Summer 2017 is when Crowbar Collective hopes to launch the Xen portion of its Black Mesa Half-Life remake—an area which won't feature in the original mod variation. In October, the developer said this decision was made due to its desire to "to do Xen the justice it deserves, and have it be the definitive climax to the Half-Life 1 story." Crowbar has now teased a Xen-flavoured image alongside a new update post.

"The team remains, as always, hard at work on Xen! Currently our specific focus is on gameplay: crafting a fun and cohesive experience from start to finish," reads the post. "We want our version of Xen to feel like it really belongs with the rest of the game in terms of mechanics, cohesion and progression. But we also want to push the boundaries and explore this unique and varied setting; to build an experience that feels both fresh and familiar to players from all walks of Half-Life veterancy."

The post continues: "While our Xen is certainly going to be gorgeous, we are first and foremost really committed to making sure that the gameplay works on every level. To give a bit of an exciting tease into what we’re doing at the moment, and as our own little holiday gift to you lot, please enjoy our first ever publicly released screenshot of Xen."

Crowbar goes on to say more Xen-related media will be teased in the "coming months", as well as detailed progress updates ahead of summertime next year.  

For more on Crowbar Collective's Black Mesa, check out Chris' Early Access review.  

Off the back of its Halloween update and coinciding sale, Crowbar Collective has announced a rough timeline for the Xen portion of its Black Mesa Half-Life remake. Still living in Early Access, Black Mesa's take on the otherworldly locale that rounded off Gordon Freeman's first outing will portray what Crowbar reckons Valve would have done "without the limitations of the time."

That means its maps have been redesigned and expanded both in size and in number. "We wanted to use the holiday and the sale to announce our rough timeline for Xen. We are currently targeting a summer 2017 release," says Crowbar via an update post. "We will keep you up to date on our progress and we plan to show off some media as we finish developing Xen to give everyone a glimpse at what we are working on."

In mid-2015, Crowbar confirmed the original mod iteration of Black Mesa would not receive Xen levels, however the process of getting them onto Steam and into the Early Access game has taken longer than planned. The team now has summer 2017 in its sights, though, and wants "to do Xen the justice it deserves, and have it be the definitive climax to the Half-Life 1 story."

The update includes the following similarly-scaled shots which show the original game against Black Mesa's reinterpretation:

For more on Crowbar Collective's Black Mesa, check out Chris' Early Access review.

Alpha and Early Access reviews offer our preliminary verdicts on in-development games. We may follow up this unscored review with a final, scored review in the future. Read our full review policy for details.

As an accomplishment, it's hard to think of a parallel to Black Mesa: dozens of modders painstakingly and voluntarily spending years of time and effort to recreate Valve's groundbreaking first-person sci-fi shooter Half-Life in the Source engine. After a free release in 2012, Black Mesa has now made its way to Steam, ripe for the buying. Though the game ends with Gordon's leap into Xen (we won't see the bouncy dimension itself until Black Mesa is complete), it's still a long, exciting, action-packed game and a major achievement for the modders responsible.

Obviously, the visuals are a great leap forward from 1997's Half-Life, which over the years has slowly turned from charmingly ugly to mostly just ugly, except for the most nostalgic of gamers. At the same time, the Source Engine itself is getting pretty darn creaky these days, so Black Mesa doesn't look particularly great alongside current releases, especially the models and animations. Other limits of the Source Engine come quickly into focus as well, mostly in the frequent loading points between maps. The famous tram ride that begins the game in is broken into three parts due to pauses for loading, and in some of the faster paced portions of the game, loading screens crop up so quickly it becomes a little irritating. Source's physics, meanwhile, aren't really exploited for much besides a few new puzzles involving carrying a plug to a socket or reattaching a valve wheel.

The main issues with Black Mesa are the issues that come along with Half-Life itself: the over-reliance on platforming puzzles, vent crawling, ladder climbing, and laser beam hopping. Too much time hunting through a massive complex looking for that one door that will actually open or that one switch that can actually be flipped. Too many similar fights against the same small handful of enemy types. Too many long, slow trips down to some water-filled, body-strewn section of the complex to push a button that starts a generator or pump or giant fan, followed by the long slog back through enemies who suddenly teleport into your path. Too many goddamn barnacle monsters that will never, ever actually kill you but simply force you to sigh and fire a shotgun blast at the ceiling when they snare you.

Never fear, though. In addition to the chaff, Black Mesa rejuvenates the best parts of Half-Life. The wonderful real-time scripted sequences, in which hapless scientists and guards are dragged off into vents, yanked through ceiling tiles, exploded, shredded, burned, and chomped, which still prove entertaining and serve as warnings as to what dangers lie ahead. Those moments when you fight your way to the surface, only to find it crawling with soldiers who are not there to rescue you but permanently silence you, and you're forced back into a new section of the sprawling subterranean complex. The wonderful chaos when soldiers and aliens encounter each other, and for once you're not the only target in the room. The way your name begins to carry heft and meaning as you progress, as awestruck lab techs and increasingly frustrated grunts learn of your exploits ahead of your arrival.

There are bugs in Black Mesa—it's Early Access, after all—mainly related to enemy A.I.: a few times monsters ran right past me or didn't respond at all, the friendly guards and scientists usually had difficulty following me, and there was one memorable moment when an Alien Grunt appeared to have an extended fist-fight with a door he was stuck in. There are some new lines of dialogue with a couple clever references for fans of Half-Life lore, and the music, though I didn't especially care for it, is competently composed.

The Steam version of the mod comes with multiplayer, too: deathmatch and team deathmatch on a number of arena-style maps, for some silly and rather mindless multiplayer chaos that feels quite reminiscent of the original Half-Life Deathmatch.

Verdict

With vastly improved yet still dated graphics, Black Mesa carries with it both the highs and lows of the original Half-Life. It's a remarkable accomplishment and provides hours of exciting, challenging, and occasionally tiresome gaming.

Crowbar Collective, the creators of Half-Life remake Black Mesa, spent a few hours last night letting the internet shout questions at them until they broke down into a series of carefully crafted answers. Aka, a Reddit AMA.

As part of it, the team confirmed that the Xen levels coming to Black Mesa's early access release will not be making it to the free mod version.

"It's impossible," wrote level designer Joe R. "In order to make Xen look the best it possibly can look, we need to upgrade the engine with new features. These new features will make it incompatible with the mod version."

Elsewhere, level designer Jordan F explains what exactly makes the versions incompatible. "Organic environments are not something the Source engine does particularly well," Jordan writes. "Making Xen look as good as we want it to requires lots of improvements to the way the engine handles rendering and lighting. We can't port these changes back to the mod because we don't have source code access to that engine version."

This isn't the end of mod support, however. According to Joe, the team are looking at porting bug fixes from the early access version to the mod version.

I'd call it a mysterious countdown, but everyone had pretty much guessed what the Black Mesa site was ticking down to. That site has now tuck its last tick, and lo and behold here's Black Mesa on Steam.

Specifically, it's on Steam Early Access. That's because, as when the Half-Life remake was first released back in 2012, the Xen chapter still isn't finished.

"We currently have the first ~85% of our single player campaign completed," explains the Early Access Q&A. "For the last 15% we want to not only recreate it, but improve upon it to make it an enjoyable and memorable experience."

The Early Access version includes new visuals, new voice over, updated encounters and stability changes, and also adds multiplayer. The final release will feature more maps and modes than are currently included, but the presence of a Steam Workshop page for Black Mesa should ensure some additional arenas to tide fans over.

Black Mesa is currently available on Steam for 15/$20, and that price is set to rise when the game leaves Early Access. Given the recent furore over paid-for mods, I'll be interested to see the reaction to this—especially given that the download link for the previous (and free) mod version has disappeared from Black Mesa's official site, if not from ModDB.

Update: The Black Mesa website has been updated with a download option for the original mod version.