While Nintendo is great at bringing characters together from across its major series, it’s a significantly less common phenomenon on other platforms. Given the sheer number of developers working on PC, trying to pull off a crossover event akin to Super Smash Bros Ultimate or Mario Kart 8 is pretty hard work.
But that hasn’t stopped one group of modders, who are trying to bring the concept to fruition via Valve’s GoldSrc engine. In the mod’s summary on its ModDB page, the mod group, OnARail, says that GoldSrc Kart is like “Half-Life, but as a Mario Kart 64/Crash Team Racing style kart racer.”
The mod is still in its early stages, but the eventual idea is to bring characters and levels from across the GoldSrc family – which includes Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic, and Counter-Strike – and combine via the medium of arcade-style go-kart games. Given the sheer quantity of first-person shooters that seem to have been made on the engine, making a racing game seems like hard work, but that doesn’t seem to be holding the modders back.
The most recent update suggests that models and movement are coming together, and there seem to be plenty of plans for characters and levels, even drawing from elsewhere in Valve’s back catalogue. Counter-Strike’s Dust 2, 2Fort from Team Fortress Classic and Xen-themed levels based on Half-Life all feature in the modders’ list of concepts.
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There’s no release date for the mod just yet, and sadly it looks like it’s a fair way off completion just yet. That said, decent progress looks to be being made, so perhaps we’ll be able to take Gordan Freeman and pals for a spin in the not-too distant future.