This Redditor installed a game engine on their smartwatch, and now it runs Doom, Quake, and Half-Life
- Someone got three classic shooters running on a smartwatch
- Reddit images reveal an Android wearable running Doom, Quake, and Half-Life
- It looks like they used Xash3D, and even the touchscreen controls work
A triumphant Redditor has successfully managed to get Doom, Quake, and Half-Life running on a smartwatch.
Just weeks after we revealed how another Redditor installed a PSP emulator on their smartwatch so they could play GTA and God of War, a post in the Valve Reddit from u/Ramsey_Doo is going viral in recognition of a similar technical achievement.
“Half Life on smart watch. Finally,” they commented nonchalantly. A trio of images and one gif reveals Half-Life running on the nondescript smartwatch, replete with working touch controls.
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“Does it run Doom though?”, one user replied, to which Damsey_Doo confirmed they’d successfully run Doom, Quake, and then Half-Life all on the same device.
Half-Life comes to the smartwatch
valve from r/valve/comments/1j92crr/half_life_on_smart_watch_finally
While Damsey_Doo hasn’t confirmed exactly how they accomplished this marvel of retro gaming engineering, speculative comments indicate the most likely method was Xash3D, a game engine that provides compatibility with Half-Life Engine while extending its lifespan.
The original Half-Life game dates back to 1998, when the best smartwatch you could buy was the Seiko Ruputer, a Japanese offering dubbed the world’s first smartwatch that also went by the name of the OnHandPC.
It had a 102 x 64 pixel monochrome LCD display, a 36MHz (yes, megahertz) processor, and a joystick.
I’ve not been able to identify the watch used from the images, but the mad scientist responsible confirms that it’s not an Apple Watch, which makes sense given the hack used to get this running in the first place.
This feat is just as impressive as the aforementioned PSP emulator, which used Bugjaeger to sideload APKs, successfully enabling 60fps GTA on a Samsung Galaxy Watch 5, as well as God of War and Forza Horizon 4 via Steam Link.