So without further ado, let’s get started.

BLACK MESA

Perhaps the most well-known (and also probably one of the very best) fan remakes to have ever been released. Black Mesa, which only recently launched after years of development, is a full-on remake of Half-Life 1– and without the shadow of a doubt, it is the best way to experience that all-time classic. That it not only understands and perfectly encapsulates everything that made Valve’s shooter so good, but also actually makes it better in many ways is a testament to its impeccable quality.

GSC Game World, the company behind the atmospheric cult hit PC exclusive shooter franchise S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has announced its brand new project today, and it comes as a bit of a surprise- it is a revival of the PC exclusive hit real time strategy franchise, Cossacks.

The Cossacks games, for those who are unfamiliar with the series, are among the many history themed strategy games that cropped up in the wake of the success of Microsoft and Ensemble Studios’ Age of Empires games. They are a deep and nuanced historical simulation, set in 17th and 18th century Europe, and that has not changed for Cossacks 3. The game will allow for up to 10,000 units on the map at once, resource collection and generation, building construction, unit management, and five single player campaigns. 12 nations will be playable.

The game is due out this year, on PC, Mac, and Linux. GSC Game World also confirmed that it still owns the rights to S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but also confirmed to Eurogamer that a new game in that series is not even going to be considered until Cossacks 3.

“As for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series – we still own the rights and we can’t say that the series closed forever. It is pretty early to talk about any plans with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but you see we are back and there are quite a bunch of possible further directions.

“One is for sure: we are absolutely focused on Cossacks 3 developing and will take no actions until this game’s release.”

Personally, as a sucker for strategy games, I would rather have Cossacks.

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games had a lot working against them: they were niche, they were relatively unknown, and perhaps most damning of all, the original, Shadow of Chernobyl was pretty buggy on release. Despite that, however, the series went on to become something of a cult classic, and people were pretty depressed when the franchise’s developer, GSC Game World, closed because it meant we’d never see S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.

We’re still never going to get S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, but the blow is lessened by the fact that a large number of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s creators have gotten together, formed a new company called West Games, and started a Kickstarter for a game called Areal.

The game is based on the novel of the same name by Sergey Tarmashev, a well-known writer of fantasy and post-apocalyptic fiction, and is billed by the studio as “the definitive spiritual successor to the cult hit S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series.”

“Areal is a new video game that’s being developed by the people behind S.T.A.L.K.E.R.,” says the game’s Kickstarter page. “It features a massive and intricately detailed open world environment that is extremely varied and colorful, even though it’s set in a post-apocalyptic setting. Areal depicts a future where civilization has fallen apart due to an unearthly material called Metamorphite, which eventually spreads, corrupts and infects the whole world. The source of Metamorphite comes from a meteor that impacted the earth long ago, and it is the site of constant conflict and bloodshed.”

West Games is shooting for $50,000 in funding, and impressively, they have already gotten more than half of that at the time of this writing, despite the fact that the page has only been up for two days. It’s an ambitious project, but an intriguing one. Hopefully, we’ll see more from Areal in the near future.