A fork of the Xash3D-FWGS engine that plays Half-Life start to finish with no loading screens, behind a unified controller-first menu — plus a few optional visual and quality-of-life extras. Same game, same content, smoother ride.

Created with assistance from Anthropic Fable 5, Opus 4.8, and Zennthic Elefant second-brain memory system.

Gameplay: Unforeseen Consequences

What this is — and isn't

It is not a mod, a remaster, or a content pack. There is no new or modified content, story, or gameplay. You play the same Half-Life you already own.

It is a fork of the Xash3D-FWGS engine that adds:

• a new unified, controller-first menu UI, with a few existing settings exposed that the stock menu hid — mostly a new "theme" over the same engine;
• controller bindings by default
• a "level streaming system" — play the whole campaign with no loading screens (details);
• an optional, configurable projected flashlight (details);
• supplemental ambient occlusion, contact and world (details);
• reworked entity shadows (Xash3D already had experimental entity shadows, I just tweaked it)
• a few additional quality-of-life settings, all optional.

Getting started

Continuum needs the original Half-Life game data — it doesn't ship any. Grab the release build for your platform (or build from source), then follow the steps below. Expansions and mods install exactly like valve — add their folder alongside it (Opposing Force gearbox, Blue Shift bshift, They Hunger hunger, …) and select them in-game from the menu's Game page, or pass -game gearbox on platforms with a command line.

Linux

1. Extract continuum-linux-amd64.tar.gz.
2. Copy your retail valve/ folder into the extracted folder, next to xash3d.sh.
3. Run ./xash3d.sh (an expansion: ./xash3d.sh -game gearbox).

Flatpak (Steam Deck)

1. Install the bundle: flatpak install --user ./continuum.flatpak.

2. Add your game data to the app's data dir. If Half-Life is on the internal drive, symlink it (no copy):

   ln -sfn ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Half-Life/valve \
     ~/.var/app/org.continuum.HalfLife/data/valve

   Expansions go next to it (.../data/gearbox, .../data/bshift, …).

3. Launch with flatpak run org.continuum.HalfLife, or add it to Steam as a non-Steam game and play from Game Mode.

From another machine you can build and install onto a Deck over SSH in one step: DECK_SSH=deck@steamdeck.local make install-deck.

Windows

1. Extract continuum-win32.zip.
2. Copy your retail valve/ folder in next to xash3d.exe.
3. Double-click xash3d.exe (an expansion: add -game gearbox to the command line).

This is a 32-bit build, aiming for max compatibility with mods that provide their own game dll.

macOS

Apple Silicon (arm64) only — Intel Macs are not supported.

1. Unzip continuum-macos-arm64.zip and move Continuum.app to Applications (optional).
2. Launch it once. With no game data present it opens ~/Library/Application Support/Continuum/ and prompts you for your files.
3. Copy your retail valve/ folder into that folder (expansions too — gearbox, bshift, hunger), then launch again. Switch between installed games from the in-game menu's Game page.

Building it yourself instead? See doc/building.md — in short, git clone --recurse-submodules, then make play.

NOTE: it should be trivial to build this for x86_64 macOS, but I don't have access to one to validate.

Compatibility

• Games & mods: primary support: Half-Life, Opposing Force, Blue Shift, Uplink, They Hunger, USS darkstar. However, the same expansions and mods supported by upstream Xash3D-FWGS should work
  • Use Steam version of games where available
• Savegames: existing Xash3D-FWGS savegames should load (not exhaustively tested).

Documentation

• The menu — the unified controller-first UI
• Level streaming — how the no-loading-screen campaign works
• Flashlight — the optional projected flashlight
• Ambient occlusion — contact + world AO
• Console variable reference — every cvar and command Continuum adds
• Building from source

This project documents only what it adds to the engine — for the engine itself, see the upstream Xash3D-FWGS documentation.

Repositories

Continuum is an umbrella project over three engine/SDK forks:

• Umbrella: https://github.com/bishopdynamics/Continuum
• Engine fork (Xash3D-FWGS): https://github.com/bishopdynamics/xash3d-fwgs
• Menu fork (mainui_cpp): https://github.com/bishopdynamics/mainui_cpp
• Game SDK fork (hlsdk-portable): https://github.com/bishopdynamics/hlsdk-portable