DIGITAL FOSSIL

Whatever happened to GUNMAN CHRONICLES? Tracing the history of Valve's forgotten shooter

- By Rick Lane

Recently, I was struck by an overwhelming urge to play Gunman Chronicles, the 2000 FPS developed by Valve and Rewolf Software. There was no real trigger for it—this sort of thing happens when you're nearing 40 and grew up on a diet of '90s shooters. But if I had to identify the origin of this yearning, it would be dinosaurs.

Gunman Chronicles is an ambitious shooter, a gunslinging sci-fi adventure that transports you to a variety of locations and features programmable weapons—a fairly unique gimmick 25 years on. But my favorite things about it are the dinosaurs. Appearing early in the game, Gunman's terrible lizards have this wonderful, plasticine look that could have come straight from the workshop of Ray Harryhausen. Also, when you shoot the velociraptors with a shotgun, their heads occasionally explode, and exploding heads of any kind will always endear a game to me.

Yet when I opened up Steam to buy Gunman Chronicles, I discovered that I couldn't. This shooter, which I will repeat was created with Valve's direct involvement, isn't available on Steam. Indeed, it isn't available to buy anywhere.

CURIOUS CAT

This got me curious, and after a little digging, I discovered there are other strange elements to Gunman's history. Its co-developer, Rewolf Software, dissolved after the game's release, while its director, Herbert Flower, has only one other videogame credit on Mobygames, a special thanks for the 2010 Wii game Hoopworld.

Gunman Chronicles is a bizarre island in Valve's early history, one that I felt compelled to chart. And it turns out the tale of