GameMerging AI
Concept illustration of Minecraft blocks in Half-Life 2’s City 17.
Concept Art · Not Actual Gameplay

HalfCraft: Play Half-Life 2 with Minecraft

HalfCraft runs real Minecraft behind Half-Life 2. Minecraft handles the player's movement, inventory, blocks and combat calculations; Half-Life 2 supplies the maps, NPCs and story. You can place blocks in City 17 and fight Half-Life enemies with Minecraft items. This is whiskydumb's project, based in part on SkyCraft; the repository does not say it was made with AI. Read the creator's explanation (opens in a new tab).

Access: The author publishes Windows release ZIPs on GitHub Releases (opens in a new tab). At the October 20, 2026 check, 0.5.0 is tagged Latest and a 0.6.0 development pre-release is also listed. Use the Latest stable release for this guide; a development build is a separate choice. This site has not run either build.

Get HalfCraft from the creator (opens in a new tab)

What you need

Requirement Author's player instructions
Computer Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
Half-Life Steam with Half-Life 2 installed. Half-Life 2: Deathmatch is optional for the separate 64-bit engine route.
Minecraft A Microsoft account that owns Minecraft: Java Edition. The release's Prism Launcher instance downloads Minecraft on first start.
Space About 1 GB free for the initial Minecraft and Java download, in addition to the release ZIP and games.

The player ZIP and source repository serve different people. Do not use GitHub's automatic Code → Download ZIP as the player release. If you choose to build from source instead, the creator README (opens in a new tab) lists Visual Studio, Python, Git, make and JDK requirements; those are not the normal release installation route.

Install and start the creator release

  1. Open HalfCraft Releases (opens in a new tab), choose the current stable release and download its player ZIP, not the symbols/PDB archive. Expected: the extracted HalfCraft folder contains HalfCraft.exe, game folders and a portable Prism instance. If not: check that you selected a release asset rather than the GitHub source-code ZIP.
  2. Extract the ZIP to a simple local path such as C:\Games\HalfCraft. Expected: HalfCraft.exe remains beside the game folders. If not: fully extract the archive before starting it; do not run the EXE from the compressed view.
  3. Start HalfCraft.exe. If you own Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, select the engine when asked; otherwise use Half-Life 2. Expected: Prism opens on first launch. If not: confirm Steam and Half-Life 2 are installed and read the launcher's message.
  4. Sign in to Prism with the Microsoft account that owns Minecraft: Java Edition. Expected: Minecraft downloads and connects, then Half-Life 2 starts; the status line reports its progress. If not: let the first download finish and use the exact displayed error, rather than mixing files from SkyCraft.
  5. Start a new game or load a save. Expected: you can use Minecraft movement and inventory within a Half-Life map. If not: close both games and restart HalfCraft.exe; preserve the log files listed below if the link still fails.

First five minutes

Move and look using your Minecraft bindings. Press E for inventory and F5 to switch camera. Place a block in a safe area, then use G (or your Half-Life Use binding) on a door or charger. V controls Half-Life's flashlight. Esc opens Half-Life's menu; F6 and F9 quick-save and quick-load. The two engine choices keep separate Half-Life saves. Loading a Half-Life save also restores Minecraft blocks and inventory to that checkpoint, according to the author.

If something goes wrong

Symptom First check
Minecraft remains unavailable Read the top status line; exit both games and start HalfCraft.exe again. Confirm Prism sign-in finished.
A release asks for a missing game Check Steam's Half-Life 2 installation and your Minecraft: Java ownership. Deathmatch is only needed if you selected that optional engine.
A save seems missing Check whether you changed between the hl2 and hl2dm engine routes; they use different save folders.
The game still fails Preserve game-hl2\console.log or game-hl2dm\console.log, the Minecraft instance's logs\latest.log, and the Prism log, then use the creator's Issues (opens in a new tab).

This page follows the player README shipped in the repository (opens in a new tab) and release list (opens in a new tab), checked October 20, 2026. HalfCraft is an unofficial fan project; GameMerging AI does not distribute its ZIP or game files.

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