Dooming The Bar: City 17 Mod is a game utility from Chief_Smokey. It recreates City 17, a location from the first-person shooter (FPS) game Half-Life 2, combined with an aesthetic and gameplay experience closer to Doom. It features an eight-map journey that covers the industrial sector down to Kleiner’s lab, featuring popular landmarks along the way. 

The effort to accurately rebuild a Valve game in the GZDoom engine makes Dooming The Bar: City 17 Mod commendable, although it still lacks content to make it playable. Similarly, you might want to check out the Brutal Doom or Solace Dreams mods.

Remade in another engine

Essentially, Dooming The Bar: City 17 Mod is a brick-by-brick recreation of the original HL2 area into the GZDoom engine. However, it is important to note that it doesn’t feature the Doom enemies of demons and monsters. With that said, the biggest part it lacks right now is the combat element, particularly the soldiers and the aliens featured in the source material.

As mentioned, its commitment to accurate recreation is something to look forward to. It has captured locations like the Stenographer’s Chasm, the Terminal Plaza, Consulclast, and even the Manhack Arcades. HL2 fans would know that these are locations in the beta version but some of them were ultimately cut off from the commercially released copy of the game. It also features small details like surveillance cameras and corpses.

The accurately-remade maps are accompanied by good music, created as a mix of HL2 tracks and original ones made by the developers. All these things put together, make for a separate game that offers players an insight into what Valve might’ve been going for aside from the released version players had. Also, aside from the enemies not in the game, other interactive aspects of the game are not yet available.

A top-tier Doom mod

As far as Doom mods are concerned, Dooming The Bar: City 17 Mod has to be one of the best projects available. The effort that went into accurately recreating the iconic Half-Life location, capturing the details, and providing a good soundtrack, are all top-tier efforts from the modding community of both franchises. It’s still a good mod to watch out for despite the lack of playability content.