«Half-Life» 25th Anniversary Anthology via Steam on Apple Silicon Macs

Half-Life, Blue Shift, and Opposing Force received an update release to celebrate the 25th year anniversary! It’s Mac-compatible…Yay! – But only for 32-bit OS X…? Nay 🙁

Well there’s a fix for that! 64-bit native Half-Life for Mac.

Thanks to the fantastic work to recreate the original Half-Life Engine through an open source project called «Xash3D», combined with a native 64-bit Mac Source Port-build, you can actually play the full «Half-Life 1 Anthology» natively on ARM-based Apple Silicon & today’s macOS. To make it even better: with some tweaks, it’ll launches directly from the Steam App on Mac.

— Table of contents —

Install Half-Life from Steam on Mac
Download Xash3D-FWGS Map App
Modify the Steam Half-Life game files
Optional game configuration improvements
Play the modified Half-Life through Steam
Add high-definition Maps, Textures, and Models to Half-Life

Install a Half-Life Anthology game via Steam on Mac

First things first: obtain and install your Half-Life 1 game via Mac Steam

Download and install Steam for Mac
Obtain any of the Half-Life 1 Anthology game(s) from the Steam Store
Install the game to your Steam library

For native Mac play: obtain the Mac App of Xash3D

Download and unpack the Mac Source Port of «Xash3D-FWGS»:

Download «Xash3D-FWGS» for Mac

Make the Steam Half-Life game working with Xash3D on your Apple Silicon-Mac

Now while you could simply play the Half-Life game easily using Xash3D standalone already (follow the installation instructions on the Mac Source Port-page), you may want to have it connected to Steam on Mac.

Menu navigation by keyboard required: note that the Xash3D version, as of this writing, has problems with Mouse cursor in the Half-Life games menus – hence the menu can only be navigated/used via keyboard, Up/Down arrow-, Tab-, Return-, Escape-keys etc.

Why even the hassle to play Half-Life on the Mac through Steam?

It will show to your Steam Friends what you are playing
Steam will keep track your total playtime for the game
The Steam Overlay is available in-game
And last but not least: I noticed that the new macOS «Game Mode» is triggered – which is absent when running the stand-alone Xash3D-FGWS Mac App.

In-game screenshot of Steam Half-Life Blue Shift running natively on modern macOS on ARM-architecture with Game Mode and Steam Overlay

Modifying the installed Half-Life files and folders

In a nutshell, you have to merge the Xash3D files and folders into the downloaded Half-Life game folder in a way, to trick Steam into believing that you started the regular installed version of the game. In order to achieve this, follow below steps.

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
This may break the game, or break once an update via Steam is being applied. Do these modifications at your own risk & responsibility! Always back up before doing any modifications.

Screenshot from macOS Finder explaining which files from Xash3D-FWGS to copy into Steam Half-Life folders — ^{Instructions for modifying the Steam Half-Life folder with Xash3D-FWGS Mac App Bundle contents.}

Start by first modifying the «Half-Life» Steam game-folder files

There are some files what will later be replaced by a version from Xash3D – hence they must be backed up / renamed.

In Finder, open the game folder: SteamLibrary » steamapps » common » Half-Life
Backup or rename the following 2 files:
- hl_osx
- filesystem_stdio.dylib
Keep the Half-Life game folder open, and continue with the next steps below.

Instructions for copying the «Xash3D-FWGS» Mac App Bundle files

With the SteamLibrary’s «Half-Life»-folder still open & ready in Finder, continue as follows:

In Finder, right-click the «Xash3D-FWGS.app», and choose “Show Package Contents“
A new window opens, showing the App’s package contents. Navigate to: Contents » MacOS
Copy the following files to the given destination within the SteamLibrary «Half-Life»-folder:
Files → copy into the /Half-Life/-folder root
- filesystem_stdio.dylib
- libmenu.dylib
- libref_gl.dylib
- libref_soft.dylib
- libxash.dylib
Folders → copy whole folder into the /Half-Life/-folder root
- cl_dlls
- dlls
- libs-arm64
- libs-x86_64
valve-Files → copy into the «/valve»-folder within /Half-Life/
- /valve/extras.pk3
Game launcher rename & copy into the /Half-Life/-folder root
- «xash3d» → as «hl_osx»-file

Screenshot from macOS Finder showing how to open App Bundle Package Contents of Xdash3D-FWGS App

Ready to go: start the modified Half-Life game from Mac Steam

With the modifications applied, you are now ready to run Half-Life natively on your 64-bit macOS and on Apple Silicon ARM-based Macs: it’s time to play!

Launch Steam on Mac
Go to the Game Library
Select «Half-Life» (or «Half-Life Blue-Shift» / «Opposing Force»)
…and click «PLAY» – the game should now launch successfully!

Screenshot from Mac Steam App allowing to Play the patched Half-Life games — ^{Standard game launch within the Steam Mac App – ignoring the 32-bit games warning.}

Pimp up Half-Life with high-definition Textures, Models, and more

[Optional] Modification of game configuration settings

In the SteamLibrary «Half-Life/valve»-folder (or respectively in «…/bshift» or «…/gearbox») there is a file for custom configurations called «userconfig.cfg» (or it can be created).

I can recommend manually adding / modifying the following settings:

Show the in-game FPS counter: cl_showfps "1"
Higher FPS cap (or none): fps_max "100"

There are of course many, many more of these commands… and some dedicated to for Xash3D. Again: use at your own risk!

Mods

I was semi-successful in further patching the Steam «Half-Life» version with high-definition mods. Mainly exchanging the Models seemed to work pretty well; can’t really tell about the Maps; and the Textures do not really seem much better. So try this at your own risk & use the instructions from the corresponding Mods.

the «Half-Life High Definition 2 Pack»
plus «Half-Life: ReSrced»

In-game screenshot of Half-Life Blue Shift on Mac with regular quality Textures and Models — ^{Comparison of modded Steam Half-Life natively on ARM-based 64-bit macOS}

In-game screenshot of Half-Life Blue Shift on Mac with high-quality Textures and Models — ^{Comparison of modded Steam Half-Life natively on ARM-based 64-bit macOS}