As you all know, Valve had released a big update for Half-Life last year in honor of game's 25th anniversary. If you ask me, it's amazing of them not forgetting their golden title and giving it much deserved treatment.
I was especially excited for an unexpected return of original iconic menu from WON era, but, unfortunately, Team Fortress Classic didn't get one, so I've decided to recreate it myself.
At first, in April this year, I did it entirely for myself as a little hobby project, but recently I've thought that it would be good to share with everyone, so oldschool Team Fortress Classic fans and WON era/style connoisseurs would also have an opportunity to enjoy it.

Here is a bunch of screenshots, which will show you what I was able to achieve:

1. Original WON menu (click on it to open a full image)


























2. My recreated version for low resolutions (click on it to open a full image) — optimized for 800x600 and lower resolutions, original screenshot resolution is 640x480


























3. My recreated version for high resolutions (click on it to open a full image) — optimized for 1024x768 and ANY higher resolution (even 4K, all the elements will scale, except for background), original screenshot resolution is 1280x720

1. Original WON menu (click on it to open a full image)


























2. My recreated version for low resolutions (click on it to open a full image) — optimized for 800x600 and lower resolutions, original screenshot resolution is 640x480


























3. My recreated version for high resolutions (click on it to open a full image) — optimized for 1024x768 and ANY higher resolution (even 4K, all the elements will scale, except for background), original screenshot resolution is 1280x720

1. Original WON menu (click on it to open a full image)


























2. My recreated version for low resolutions (click on it to open a full image) — optimized for 800x600 and lower resolutions, original screenshot resolution is 640x480


























3. My recreated version for high resolutions (click on it to open a full image) — optimized for 1024x768 and ANY higher resolution (even 4K, all the elements will scale, except for background), original screenshot resolution is 1280x720

You can download it from my Google Drive[drive.google.com]and Mediafire[t.ly]
If you, for some reason, don't want to use short URL or it will stop working, then you can copy a direct link to download page on Mediafire (remove the space before "com"): mediafire. com/file/6fe5kbb38onj37n/Original_WON_menus_for_Team_Fortress_Classic.rar

Note: If you're worried about VAC ban - there's no point for that, because this modification includes only edited text files and images, which don't even replace original files, you can check it by yourself for more reassurance.

Installation is very easy:

1. Open your Half-Life directory, which is located in "Steam\steamapps\common", or go to your Steam library, press Right Mouse Button on Half-Life or Team Fortress Classic, hover your cursor on "Manage" and click on "Browse local files".

2. Open the downloaded archive. Now, if you're playing with resolution 1024x768 and higher - open the folder called "High Resolution", and if you're playing with lower resolution, then open the folder called "Low Resolution". After that drag the folder called "tfc_addon" into your Half-Life directory.

3. When the process of copying files will be finished, launch the game, click on "Options", go to the tab "Content" and check the option which says "Allow custom addon content", as it is shown in the screenshot below. Then press "Apply" and the game will restart automatically.


























That's it, you've successfully installed the modification.

1. Why is the background in such low resolution?

Answer: I took this background from the original WON version of the game. In there menu and most of the user interface are a part of separate launcher, which has resolution 640x480 pixels and it cannot be changed. Ergo, this background has the same resolution, and when you're using higher resolution - it is getting scaled. I thought about trying to upscale the image, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time on research, since I was doing it only for myself. In the future I might change my mind, if I will find some good method, therefore, if you have something to share in this regard - I will appreciate it.

2. Why is the logo not animated, like in WON version of the game?

Answer: Unfortunately, at this moment, in Steam version of the game logo is hardcoded to use only one certain animation, which was specifically created for Half-Life. In WON version it is just a looped video, which you can't use in the newest version, unless you will modify code of the game.

3. Why menu options don't have exactly the same color scheme?

Answer: If you will look closely at screenshots of original WON menu, then you will see that menu options there don't have a solid color, but rather a textured surface, which is not possible to recreate in current version of the game. Ergo, I needed to choose one solid color that would fit everything else.

4. Why in the recreated version of menu from "Team Fortress 1.5 (Half-Life v1.1.0.8 — 1.1.1.0)" you didn't make the first character of every menu option yellow, like it is in the original WON menu?

Answer: Unfortunately, I don't think it is possible to do in current version of the game without changes in the source code, but, since my knowledge about VGUI is not very extensive, I might be wrong. Therefore, if you think that it is possible to implement in current version of the game and you know how to do it, then I will appreciate if you decide to share this information.

5. Why hints are not perfectly lined up with menu options in the version for low resolutions?

Answer: I don't know the exact reason behind this issue, but it is also present in the original menu, which was recreated by Valve for 25th anniversary. The lower resolution, the smaller font size and gap between menu options are - the more visible and obvious it is. If you will look close enough, you will be able to see the same issue in the version for high resolutions as well, but not as obvious, because of higher resolution, larger font size and bigger gaps (better scaling in general). Also current recreated menu by Valve isn't really optimized for very low resolutions, that's why I've created two versions, even though majority of the people nowadays are using higher resolutions.

For instance, it wasn't like that in the original version of the game, but it had different GUI (Graphical User Interface). My assumption is that developers, who were responsible for this update, didn't have much time to polish their implementation of this idea with an old WON menu, because they needed to recreate everything from scratch and they had other tasks at hand related to other games and projects, so, it is what it is.

6. Why glowing effect is not perfectly the same as in the original WON menu?

Answer: As I've said, current implemented menu by Valve and its capabilities are not copied directly from the original version of the game, but recreated from scratch in completely different fashion in terms of its implementation. For example, WON menu literally is using BMP images for its functioning and design, while in Steam version of the game VGUI (Valve's Graphical User Interface) is responsible for that.
For this and other aforementioned reasons, this "glowing effect" and other things are working much differently, which creates quite strict limitations. In this case, if you increase value of this effect, it will add more blur and increase its range, but glowing density will be decreased and it will become more transparent, which, in my opinion, looks worse and far different from the original WON menu than current result.

If you have any other questions - leave them in the comments and I will try my best to explain.

If this guide was helpful and you are satisfied with the results of my work, then I would appreciate if you give it a like and add to favorites, so it will be higher in the list of all guides and, therefore, easier for others to find.
If you have any issues, questions or suggestions - share them in the comments and I will try my best to assist you.

Also, I've recreated original WON menus for other Valve's games (because they didn't do it), so I highly recommend you to check this out:

https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3359467114
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3350686658
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3350824002
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3350880061
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3351316035
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3354313731
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3354540497
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3354527171
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3354562601
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3354589467
Have a good day.