Dreamcast ports have been prolific in recent weeks. After Minecraft and GTA 3, it's now the turn of Valve's iconic franchises, Half-Life and Counter-Strike, to show off their polygons on SEGA's console.

A Russian developer by the name of Maximqad is currently working on a port of the Xash3D engine, designed to be compatible with Half-Life. This ambitious project paves the way for the adaptation of numerous games using this engine, including Counter-Strike. Thanks to his work, it is now possible to play online games of Half-Life Deathmatch: Source (2006) and Counter-Strike (2000) on Dreamcast, a technical feat that is already generating a great deal of enthusiasm in the community.

Dreamcast specialist developer Falco Girgis recently shared images of Counter-Strike running online, although he warned that the project is still in its early stages:

"WHAT KIND OF ENGINE IS THIS? That ‘very special’ new Half-Life compatible engine, Xash3D, that @craf7y24 barely ported to the Sega Dreamcast the other day? ...Well here's a direct hardware capture of that engine that brings us back online with COUNTER-STRIKE 1.6 running on the DC!".

For the moment, no specific optimisations have been made to the console's hardware, but it does suggest that there is considerable potential for improvement. Other videos also show two players on a Half-Life map.

Despite graphical bugs and adjustments that are still needed, Maximqad's progress shows that the Dreamcast, although old, continues to fascinate fans and independent developers alike.

SEGA's latest console, which is similar in architecture to the PCs of the early 2000s, remains a favourite playground for homebrew developers, who are constantly pushing the limits of this machine with ports that are as surprising as they are ambitious.

Source: MagMO5, Time Extension