizarre, and others are downright hilarious. 

Zalbaar the Magnificent 

A lot of glitches fall into basic tropes like character animations breaking or textures being swapped. But baedeker's story makes me laugh because of the sheer absurdity of it. It's like if someone made a crossover between Star Wars and Duncan Jones' Moon.

Commenter: baedeker

Back in 2003, I was playing Knights of the Old Republic, and I had gotten off the first planet Taris and was on Tatooine. Obviously going between planets I was entering the ship, Ebon Hawk, quite a few times. What I started to notice is Zaalbar had duplicated within the ship. Game worked fine so I found it funny and carried on, thinking the doppelganger would disappear once I re-entered the ship. I left the ship and re-entered after doing a few quests to see Zaalbar had replicated himself another two times. There were now four Zaalbars looking in the same direction standing next to each other. I re-entered the ship, and there were now eight, then 16. At this point Ebon Hawk's hull was filled with a the horde of Zaalbars. My game was running at 2 fps and made using the ship very painful. I think I gave up on the playthrough as I finished a few times before. Later down the line I found I had the Double Zaalbar Glitch which must of doubled the double glitch.

Super Civ 

Listen, I'm not much for min-maxing but when you build a civilization so powerful that you can discover new technology and knowledge just merely by thinking about it—like this is the Matrix or something—that's pretty crazy. This obviously wasn't a glitch due to some shoddy code, but because the developers never imagined someone would push the limits of the game this far.

Commenter: Jimmy

Back when I was playing Civilization 2, I ended up making one "super civilization." My production in some cities and total science research level went so high that it literally broke the production and technology counters. The game displayed that I would discover new technologies every "-1 turn" and some cities could also produce the most complex buildings in "-1 turn." At first, it didn't have any real effect because buildings and research were still actually completed in one turn. However, it ended up completely breaking the game because one turn would not end because I was endlessly discovering future technologies and the game kept spamming the technology tree for a new tech to research. At first I was like "LOL!!! Ok, let's crank this up and complete this game with a ridiculously high score." But I ended up realizing I would not complete the game if my turn would not end. Out of curiosity, I kept spamming new technology research just to see if it would end at some point, but got bored after 20-30 minutes and I just started a new game, making sure to never break that science research level again.

Your own worst enemy 

I don't even know what to say about this one.

Commenter: Darkrage.nl

Crusader Kings II: I had a character who was supporting his own assassination plot led by his son. After several failed attempts he finally succeeded by poisoning his own wine.

The Flying Dutchmen

We had a lot of submissions about the Assassin's Creed series which are, unsurprisingly, very buggy games. But this story comes with photos which, to me, only enhances the hilarity of a bunch of sailors hanging on for dear life as their ship ascends into low-orbit like a space shuttle.

Commenter: Awesome!

I played Assassin's Creed: Black Flag for the first time last year. I went into my ship's cabin and came back out onto the deck only to find my ship had acquired a taste for something greater than water.

Fashion faux pas 

I'm not a good judge of what is fashionable these days (or any day) but something tells me Zloth's bold reimagining of the mini skirt would set the fashion world on fire. His story about his first capital ship in X3: Terran Conflict is harrowing, however.

Commenter: Zloth

Well, there was the time (might have been while beta testing) in City of Heroes where texture for miniskirts got rotated 90 degrees. Wouldn't have been a problem except there were supposed to be slits on the sides.

Or X3: Terran Conflict where you would save and save and FINALLY earn enough money to buy your own capital ship, so you would go to a star base and purchase one of these huge ships. You would order it to go somewhere and watch as your massive investment would undock and slowly tip its nose downward, away from the station, in order to thrust away. Of course, that meant the tail of the ship went upward—right into the starbase. The shielding would drop like a rock, then the hit points, and then your pride and joy would turn into a star for a couple of seconds. Hope you saved your game. 

Murder mystery 

Bad enemy AI is sometimes frustrating and sometimes hilarious. This story in particular made me laugh out loud just because of how stupid it is.

Commenter: doplerradar

Assassin's Creed 3 DLC. It was so buggy. Enemies were complete idiots, occasionally they'd try to shoot me while on the other side of a wall, and a wolf got stuck in a hay bale once. One time they executed a woman by firing squad and the officer went up to the body and said "What happened here?"

The real monster 

The Witcher 3 is an incredible game but, holy hell, is it buggy sometimes. We've all heard stories of Roach's shenanigans and the weird squat-walking bug that makes NPCs strut around like the Minister of Silly Walks. But MrGlobbits video is particularly funny to me because—oh my god what is going on with his head!?

Commenter: MrGlobbits

One day while walking through Novigrad...

Wallhacks 

Hacking is a serious thing in most multiplayer shooters. But if I was in Martin's shoes, I'd happily do whatever I needed to in order to get away with bags full of money in Payday. Who knew that no-clipping was a viable strategy for bank robbery?

Commenter: Martin Cummerou

The very first time I played Payday: The Heist, I clipped through the map and ended up underneath it. I figured this would be the end of my short career as a robber, however, I found out (because I was bored) that I could shoot enemies from below the map, and they could not shoot back. So I proceeded to kill every single enemy that spawned while the rest of my team hid and got the loot. My team then thanked me by running away with the loot.

City of Ghosts 

Of all the glitch stories shared, Branovices is my favorite. It's the kind of bizarre thing that you can't help but laugh at. How a city with a population of zero ended up collapsing into civil unrest almost reads like satire.

Commenter: Branovices

I founded a new city in SimCity 2000 and started setting everything up, but no one was moving in. No matter what I built or how much I lowered taxes, the population was zero. Then it got weird. My nonexistent citizens started complaining about how bad the nonexistent traffic was. Eventually the situation became so intolerable to everyone (no one?) a riot broke out. 

To recap: A city with a population of zero had a riot over traffic congestion.

These were just a few of our favorite stories. Head over to the comment thread from last week in order to see the rest.

Commenters were edited for clarity and grammar.

Despite a rocky launch involving a power outage, Divinity: Original Sin 2 quickly claimed the top spot on Steam. Yesterday, another milestone was reached. Last night it boasted the fourth highest number of concurrent players on Steam, with only PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 having more at the time. 

That number continued to rise until it peaked at 75,429 concurrent players yesterday evening. While that still puts it far off the astronomical player numbers of the top three, it’s comparable to other huge games like Grand Theft Auto 5 and Team Fortress 2. 

As PGamesN point out, this makes it one of the strongest launches for a CRPG, beating both the first Original Sin and Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity. They boasted a concurrent player peak of 22k and 42k, respectively. The actual number will undoubtedly be higher, as well, since this is just taking into account users on Steam, and not those playing through GOG’s platform. 

The success is well-deserved. I’m busy working my way through the game for my review, but so far I’ve been incredibly impressed. It’s a ridiculously liberating game, fat with ways to experiment and absolutely laden with with brilliant fights and strong writing. Last night I took co-op for a spin for the first time, and I pickpocketed my buddy while he was chatting to a quest giver, then forced us to get in several fights we were unprepared for. We fell battling teleporting crocodiles. We died the way we lived. 

If you’re thinking of playing, or maybe you’ve just started, why not check out my Divinity: Original Sin 2 beginner’s guide?

Total War: Warhammer 2, which launches on September 28, has become the victim of a heist this week. A delivery van transporting copies of the collector’s edition was robbed of its precious cargo in Milton Keynes, UK. 

Only 7,000 copies of the Serpent God Edition were created, but Creative Assembly have urged people not to worry—their pre-orders won’t be affected by the theft.

"We'd like to reassure fans who have pre-ordered their Serpent God Edition that this incident will not affect them receiving their copy," Total War brand director Rob Bartholemew said. "Copies of the game obtained before launch will not be playable until the game is activated at 8am BST on launch day."

Each copy of the Serpent God edition costs £100 and contains the game, as well as a Slann puzzle globe, carved teeth totems, a canvas map, a Saurus Warrior Blade USB, an art book, an insider strategy guide and the new Race Pack DLC for the first Warhammer.

At least the thieves won’t be able to play for a while, hopefully giving the police enough time t find them and fling them into the Vortex.

Cheers, Eurogamer. 

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ unstoppable rise continues, with the game hitting yet another milestone today. The massively popular battle royale shooter has now broken Dota 2’s record for highest concurrent player count on Steam. 

Yes, Dota 2’s 1.29 million record has been shattered, with PUBG hitting 1.3 million concurrent players. That’s the most people playing at the same time any game on Steam has boasted. 

This is even more impressive given that PUBG is still in Early Access, and the previous record holder is a free-to-play game developed by Valve.

SteamSpy was charting the game’s growth, and spotted the moment when it beat Dota 2’s record today. The number continues to rise, however, with Steamcharts showing a peak of 1,305,536. 

The number might continue to rise, though, as more people jump in to see the new update. The September update adds a new town on the east coast, and more importantly, foggy weather. This new weather has a low probability to occur, but when it does, it changes the game entirely. You can barely see in front of you, so the already tense game becomes even more nerve-racking. 

Are you one of the 1.3 million?

YouTuber Felix Kjellberg, better known to the world as Pewdiepie, kicked off (another) controversy over his use of racist language in a livestream when he dropped the n-word during a PUBG livestream. Sean Vanaman, founder of Firewatch developer Campo Santo, filed a DMCA takedown notice against the streamer in response, saying on Twitter that he was "sick of this child getting more and more chances to make money off of what we make." Yesterday, Pewdiepie put up a new video saying that the copyright strike had gone through, and while he appeared contrite, he also described the move as "an attack on me," and warned that his channel could be shut down if he receives one more. 

The video begins with Pewdiepie saying that Let's Plays and their creators exist is a sort of "grey area" with regards to copyright law. That, he claims, is because game developers "benefit massively" from Let's Play videos and livestreams, and so are unwilling to rock the boat. And he's probably correct about it being something of a Faustian pact.

"Minecraft is a billion-dollar title because of streamers—largely because of streamers and YouTubers," he says in the video. "Same thing [with] PUBG, I don't think—it probably would not be even nearly as big without streamers. And developers know this. This is pretty commonly known, and that's why even though, yes, we are making money through your games, it's still seen as something positive." 

From there, he shoots a few backhanded comments toward Firewatch, saying that he "quite enjoyed" the game despite listing numerous knocks against it, and then moves on to the legality of the claim against him, noting that there are plenty of arguments both for and against Campo Santo's use of the DMCA in this way. He also points out the studio's own policy regarding streaming, which explicitly states that people are free to stream the game and monetize their videos. 

Interestingly, he argues from there that while Campo Santo's copyright claim probably overrides the permissions granted on its website, he doesn't think it can retroactively withdraw that permission from videos that already exist. Despite that, he claims that he privatized his Firewatch video "out of respect" as soon as he saw Campo Santo's tweet about it, but the copyright strike went through anyway, which he said left him "pretty disappointed." 

"Whether you like me or Mr. Vanaman, these laws are made for people to take down content and whenever there's power to do so, it's going to be abused. And especially when the reason to take down the content has nothing to do with copyright, it sort of shows that. I think these laws are important for people, for artists to protect [their] work and what they do, and that's why I think it's really dangerous to make these sort of claims and to do these sort of copyright claims for no real valid reason, no matter what you think of me." 

"It's important that we don't abuse these laws because they exist to protect artists, not to make any form of censorship or abusive claims." 

It's a fair point: It's perfectly understandable that Campo Santo wouldn't want its games to be associated with Pewdiepie, but the DMCA is not (or at least should not be) mean to be used to force content offline simply because copyright holders don't like it. Yet according to the lawyers we spoke to, that appears to be the situation—and that's really not a good situation for anyone. 

Leatherface joined the cast of Dead by Daylight yesterday with a bit of $4 DLC that adds the "skin clad maniac," who the devs also note just wants to be accepted, to the asymmetrical survival horror game.

Leatherface will kill with "devastating sweeping attacks" from his chainsaw, of course, and his perks include Knockout, which hides dying survivor's auras; Barbecue & Chili, which reveals distant survivor's auras after you hook one of them; and Franklin's Demise which forces survivors to drop and damage their items. Poor Franklin.

Along with several original murderers, Leatherface joins fellow horror star Michael Myers, who was released with the Halloween DLC last year. On top of the new murderer, Dead by Daylight is currently discounted to $10, and is free-to-play this weekend.

Digital Extremes has released a new teaser showcasing some of the environments and action from the upcoming Warframe expansion Plains of Eidolon, which will see the launch of the game's first large, open-world "landscape." Players on the Plains will be confronted with new and old creatures and enemies, a brand-new Warframe, a day/night cycle, and "a gripping story told through interactive NPC characters who inhabit the bustling scavenger city of Cetus." 

Warframe: Plains of Eidolon will also see the introduction of the Ostrons, who scavenge biomechanical tissue from Orokin Towers, and new mission types that will enable the discovery and construction of new weapons, Warframes, and other items. "Experience a bristling new world where the wind rustles across your Syandana and the age and size of giant Orokin structures ominously looms in the background," the studio promised. "Earth will be more alive than ever before." 

We took an up-close look at Plains of Eidolon back in July, and spoke with the studio about what it has in mind for the expansion and how it expects the game will be changed once it's live. More recently, we got the details on the monstrous Eidolons that give the expansion its name: "Ten-story-tall behemoths that emerge at night to stomp across the plains." 

Today was also the day for Warframe devstream 98, which includes details on the upcoming changes to focus and a hefty chunk of Plains of Eidolon pre-release gameplay. You can watch the whole thing below, and catch the follow-up AMA on Reddit.

A new Total War: Warhammer 2 gameplay video takes an up-close look at the Lizardmen campaign, as Lord Mazdamundi, ruler of Hexoatl and the greatest living Slann Mage-Priest, shows off a number of features and abilities that are unique to his cold-blooded faction. 

One of the biggest is the Geomantic Web, "an ancient nexus of mystical powerlines" that connects all Lizardmen settlements and confers bonuses depending upon the strength of the connection. From there, the video touches on the four Rites unique to the faction, unit summoning, army abilities, the building browser, tech tree, and more.   

Another major Lizardmen feature: "blessed spawnings," which are "effectively elite versions of existing units" that become available through completing specific missions. Blessed units have better overall stats and the "perfect vigor" trait; the Blessed Carnosaur, for instance, moves 25 percent faster than the standard version, and has a 50 percent magic resistance buff, making it "a truly nasty piece of work." 

Total War: Warhammer 2 will be out on September 28. Get a look at some of the lovely worlds you'll do battle over in yesterday's Welcome to the New World teaser.   

Divinity: Original Sin 2's complexity can be daunting at first, and not everything is explained in detail. The good news is that a lot of early decisions can be taken back—you'll have a chance to respec later in the game—but just getting through the first few fights can be rough, even on Classic mode. To settle your nerves, we've compiled a few tips to help ensure you're set to adventure by the time you leave Fort Joy. (Speaking of, here's our walkthrough of all the ways in and out of Fort Joy, if you need extra guidance.)

Minor spoilers ahead for the first several hours, of course. These tips were last updated on September 29.

Pick an origin character

Original Sin 2’s robust character creator lets you cook up all manner of heroes and weirdos, but for the richest experience you’ll absolutely want to choose one of the origin characters. They are just as customisable as any other character you might make, but come with an origin story, extra voice acting and their own personal quests. The ones you don’t choose then become companions who can join you.

That said, don't fret too much if you prefer to play as a character of your own. You can initiate dialogue with non-party NPCs using any of your party members, meaning you'll have chances to experience some of their unique dialogue options if you want. It isn't quite the same, but you'll be able to follow their stories either way, and you'll pick up new character tags throughout your adventures that give your custom character a bit of unique personality.

Get a healer in your party

When you recruit new party members, you have the option to assign them different class presets than their defaults. If your character doesn't have any healing abilities, it's a good idea to request that one of them take the role of Cleric. Money is tight in the early game, so relying on potions to heal will make it tough to afford new armor and weapons.

Original Sin 2's class system is very flexible, so don't worry if you'd prefer your chosen healer be something else down the line. As a Cleric they'll get points in Hydrosophist and Necromancer, both of which support lots of cool, non-healing related spells. And you can completely change their specialization down the line and, say, build them into a rogue if you want.

How to earn money and gear up

First of all, click on everything. You never know who or what is important in Original Sin 2 at first glance. Every NPC could be a potential quest-giver, holder of important knowledge, or maybe they just have some hilarious jokes they’re waiting to rattle off. And a random piece of tat you find on the beach or in an otherwise empty barrel could be the key to solving a mystery, or maybe it’s just worth a few quid to the right buyer (but think carefully before selling items that might be quest-related). If it isn't red, you can snag it without being attacked for stealing. Essentially, you’ll want to treat it like an adventure game.

Also, remember to complete your quests. Even a simple thing, like talking down a few thugs, can result in earning experience, gold, and items—but you have to go talk to the quest giver to get your reward. Check your journal to see if you have any outstanding quests to complete.

All that said, money is going to be tight for a while. Quality armor and weapons are hard to come by in the early game. To help a little, check to see who in your party has the highest Bartering level, and make sure they cozy up to traders and get on their good side—even saving 20 gold here and there is worth it.

You can trade with many NPCs even if they don't offer

If an NPC is marked as a 'trader,' you won't always be able to get to the trade screen through dialogue. Even if you're on good terms and you've spent gold with them before, they'll sometimes get stuck repeating one line of dialogue, or just stop offering, which can be frustrating if you haven't yet noticed the easy-to-miss button on the upper left side of the dialogue box (see the screenshot above). Click it to open the trade screen.

Save money on lockpicks, get a skeleton

If you’re not going to play as Fane, the Undead origin character, then you should at least bring him as a companion. He’s excellent company, being the source of a lot of biting sarcasm and camp, pantomime menace, and his boney digits are unexpectedly handy. Fane, and indeed any Undead character, is a walking skeleton key, able to use their fingers to unlock doors and chests, as long as they have the appropriate skill level.

Get the Pet Pal talent

If you’ve got the Pet Pal talent (or someone in your party does) you can talk to animals, and it’s not just for laughs—animals frequently offer advice, spill secrets and occasionally give out quests. These conversations are also the source of many great character moments. Anyone can get the Pet Pal talent, and you can also choose it during character creation. If you recruit The Red Prince, he has it by default.

Protect the black cat 

Speaking of animals, early on you’ll find yourself followed by a black cat. He can’t be harmed in combat, but if you walk past the guards in front of the gate to Fort Joy Prison, east of the camp, one of the archers will murder the innocent kitty. Keep him alive, however, and when you escape the camp, he’ll join the party as a summon, allowing you to switch places with him in battle.

Make liberal use of quicksave

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is hard. Even on the default Classic Mode, battles are brutal, and in the first act you’ll often find your squishy party a bit underprepared. Resurrection scrolls are also incredibly pricey, though you can occasionally loot them. This isn’t helped by an autosave feature that kicks in when a battle begins, not before, so you won’t be able to prepare any better. So whenever you think you’re about to duke it out, hit that quicksave button.

It's also a good idea to quicksave before entering a new area, or initiating any major quest dialogue. Unless you're going for a one life, no take-backsies game (in which case we salute you), you'll find that what you say and do can have big consequences that you may want to take back.

Retreating is fine

Alternatively, and especially if you're avoiding save scumming, you can always flee. Once a character is out of range of the enemy, you can click flee, and they’ll respawn at the nearest waypoint. In the middle of a battle, it can be tricky to get far enough away from foes, so it’s worth investing in tricks that make escape easier. Teleportation, flight and the Tactical Retreat ability are all boons when you just need to get the hell out of there.

Environmental effects are handy and deadly 

Fights are often won by the group best able to manipulate the environment with magic and elemental weapons. Cast rain on a group of enemies, and then a spell that applies chill, and you might end up with frozen enemies and slippery surfaces. These environmental effects make great traps—and also obstacles—but they can help you as well as hindering enemies. A Necromancer, for instance, can make it rain blood and then cast a healing spell that soaks up all of the puddles to increase their vitality.

And don't forget: undead characters heal from poison. Be careful not to accidentally do them any favors (unless it's Fane) by leaving poison puddles around. You can use healing abilities on them to do damage, too.

Grab a bedroll as soon as possible

While healing potions and spells are important when you’re in a fight, the best way to heal outside of battle is by taking a quick nap. That’s only possible if there’s a bed nearby, however, and you won’t find many of them out in the wilderness. That’s why it’s so important to pick up the first bedroll you encounter. You’ll be able to take it with you everywhere, and clicking on it heals every character almost instantly. You'll find one in the first beach area near the entrance to Fort Joy, on top of a ruined wall. There's a shovel there, too. You should grab the shovel.

Don’t forget to rotate the camera

It seems so obvious, but it’s easy to forget that you can rotate the camera to get a clearer picture of the area you’re marching through. Often, the angle can hide entrances, caves, chests and secret paths that become clear when you change your perspective. I spent about 30 minutes looking for a cave, only to discover that I’d passed it a dozen times, but until I changed the camera, I only saw the hill behind it. It's not a bad idea to have a character with high Wits, either, as they'll call out secrets when they see them.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is so expansive and elaborate that even with this list, there’s going to be a lot for you to learn, but the most important lesson is just to experiment. That might mean using the teleportation spell creatively to loot corpses that are out of reach, for instance. If it seems like you can do something, there's a good chance you can, so you may as well try.