Welcome to FOV 90, an FPS column from staff writer Morgan Park. Every week, I'll be covering a topic relevant to first-person shooter enjoyers, spanning everything from multiplayer and singleplayer to the old and the new.
Project Misriah: Halo Ports, a collection of Counter-Strike 2 custom maps that recreate classic Halo 3 multiplayer in Valve's freshly rebooted FPS, is so good that it's frustrating.
It's delightful, evocative of the source material, and legitimately fun. I played some CTF and Slayer with bots on Ghost Town (the former works by turning the hostage into a flag) and marveled at how effortlessly Halo's old school thinking about map design, power weapons, and verticality translates to 2025.
As one of the last remaining FPS series uninterested in modern design conventions like aim-down-sights, mantling, and custom classes, CS2 is the perfect place to simulate classic Halo. You can even leverage CS2's economy to play round-based CTF with pistol rounds and extremely lethal sniper buys.
I'm also impressed by how well Valve's latest iteration of Source holds up to the modifications, which is where my frustration comes in. Here I am enjoying a Source 2 FPS with slick movement, accessible shooting, and casual arena modes—and I have to play a Halo CS2 mod to find that?
Source was once a malleable workhorse of an engine that powered a generation of popular PC shooters.
Source was once a malleable workhorse of an engine that powered a generation of popular PC shooters appealing to every corner of FPS fandom—Team Fortress 2, Garry's Mod, CS: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Insurgency, Fistful of Frags, Left 4 Dead—most of which began as or had roots in mods.
We're now two years past Source 2's big re-debut, and it's still just "the Counter-Strike 2 and Deadlock engine." That there doesn't exist a family tree of promising FPSes branching off Counter-Strike 2 is nothing short of a failure on Valve's part.
Gabe's heart just isn't in it anymore, I suppose. The studio's lack of support has led to a waning interest in what should be one of the most active amateur toolsets around. The result is an ecosystem that's constricted so much over the years that there is no longer a discernable "Source modding scene" these days as much as there is a "Counter-Strike 2 mapping scene," which is where Project Misriah found its home. Yes, the Garry's Mod successor S&box does exist in an invite-only state, but Facepunch appears to be taking it in a more Roblox-shaped direction.
Several Source 2 games made by Valve have official modding support, which is good, but even that is more limiting than what could be done in the engine's heyday. Most of the Project Misriah workshop page is dedicated to asking Valve to fix a number of issues that hamper the mod's Halo-ness, including outdated animation tools and recoil restrictions.
"Valve, as modders we thank you for providing scripting as it opens doors for us to create with. We still would appreciate your support fixing these items," the page reads.
If Valve is determined to focus squarely on uber-sweaty, ultra-profitable shooters and MOBAs for eternity, I hope it at least makes it easier for other folks to make cooler stuff with Source once again. That planned Source 2 SDK still hasn't happened, and who knows if it ever will at this point.
While we wait, modders are making the magic happen anyway. Froddoyo and their team have already added High Ground to the map collection since yesterday, so expect it to grow over time. If you'd like to play the Project Misriah Halo 3 map pack, the team is hosting a community server: the IP is 135.148.136.190:27015. Or you can search "Project Misriah" in the CS2 community browser.
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