Counter-Strike 1.6 Receives PS Vita Port

The PS Vita is arguably one of those legendary handhelds that nailed both design and performance, and you still see games today that make you think they’d look fantastic running on it. Despite its age, it’s surprisingly powerful and supports plenty of titles. Plus, it’s pocket-friendly compared to today’s bulkier handheld systems.

Thanks to the dedicated community, a wide range of fan-made ports have made their way to the PS Vita. Many of these are Android games wrapped in some kind of translation layer, with Max Payne being a good example. When you hear about Counter-Strike running on Android, it’s most likely powered by the Xash3D FWGS engine, which provides compatibility with and extends the GoldSrc engine.

You may have also come across news of Counter-Strike being ported to the PS Vita a few years back, which was done using the older vitaXash3D port, however, back then, CS16Client was still in its early stages. Now, PS Vita is officially supported in both the Xash3D FWGS and CS16Client codebases, meaning the ports are no longer stuck in the past like vitaXash3D was. New builds with the latest updates are now regularly available for download, keeping everything fresh and up to date.

Xash3D FWGS is a cross-platform engine, but it’s also possible to create a community server that only allows users on the PS Vita platform to join. You can even play on the same servers as original CS 1.6 GoldSrc players. However, according to the engine’s maintainer malafiozi, some features are still not implemented, such as touchscreen buttons for the buy menu, voice chat, and map voting. Additionally, gyroscopic aiming, like the kind seen in vitaQuake3, is not yet available. 

Since everything is open-source, these features will eventually become a reality, and there’s always the possibility that someone from the community could step in to help make it happen. Learn more about this project here and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.