We've received quite a few requests in recent months and years from other mod teams who want to take over Shotgun Sunrise, but we never felt great about giving it to any one of them. A while ago we decided to give it to all of them, and also everyone else, by open-sourcing the mod. It's taken us a little while to get our shit together in order to do so, but it's mostly together now, we think. Certainly there is an archive with our source code and a bunch of other stuff you haven't seen before in it, and that archive is on the internet, and you can download it here at ModDB on our downloads page.
We're happy for you to use everything in that package in your own stuff, as long as you give us credit where appropriate, and differentiate any continuation of the mod you might make from our own work. We still really want to make another, better, Shotgun Sunrise game someday, so that name's taken. If you do want to continue the development of the mod, I humbly suggest you name that project Open Sourcegun Sunrise. Amazing name.
I for one have always greatly regretted not having been able to support this game more, or release a less buggy-and-laggy product from the start. Not being able to work on videogames all the time sucks. We appreciate all the support you've given us, from the 42% of you who rated the mod 10 of out 10 to the 21% who gave it a 1, and everyone in between. Hopefully, this source release, and the ability to play a Shotgun Sunrise game on iOS, make up for it to some degree.
If you're super interested in the process that led to this mod's more-or-less stagnation in spite of being super fun to play, you should go check out the comments on this news post, which you may find informative!
Be prepared: everything in the source package is pretty old, sometimes super old. Those of you who know what you're doing with the Source engine are going to look at some of our stuff and say "holy god that's stupid" and you couldn't be more right. For instance, our solution to making sure the truck never flipped in Shotgun Sunrise was to place its center of gravity 40 feet underground. Good times... good times.
In closing, here are some choice quotes regarding how awesome Shotgun Sunrise is/was.
“Fan-goddamn-tastic…I love this mod so much”
“...like Left 4 Dead, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and Grand Theft Auto all in one mod”
“...the most amazing Half-Life experience in a very long time”
-Podcast 17
“…probably one of the most hilarious mods I’ve ever played”.
-JoshuaC, creator of TF2’s Arena_Watchtower"It might be the Citizen Kane of games... and it might also be the Citizen Kane of Citizen Kanes"
-James Benson, animator of Dance Fortress 2, on Vroom!
“…going down the hall to your QA organisation is easy, but the most talented people you’re going to find halfway around the world, developing some crazy… co-op zombie Western.”
-Gabe Newell
Great news, hope to see you guys work on Shotgun Sunrise again one day. Will be checking out the package soon!