I am of course talking about the famous Sven co-op, a Half Life mod with an impressive library of custom maps and modes to chose from. The last time I played, or even heard about it I was still a wee lad so imagine my surprise when it surfaced again with quite an announcement.

Sven co-op will be arriving on Steam in the near future as a completely free & standalone mod, you won't even need Half Life to run it even though it does include the entirety of HL1's campaign. Check out the trailer to see what sort of madness you can get in to:

If you're just interested in doing the Half Life campaign in co-op but are worried you might simply steam-roll through it by inviting a dozen people don't worry, the enemy numbers, health and damage scales with the amount of players on the team so if anything you should worry about getting steam-rolled by the game instead.

But the most interesting thing about Sven co-op are definitely the custom maps and game modes, a library of 17 years worth of content. I haven't played it in a long, long while but even back in the day there were puzzle maps, new campaigns, semi-RPG modes and I distinctly remember one that actually turned the game in to a weird RTS hybrid.

Overall I have some fond memories of Sven co-op so I'd recommend you grab a few friends and give it a try once it finally releases on Steam. Its free and its fun, there isn't much more one can ask for.