New FPS Half-Life Element 64 has just launched a demo on Steam, but Valve's not involved

Half-Life 3 fever might be hotter right now than it has been in years. With the announcement of the new Valve Steam Machine and Steam Frame VR headset, desperate fans have convinced themselves that this is finally the time where the tale of Gordon Freeman and company makes its long-awaited comeback. There's even a small part of me that believes them. But what I do know is that there's a new Half-Life game that's just launched a demo on Steam, albeit one without Valve's direct involvement. This is Half-Life: Element 64, and you can try it today.

As a community-created mod project, you'll need to own a copy of Half-Life to play Element 64. It's been developed by Dark Vector, the team that's also working on the Half-Life Arena multiplayer shooter that's launching in mid-December. Half-Life: Element 64 takes us back to the heyday of 1998, and the iconic style of Valve's original, which for my money still has a more pleasingly distinct look than the increased 'realism' of its sequel. Pulling from the best FPS games of the mid-1990s, it's your job to save the Black Mesa Research facility from a deadly breach.

Indeed, while a lot of the core aesthetics are what you'd expect from the Half-Life universe, the slightly more centered weapons combined with the loadout on offer reveals that Dark Vector has been just as inspired by the likes of Doom and Quake. Element 64 essentially transports us into a parallel universe where Half-Life was built by id Software, and I'm very much here for the experiment.

The full project covers four episodes, starting out with you battling through the medical bays and research facilities that have become infested by alien invaders and zombified personnel. From there, you'll delve into the underbelly of Black Mesa to uncover the source of the problem. That's just the beginning, however; I won't give away exactly what lies beyond, but expect to face everything from HECU special forces and military contractors to sinister monstrosities. There's no release date set, but you can try it right now.

The Half-Life: Element 64 demo is live on Steam. You can download it for free. Keep in mind that you must own a copy of the original Half-Life on the platform in order to play; you probably already do, given how often Valve has given it away or offered it for next to nothing, but if you don't then, hey, it's a pretty good game in its own right.