"Half-Life" has long had a healthy modding community, with countless fan-made campaigns and even a complete remake of "Black Mesa," which originally began as a passion project in 2004.

Next to reinvent the low-poly wheel is "Codename: Loop," a rogue-like remix of Valve's 1998 classic, developed by Daniel Almenara (Pinky_GameDev on Twitter), which is a Black Mesa's "ever-changing loop" with new enemies and weapons.

The gameplay I've seen so far looks promising, with a fully functional weapon selection wheel and dopamine-inducing damage numbers.

The UI focuses on the center of the screen with health and armor bars added, and Left 4 Dead-style outlines so you don't lose track of Gordon or your enemies.

It's bare-bones right now, but I'd love to see how far Almenara will push the upgradeable portion of Gordon Freeman's arsenal. I'm hoping for a boomerang crowbar and a two-bladed shotgun, but I don't see much in the way of branching upgrades or randomized abilities that add to the replayability of a roguelike.

I'm excited about running around Black Mesa a hundred times in my HEV suit, but that version hasn't been released yet. The playable demo allows you to run through the "Questionable Ethics" level of the original game. This is proof of concept of running and gunning, rather than the promised roguelike loop. [Codename: Loop is also coming to Steam, Almenara announced on Twitter in October 2022." A few months ago, I asked Valve for permission to publish my Half-Life fan game on Steam.

The indie developer is also working on an original title as part of Almenara Games: a PS1-era survival horror roguelike called Rogue Mansion, which has strong echoes of the early Resident Evil games, and a Kickstarter is 2023 It is slated for June. If you want to bring back those days of tank manipulation and wobbly pixel models, you can learn more on their Twitter feed.