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Mod Potato: While Doom is usually the most popular choice for unusual coding and porting experiments, Half-Life has its fans too. An Argentinian developer has ported Valve’s seminal title to a Nokia N95, a mobile device whose hardware specs are just barely sufficient to run the PC game satisfactorily.
Developer Dante Leoncini recently shared his latest coding and modding effort. The Argentinian programmer ported Half-Life to Symbian S60v3, making Valve’s FPS compatible with the Nokia N95 smartphone. The Symbian OS device was originally released in 2007, while Half-Life debuted in 1998 for PC. Thanks to modern open-source engines and developers like Leoncini, these two distinct tech eras can now coexist despite hardware obsolescence.
The programmer explained that his attempt to port Half-Life to an aging ARM-based smartphone is based on the Xash3D FWGS engine. The open-source project is designed to make the original Half-Life engine compatible with modern desktop and mobile platforms, while also extending it through modding capabilities.
Thanks to Xash3D FWGS and his own coding work, Leoncini was able to make Valve’s shooter a somewhat “mobile-friendly” experience on hardware as old as the Nokia N95. The slider phone features a 240×320 QVGA display, a dual ARM11 CPU from Texas Instruments running at 332 MHz, and 128 MB of RAM in the 8GB model.
– Dante D. Leoncini (@dante_leoncini) June 5, 2026
When compared with Half-Life’s original retail PC requirements, the Nokia N95’s specifications should be more than capable of running a modded port of the game. Leoncini said the single-player campaign is already working, including sound, weapons, and reasonably solid performance at around 30 frames per second. The programmer has even implemented proper support for mouse and keyboard controls via Bluetooth, although N95 owners may also be able to “play” the game using the device’s built-in controls.
Leoncini is now working to fix remaining slowdowns and bugs, and says he has already found ways to address several of the key performance issues. At the same time, he has outlined a list of additional features he would like to bring to the mobile port. His “still to do” wishlist includes LAN and online multiplayer, improved performance and AI behavior, more polished graphics, and other enhancements. He also plans to fully test the game to identify any remaining game-breaking bugs that could hinder the overall experience.
Leoncini said he does all his coding work and educational videos out of a passion for free software. He also accepts Patreon support and donations from those interested in funding his work.
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