Well, this is... Outstanding news! We’re honored to be nominated for the “Outstanding Visual Style” Steam Award!

We are blown away to even be in the mix with the other fantastic candidates.

Thank you to all those who nominated us. If we could ask for yet another favor, please vote for Black Mesa in the “Outstanding Visual Style” category! Voting starts today, and ends January 3rd at 9AM PST.

As a small indie developer, we are beyond floored with the amount of support we have had on Steam. The Art, Design, and Programming team worked extremely hard to make our game look great, and we are very proud of what we have accomplished. The “Outstanding Visual Style” award would mean a lot to all of us at Crowbar Collective.

Oh, and we are 50% off for the Steam Winter Sale, too!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/













In other news, we are releasing a patch for the sale that further improves controller support, adds new closed captions, and fixes some game crashes!

• Fixed numerous crashes and memory leaks, including a major 30+ megabyte memory leak when loading maps
  
• Fixed memory leak crash on multiplayer dedicated server
  
• Fixed crash while using “Potato” settings
  
• Added additional fixes to prevent soft lock in "Questionable Ethics"

• Added additional controller support for menu (reset key binds if needed)
  
• Added auto aim slider to options menu
  
• Most game settings now take effect without reloading the map
  
• Added "Mouse Acceleration" and "Raw Input" to Options menu

Added closed captions for:

• Croatian
  
• Czech
  
• Georgian
  
• Hungarian
  
• Chinese (simplified)
  
• Chinese (traditional)
  
• Swedish
  
• Polish
  
• Danish
  
• Korean
  
• Dutch
  
• Turkish
  
• Romanian

• Cleaned various closed captions and UI text files
  
• Fixed Ukrainian end credits

• Fixed classic irons sight bug that stuck
  
• Changed supply create health to break on one crowbar hit
  
• Fixed chapter title cut off for "Forget About Freeman" on ultra wide

Thank you again for thinking of us. Have a great holiday!

Black Mesa has been hugely successful throughout the mod years, throughout the porting to Steam, throughout the development of the Xen levels, and throughout our 16 years of development, all thanks to the overwhelming support of our community. We are extremely proud of what we have built, and it bears repeating that we could not have done it without you.

So we have another favor to ask. If you could vote for Black Mesa as the “Labor of Love Award” we would be honored. We really believe this award embodies the blood, sweat, and tears that we have poured into this game year after year after year, and we hope that being nominated, and potentially winning this award will help bring the game to a new audience.



If you agree, please vote for us, and help us spread the word on social media.

Thank you for your consideration. Have a great Steam sale (and Holiday too)!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/

Discord: https://discord.gg/crowbarcollective
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlackMesaDevs/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BlackMesaDevs
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackmesagame/

We are happy to announce that we are releasing our final big update to Black Mesa as a free “Definitive Edition” update. Since March, we have worked to polish the game in terms of both art and design.

If you have been waiting to try Black Mesa, now is a great time to dive in. We’ll continue to support the game to fix major bugs, and the known issues below.



https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/

• Massive polish and art updates throughout the game
  
• Complete lighting and gameplay pass to the chapter “Power Up”
  
• Complete redesign of second “On A Rail” map (map B)
  
• Significant optimizations across the whole game that will improve performance on low to mid range PCs
  
• Outdoor art passes for “We’ve Got Hostiles”, “On A Rail”, “Questionable Ethics”, “Surface Tension”, and “Forget About Freeman”

[/b]

New shield and architectural art for Interloper

Full workshop support

Updated closed caption/translation files for:

• English
  
• Spanish
  
• French
  
• Finnish
  
• German
  
• Italian
  
• Norwegian
  
• Portuguese
  
• Russian
  
• Ukrainian
  
• With all the languages from our Crowdin campaign on the way!

[/list]

• We’re still working on controller support for the main menu
  
• Still have to add multiplayer player model select for new UI
  
• Female scientists unintentionally do not heal player
  
• Still have to release map source files (we are looking at the best way to do this)
  
• Sometimes maps in multiplayer have their bloom blown out

• Significant further improvements to workshop functionality. Mods should now be able to properly support a wide variety of custom content, without any need for a custom folder
  
• Deprecated scenes.image. This means workshop content can now ship custom scenes without overriding Black Mesa’s scenes too.
  
• Added a convar which allows users to disable all workshop loading functionality entirely. Add +workshop_disable 1 to the game’s launch options to try this.
  
• Fixed Workshop crash bug related to multi-part VPKs
  
• Smoothed out suit charger animations and increased update rate on player’s HUD, to make everything feel a bit punchier and smoother
  
• Fix deferred rendering bug related to gbuffer, which should fix all the rendering artifacts/bugs and potential crashes related to secondary render targets: including reflection/refraction/monitors, etc.
  
• Fixed soda cans from vending machines not colliding with each other
  
• Added little color pops when the player picks up a health kit or a battery, just to help draw attention to that fact
  
• Fixed a crash related to old depreciated flashlight sprites
  
• The Multiplayer scoreboard can show up to 24 names now
  
• Fixed key binding bugs related to the new UI
  
• Added dynamic lights to chargers, Gargs, flames, and a few other things which should’ve had lights
  
• Added support for justifying the closed captions to the right side of the screen, for the languages which do that
  
• Fixed monitor functionality on the Surface Tension mortar screen
  
• Fixed a bug related to newpostprocessing, where it wouldn’t turn off completely when disabled
  
• Reduced collision/rendering volume of newSpotlights by half for better culling and faster rendering
  
• Fixed rotation bugs for newSpotlights and func_tracktrain, for a prettier game
  
• Procedural dynamic lights have been disabled on potato quality mode for better FPS
  
• Significantly buffed the Gluon gun in multiplayer

• Improved fidelity of blood splatters
  
• Fixed some of the charger lights occasionally being in the wrong position
  
• Fixed flickering slime vines at end of Xen swamp level
  
• Increased water frame rate in Lambda Core
  
• Added additional architectural art to Interloper C1
  
• Fixed car windshields to render objects behind them properly and sort better
  
• Fixed multiple Interloper shields to display properly, including the Vort Village intro and the large circular shield in Interloper D
  
• Fixed excessive shine on some rocks in ST
  
• Fixed floating props in Xen B1
  
• Added electric particles to knocked over radio tower in Surface Tension
  
• Fixed rock collision in Surface Tension
  
• Fixed green plant alpha cards in Interloper to work properly with gbuffer

• Fixed multiple issues with the in-game audio sliders. Fixed the “sound effect” slider adjusting everything except footsteps and gunfire, resulting in poor audio mix. Now you should be able to hear everything mixed as intended, which really improves the audio experience for anyone who has adjusted their audio sliders!
  
• Major improvements to the in-game music entity, which fixes maps which use the more dynamic music system. Music tracks should blend more seamlessly and quickly as a result
  
• Adjusted Inbound tracks so they finish slightly before the level transition. No more abrupt cuts in music!
  
• Moved Surface Tension Dam fight song over to the new dynamic music system, so the piece properly underscores the fight now no matter how you play it
  
• The music in the elevator fight in Interloper D is even smoother and cooler now!
  
• Fixed many missing NPC sounds, such as reloads

• Autosave pass on the entire game to reduce frustrating deaths that send you back really far in the level
  
• Dynamic light optimization pass on the entire game to improve performance, especially on low to mid-range PCs
  
• As always, many many small bugfixes and tweaks based on community feedback, that might not be mentioned here
  
• Multiple balance adjustments game-wide to smooth out the difficulty curve and remove frustrating pain points
  
• Significantly improved damage output of Guards (both Glock and .357) so they are much more worthy and effective companions now
  
• Fixed several instances where the Guard’s arms would clip through his chest

• Prevented the player from being able to use the HEV charger next to the suit pickup before the suit battery functions of the suit had initialized. This prevents an odd edge-case bug where if you did that, your HUD would disappear forever.
  
• Moved the toilet paper slightly closer to the edge of the sink, to make it easier for players to grab
  
• Improved lighting on AM lockers

• Fixed player being able to prevent the tube headcrab from spawning in Map B
  
• Adjusted some of the logic for the Map B “headbanging” Zombie, to better signpost when he comes out to attack you
  
• Added a little hudhint for the Glock in Map B, so new players know about the alternate fire
  
• Clipped off a spot in Map C where players could get stuck behind a cryo tank
  
• Locked a door in Map C to encourage players to break things with the Crowbar, as a form of basic training

• Added more Zombies to the Map A post-Shotgun ambush
  
• Fixed Guard interactions with the turrets in Map A
  

• Significantly adjusted the Map C (warehouse/outdoor) fight to properly draw players outside and use the space more effectively. Added some barriers and adjusted the side of the bunker the player’s exit is on, to force players to run around the space a bit more than before. The fight is a lot more fun now!
  
• Prevented the Osprey from being damageable via the mortars, which should fix instances where the Osprey is running around on fire

• Fixed the missing VOX sounds that were added in the 1.5 beta
  
• Adjusted the “dying” scientist in Map B so he doesn’t turn his head to face you after he’s dead
  
• Destroyed one of the bridges in Map B as a callback to the HL1 iteration
  
• Adjusted the scientist that gets killed by the Tentacle, to prevent him being completely frozen in place before the scene starts. Also fixed an edge case where players could get crushed by the door closing behind them.
  
• Several fixes to the Guard that gets killed by the Tentacle, to prevent a weird edge case where he would sometimes become invulnerable
  
• Fixed player being able to break the puzzle by pressing both generator buttons in quick succession in Map D
  
• Fixed bad lighting on a pipe at the end of Map E

• Clipped off some points where players could get stuck
  
• Added an emergency light to the bottom of the lift that the HECU come down in Map B, to draw attention to the movement
  
• Made the crate blocking the generator in Map B be invulnerable before the player goes down there, to prevent a scenario where the Houndeyes/explosive barrels would sometimes prematurely destroy the crate and cause the map to progress without the player’s intervention

• Substantial rework to the new silo puzzle based on community feedback from 1.5 beta. The puzzle is now properly linearized and better signposted with visuals. This should alleviate all/most of the soft locks and potential confusion during this section.
  
• Added an elaborate series of cool scenes that play out if you bring the Guard with you up the silo. Give it a try!
  
• Added corner pieces to silo platforms to help NPC with pathing and give the player more space to run around (and prevent falling between levels)
  
• Fixed the elevator in the new silo so that players won’t get crushed/stuck in the door when it closes
  
• Adjusted the Marines throughout the chapter who are scripted to fire the RPG at you, so that they should now do so every single time without fail

• Fixed a bad decal that was showing up as a glitchy puddle in Map A
  
• Re-arted the skybox outside the helipad in Map C to match the new art and style
  
• Fixed some visible nodraw at the end of Map C

• Clipped a tree that you could walk through

• Further attempted fixes for a soft lock that was possible at the end of Map F, by running into the door before the scientist had fully played his sequence

• Fixed many instances of shiny rocks from the previous beta throughout the chapter
  
• Removed lots of old and ugly detail foliage models throughout Surface Tension and replaced them with newer ones
  
• Rebalanced the Map A warehouse fight to reduce difficulty spike and improve gameplay smoothness/experience
  
• Rebalanced Map A Apache to reduce his accuracy to ⅓ of what it was before. He won’t laser beam players quite as hard anymore (though he is still pretty accurate).
  
• Adjusted a lot of the new art in Map A to use better/newer foliage and rock models, for consistency with the rest of the chapter
  
• Many small tweaks to bits and pieces in the new Map B art to fix up things like visible world seams, floating rocks, etc
  
• Added level fog to Map C (cliffside map) to help reduce visual noise and provide better layer separation for players, to help make the map more readable with the new art. We found a neat little trick here that allowed us to keep the existing sky fog effect while also using a different level fog effect simultaneously!
  
• Rebalanced Map D “whack-a-Gordon” fight to provide the player with more cover and reduce difficulty spike
  
• Fixed Guard in Map F being unresponsive past a certain point, he should now play out as he did before, with a few of his existing improvements
  
• Fixed broken mortar and fuel truck in Map I end scene (this bug was insane on the code front!)
  
• Added a trigger to Map F which deletes the Osprey gibs before you go up to the TOW Launcher, preventing a situation where sometimes the gibs would block your line of fire to the Abrams
  
• Fixed TOW Launcher in Map F firing hilariously slow rockets

• New art for snark nests throughout Map A, to make it look beautifully disgusting and to match the infestation type found in Map B

• Rebalanced the Map A Assassin fight to prevent players from cheesing it by simply sprinting to the end. Prevented Assassins from being able to jump onto the upper walkways and shoot down at players through the grate. Adjusted the container maze layout slightly to encourage players to move through it and fight in there. Added many supplies to help achieve the same goal. Spaced out Assassins into multiple waves, so the player doesn’t end up fighting too many at once.
  
• Added some signposting into the ladder the Scientist drops in Map B, so players are more likely to know where to go when the fight is over
  
• Fixed Map B gun-range door not opening properly
  
• Removed an extraneous Long Jump hudhint from Map H, as the player is already told about it so much

• Added a tumbling hat animation for when the player takes the Hat through to Xen
  
• Changed Houndeye “alert island” sound used on the Houndeye island in Map A
  
• Added an animation to the winch prop that pulls islands around, so that you can see something is happening even without looking at the islands
  
• Fixed floating ground polyps under the Tree of Truth in Map B1
  
• Fixed ugly areaportal when looking back into previous level while in Map C1

• Further adjustments to the new forcefield models to boost visual quality and improve consistency
  
• Cubemap pass on Map A1 (Gargathon) to help boost the visual quality
  
• Fixed up the Gargantua lights on A1 to look better and to improve performance
  
• Gave the Gargantuas things to do after the player has escaped in A1, so they don’t just stand around...menacingly
  
• Fixed visible world FarZ in Map B2
  
• More art passes on Map C to help boost the visual quality
  
• Art pass on the boxes which hold the Controller shield crystals in Map C2

• Significantly improved performance in Nihilanth’s chamber for low/mid-range PCs

https://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/2925611484592371252

Thanks Everyone. Stay safe and have a great holiday season!

Make sure to follow us on Discord and Social Media as well!

Discord: https://discord.gg/crowbarcollective
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlackMesaDevs/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BlackMesaDevs
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackmesagame/

Hello everyone, and Happy Halloween!

Black Mesa is a full 50% off until November 2nd for The Steam Halloween Sale. To celebrate we have released Black Mesa 1.5 to public-beta!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/

To play the latest build, simply right click the game on Steam, click “Properties”, go to the “Betas” tab, and select “public-beta” from the dropdown menu.



We changed the chapter to have more “cause and effect” gameplay, and to better highlight the player’s overall goal for the chapter. You now have to fight your way through a darkened facility to get the lights back on, kill the Gargantua, and “Power Up” the tram. We also took the chance to really let our new dynamic light system shine, with some cool mood lighting!






We have made large scale changes to the On A Rail rocket silo to better show the objective and subsequent solution. The rocket now gets the respect it deserves, and the chapter is a lot more nicely tied together now. We also completely relit the section to help guide the player, and to tell a better story. These changes are in addition to the revisions we made in the summer beta.





We’ve continued our art passes to get all of the Earthbound natural environments on par with Xen. The artists and level designers implemented brand new art for all the outdoor environments, and refined the art previously seen in the Summer Beta.

























We’ve improved the workshop so that it is easier for players to check out everything community mods have to offer. Changes include:

• Fixed needing to manually add the “custom” folder for mods to work, now all types of mods should work just the click of the “subscribe” button
  
• Enabled support for scripts, choreography and particles when shipped with mods, to better expand the types of content community modders can included
  
• Fixed sounds and music not playing properly and requiring “snd_restart” to work
  
• Added ability for mods to ship/edit skill.cfg and weapon .dmx files, allowing mods to now modify player health and damage settings
  
• Added logic_playerproxy entity

Now - if you are in the beta, and the mod has been updated to the latest version of the beta, all you have to do is click subscribe to use the mod. Please let us know if you have any issues with specific mods, and we will look into it or reach out to the mod creator.


We have implemented some of our new translations from Crowdin. Thank you to everyone who helped translate and proofread! Your support was phenomenal. We plan on implementing all completed translations into the full release of the definitive edition.

Russian (redone from scratch)
Italian
Spanish
French
Finnish
Norwegian
German
Ukrainian (new language)
Croatian (new language) (Completed, but not called by UI yet)
Czech (new language) (Completed, but not called by UI yet)
Georgian (new language) (Completed, but not called by UI yet)
Hungarian (new language) (Completed, but not called by UI yet)


Here is the complete list of updates (includes changes made for the previous summer beta)

• Added dynamic lights to all health chargers and HEV chargers
  
• Added corpse gib sounds
  
• Added long jump bootup sequence
  
• Added Agrunt pod breaking sound effect
  
• Sunlight shadows (CSM) for viewmodels fixed for all quality settings. (These will not work on potato quality settings, for performance reasons)
  
• Fixed freezing issue that would happen when closing pause screen too soon while saving game
  
• Fixed Guard not being able to go from crouch to walk without going into idle pose first
  
• Fixed scientists not healing the player when they are low on health (still have to fix female scientists)
  
• Fixed crash when shooting an explosive barrel with shotgun
  
• Fixed Guards in player squad from standing in straight line during combat
  
• Fixed Vort hands glowing after attack has been completed
  
• Fixed long jump “Landing Jets” to call string for translation files
  
• Fixed crash with HEV bootup sequence when using translated text
  
• Fixed crash in Surface Tension on Linux

• Added “No Weapon Switch” setting for multiplayer
  
• Added disconnect button for leaving multiplayer
  
• Added crouch toggle
  
• Fixed key binds to allow keyboard and controller binds
  
• Fix in game voice (VOIP) bind and display icon (now displays player icon and name)
  
• Fixed singleplayer maps loading as multiplayer if you start a game from multiplayer
  
• Fixed timer and frag count not being carried over into game

• We Got Hostiles outdoor updates
  
• On A Rail outdoor updates
  
• Questionable Ethics outdoor updates
  
• Surface Tension outdoor updates
  
• ”Forget About Freeman!” outdoor updates
  
• All new shields and art details for Interloper
  
• Made eye more reflective for houndeye
  
• Floodlights now have off skin
  
• Fixed incorrect vine flow direction in the vine cave in Xen B
  
• Fixed clustered props in Lambda Core to light better
  
• Fixed duplicate lift geometry in Lambda Core map E
  
• Turned ladder hatch in Office Complex into a prop to fix lighting and sorting issues
  
• Fixed OAR tram glowing in the dark
  
• Added more developed skybox through all of Surface Tension Uncut maps
  
  
  
• Fixed improperly lit props in Interloper map A
  
• Added “server” props to Interloper factory columns
  
• Added LODs to vehicle and hero props
  
• Added hatch models for Interloper
  
• Added trim to Interloper factor
  
• Fixed foliage welding errors (floating props)
  
• Recreated old desert rock props
  
• Added new foliage assets
  
• Added new rock assets
  
• Added new Mesa assets
  
• Added welds meshes to Interloper
  
• Clustered props for Questionable Ethics Xen scene
  
• Fixed floating props in Gonarch
  
• Fixed props missing collision
  
• Added new “heart” room art for breaking the shields at the end of Interloper C1
  
  
  
• Fixed collision on first Interloper machine
  
• New art for “Power Up”

• As always, a huge slew of fixes for bugs and softlocks found by the community, many of which are too small to mention here!
  
• Clipping pass across the whole game to smooth out player collision and prevent nasty bumps
  
• Added further clues
  
• Added designated supply boxes game wide so players can better find resources these will always contain health, battery, or both. Note: other items can still be found in unmarked crates just like in previous versions of BMS, these new boxes are just for health/battery pickups. \Health/battery can also still be found loose in the world too.

• Moved first combat headcrab spawn to in front of the player (Map A)
  
• Fixed guard from standing on top of chair in scripted sequence... (Map B)
  
• Drew attention to dead zombie legs in lab and HEV pickup (Map B)
  
• Better drew attention to headcrab/monitor sequence by moving headbutting zombie elsewhere (Map B)
  
• Nudged battery closer to edge of shelf so that it can be picked up without parkour (Map C)
  
• Allowed player to pick up pistol at dead guard that was crawling toward health charger (Map C)
  
• Improved freezer red valve puzzle (Map C)
  
• Made player find red valve and bring it to socket to flood sewer to better iterate on mechanic from the freezer puzzle, and to better utilise the entire sewer space (Map C)
  
• Rearranged barrels in sewer to let players distract barnacles (Map C)
  
• Shortened vent crawl near freight elevator to reduce unnecessary downtime and improve player guidance and storytelling (Map D)
  
• Fool proofed the houndeye explosion sequence to prevent an edge case where sometimes the bridge wouldn’t explode but players would just fall through it (Map D)
  
• Added suit zoom prompt during headcrab, bullsquid fight (Map E)
  
• Added hidden goodies to better reward exploration (Map E)
  
• Increased drama and number of houndeyes in final fight before Office Complex to better send
• off the chapter (Map E)

• Fixed soft lock that could happen if you shoot headcrabs that get electrocuted at start of chapter (Map A)
  
• Moved power for electrified water to light switch next to door (Map A)
  
• Fixed bad trim on electrified water room (Map A)
  
• Converted door ladder to model to fix lighting issues (Map A)
  
• Changed Vort ambush to a Zombie ambush, to better “reward” and teach the player about the weapon, and to give the big Vort office fight more power (Map A)
  
• Fixed metal grate that was playing wrong sound effect when hit (Map B)
  
• Added “Xog” to freezer instead of legacy fog (Map C)

• New art for outdoor sections (Chapter Wide)
  
• Fixed chapter title having “!” in it (Map A)
  
• Overhauled introduction scene with Guard in vent to feel more natural and be more like the original (Map A)
  
• Reworked “Rescued At Last!” scene to better show story beat and give players a clearer view (Map A)
  
• Improved hallway headcrab fight to be more interesting (Map A)
  
• Choreographed scientist at tripmines to not follow player, to help boost Gman scene (Map A)
  
• Blocked locked double doors to better signal to the player that is not the critical path (Map A)
  
• Restructured environment to frame "12 Dumbass Scientist" scene to give players better and more natural view (Map A)
  
• Increased volume of “I’m with the science team!” voice line and changed one of the scientists to be a woman (Map B)
  
• Better placed “I am the one man who knows everything!” scientist to look more natural and fool proof the trigger (Map B)
  
• Fixed crush death in elevator to surface (Map B)
  
• Rearranged warehouse so that the player is drawn into the combat space and so the player initiates the fight (Map C)
  
• Fixed broken fog and added new style fog (Map C)
  
• Made HECU continue to fire at you after you crawl into collapsing vent shaft; to pressure the player to move forward (Map C)

• Added “old style” VOX announcements throughout Blast Pit to give subtle hints to the player about the status of the rocket and what’s going on around them (Chapter Wide)
  
• Fixed radioactive goo not triggering Geiger counter (Map A and E)
  
• Fixed area where player could get stuck (Map A)
  
• Fixed overbright barrels due to water reflection (Map A)
  
• Made it so player could not back out of room during tentacle attack (Map B)
  
• Fixed scientist reappearing after being dragged out of window in tentacle attack (Map B)
  
• Fixed security guard who absolutely refused to die to tentacle monster or rocket fire (Map B)
  
• Fixed some visible seams in the world by the Tentacles (Map B and E)
  
• Better highlighted which door goes where away from the Tentacles (Map B)
  
• Better signposted status of rocket launch and required elements (Map C and D)
  
• Fixed BSP seam as you descended final ladder (Map E)

• Gargantuan… update to the entire chapter. Check it out ;)
  
• Fixed Gargantua lurking by window, blocking your escape to transformer (Map A)
  
• Fixed ladder with no support structure. Everyone needs someone to lean on. (Map B)
  
• Reworked combat scenarios with Grunts and Houndeyes (Map B)

• New art for outdoor sections (Chapter Wide)
  
• Added better auto saves (Chapter Wide)
  
• Redesigned chapter progression so you take the same tram all the way through the chapter now (Chapter Wide)
  
• Fixed multiple visible gaps in the world (Map A)
  
• Completely redesigned rocket silo and map progression (Map B)
  
• Redid silo lighting to feel spookier (Map B)
  
• Added new “workshop” area at the beginning of the map to account for the fact that the player doesn’t have trams to walk on and hide behind anymore (Map B)
  
• Added new “security” area looking into the rocket hallway to help enforce the new circular nature of the map (Map B)
  
• Added health before large vort/HECU hallway fight (Map B)
  
• Improved ladder dismounts in rocket silo (Map B)
  
• Relit and rotated skybox above silo to draw more attention and connect the two levels in the player’s mind (Map B)
  
• Pushed back fog to include sky elements (Map C)
  
• Fixed bad scale on ground blend textures (Map C)
  
• Fixed clipping that allowed player to skip fight at the end of chapter (Map C)
  
• Fixed truck headlight that was missing and fixed misaligned headlight lens flare (Map C)
  
• Fixed bug where the Marine on the 50 Cal would not get off it when the player got near him (Map C)
  
• Increased performance when rocket is raising (Map C)

• Added “nice camouflage, asshole!” scene to when Gordon falls in the water (Map A)
  
• Added glowy chemlights to help guide the player through hole in underwater section (Map A)
  
• Moved end of map door opening switch to a position where the player can properly see “cause and effect” to reduce player confusion (Map C)
  
• Added second Assassin fight once the door is opened, to give the scene more impact (Map C)
  
• Added some more health and environmental storytelling around the Assassin arena, to account for the increased difficulty and resulting need for exploration (Map C)
  
• Adjusted final route before “knockout” scene to have it feel more like a natural progression for the player (Map C)

• Fixed super bright cube maps in some outdoor areas (Map A)
  
• Fixed bad red pipe coloration and join near the start of the map (Map A)
  
• Replaced vent texture with model to prevent flashlight render issue (Map A)
  
• Small bits of better environmental storytelling (Map A)
  
• Removed crane physics puzzle as it was not fun or interesting (Map C)

• New art for outdoor sections (Chapter Wide)
  
• Added new prop and lighting to pod holding Alien Grunt (Map A)
  
• Fixed HECU running into their own mines (Map A)
  
• Choreographed HECU intro so that player now has to initiate the fight with HECU (Map F)
  
• Added all new environment in Xen room (Map F)
  
• Better lighting for scientist beyond surgery machine (Map F)
  
• Fixed soft lock when transitioning to next Map (Map F)
  
• Fixed various softlocks in Lobby (Map F)
  
• Fixed dev texture on column in Lobby (Map F)
  
• Added additional cover and tweaks to Lobby fight (Map F)

• New art for outdoor sections (Chapter Wide)
  
• Fixed HECU shooting at you when behind security vehicle (Map A)
  
• Fixed wall the player and NPCs could walk through (Map D)
  
• Fixed doorway you could see through into sky (Map D)
  
• Added “HOLY SHIT!” reaction to Guard to help make him feel more lifelike and like a character (Map F)
  
• Added dynamic lights to exploded osprey (Map G)

• New art for outdoor sections (Chapter Wide)
  
• Fixed lasers not turning off when player kills turrets (Map A)
  
• Fixed turret not being aggressive towards player/Guard (Map A)
  
• Adjust Manta positioning/timing to hide the Manta pop in (Map B)
  
• Added better fence for player to climb over, so players won’t get confused and try to climb up on the fence (Map B)
  
• Fixed player being able to get up onto large rock formation (Map B)
  
• Made hospital beds static to keep the playspace from getting cluttered (Map B)
  
• Fixed the manta/tank explosions from throwing health/battery pickups around the entire arena, getting them lost from where they’re supposed to be (Map B)
  
• Fixed HECU from getting stuck on barrier (Map B)
  
• Added some additional ceiling art in underground sections for higher fidelity (Map B)

• Improved lightmap scales on many walls/floors for better lighting at no additional performance cost! (Chapter Wide)
  
• Fixed decals rendering incorrectly on walls (Map C)
  
• Fixed sprinkler particles that floated in mid air in one hallway (Map C)
  
• Simplified jumping puzzle in lower area under main core to prevent getting weirdly crushed and make the platforming easier (Map G)
  
• Fixed interdimensional scene to show correct FOV (Map I)
  
• Fixed bug where laser beams would kill the player as they jumped into the portal, occasionally not letting them progress into Xen (Map I)
  
• Fixed bug where the player could sometimes both win and lose at the same time if they jumped into the portal at the exact right moment.

• Fixed leafs throughout chapter (Chapter Wide)
  
• Fixed human skulls spawning from barnacles where they should not (Chapter Wide)
  
• Re-culled and clustered all foliage props to prevent weird artifacting and strangely cut off grasses (Map B)
  
• Swapped whiteboards to better guide player for first plug puzzle (Map B)
  
• Fixed floating prop at start of Xen swamp (Map B)
  
• Fixed floating healing pool before second leaf gate (Map B)
  
• Fixed healing pool that players would get stuck on sometimes (Map B)
  
• Added small step after second leaf gate to help the player jump up (Map B)
  
• Re-arted polyps in the Tree of Truth to give them higher fidelity and prevent some floating ones (Map B1)
  
• Fixed “windows” in root walls by the Tree of Truth to better show objective progression (Map B1)
  
• Highlighted tree trunk drop down into trip mine maze (Map B1)
  
• Fixed see through rock due to model culling (Map B1)
  
• Fixed Ichthys in last deep pool from not being able to swim (Map B1)
  
• Fixed second plug puzzle being able to plug two ends of the same cord into one socket (Map C1)
  
• Further refined last plug puzzle to be almost impossible to break (Map C1)

• Fixed human skulls spawning from barnacles where they should not (Chapter Wide)
  
• Trapped player in early cave using a rock collapse to prevent backtracking and force them to use the fumerol to progress, to help players learn it is a key gameplay element (Map B)
  
• Made sure player could not get to second level of crystal cave before using water crystal (Map B)

• New art and detailing throughout the chapter to add an additional layer of polish (Chapter Wide)
  
• Fixed human skulls spawning from barnacles where they should not (Chapter Wide)
  
• Fixed players falling into void and not dying (Map A)
  
• Fixed hole in village the player could fall into and get stuck (Map A)
  
• Fixed fire at the bottom of controller fight burning out too soon (Map A)
  
• Gave Vorts in the Vort Village a few more things to do, and ensured they properly run and hide if the player starts trying to kill them indiscriminately (Map A)
  
• Fixed missing rock backfaces (Map A1)
  
• Clipped rocks by second jump pad in Garg chase (Map A1)
  
• Fixed overlit Gargs at end of chase scene (Map A1)
  
• Fixed player being able to clip into a green bubble vat (Map B)
  
• Highlighted lift that is needed to find power plug at the top room puzzle (Map B)
  
• Fixed brush clipping in pipe (Map B)
  
• Fixed giant hole in factory (Map B)
  
• Added water effects to Alien Grunt gestation chamber and connecting tube (Map B1)
  
• Added checkpoint to first machine so if you fall down during the long jump, you don’t have to just stand there and wait for the sweet, sweet release of a fiery death (Map C)
  
• Adding “revving up” to 3rd machine to better telegraph to the player what is going to happen next (Map C)
  
• Added grunt pods at end of conveyor sprint to give the section a tenser ending and to look less barren (Map C)
  
• Better introduced barrels and cysts as a means of blowing stuff up (Map C)
  
• Added healing crystal at start of upper cage fight (Map C1)
  
• Significantly optimized elevator fight (Map D)
  
• Re-arted the fog during the elevator fight to help further with optimization and to make “pop-in” look better (Map D)
  
• Ensured that Alien Controllers are being deleted during Elevator fight once you leave their respective sections, to further improve performance (Map D)
  
• Added explosions and nudges to get player off elevator at midpoint (Map D)
  
• Fixed crush zone at top of elevator (Map D)

• Fixed a really strange issue where the tram door in the final sequence would sometimes disappear for some players

• A number of world seams in ST B with new art
  
• Floating polyp models in Xen tree hub (Xen map B1)
  
• Controllers currently don’t work in the menu
  
• Female scientists unintentionally do not heal player
  
• Still have to add multiplayer player model select for new UI
  
• If players in multiplayer have same score and are in top 3, they will both get metals
  
• Player rank sometimes shows wrong at the top of screen in multiplayer
  
• Guard in Surface Tension F will sometime refuse to follow Freeman
  
• Possible soft lock in 2 spots in OAR. The silo floor and the up elevator.
  
• We still do not ship the mapsrc VMFs - we will do this for the final release of the Definitive Edition

Thank you everyone, and have a great fall season!

Make sure to follow us on Discord and Social Media as well!

Discord: https://discord.gg/crowbarcollective
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlackMesaDevs/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BlackMesaDevs
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackmesagame/

Attention, Scientists!

We have an exciting announcement and the launch of a new community-driven project around Black Mesa! We understand that you would love to see Black Mesa translated to your languages, and we have received numerous requests from players who wish to be involved in the process. We also want to make this happen!

That is why we are starting a crowd translation project to translate Black Mesa into over 30 languages, but we will need the community's help! We prepared a Black Mesa project on Crowdin, a website that lets anyone help collaborate on translations. With everyone's help, we can bring Black Mesa to brand new languages and communities to give everyone the nostalgic feeling of fighting through the tunnels of Black Mesa once more.

If you would like to help with any of the languages we have set, please don't hesitate! As translations are completed, they will be added to the game. Some processes and verifications need to be made once each language is complete, which we will discuss with you more in the future. You might notice that some languages have fewer words to translate. That is because we already have their translations done, and we need your help to see them to completion.

If you would like to take part go to the link here: https://crowdin.com/project/black-mesa/

From there, choose the language and start translating whatever you can and however many you wish. It will be teamwork! Our staff will work with community members to verify and fix translations and implement them soon after.

More exciting news about this project will come in the future. Please share this news with your friends, and let's bring Black Mesa to your languages!

If you would like to discuss and coordinate this, join our Discord server, and use the #translate-bms channel. You can ask any questions or contact us if you have any questions about this through Discord, forums, or social media, as always. We will actively coordinate with you.

Thank you, everyone! We are super thrilled about this, and we hope you are too.

The project has concluded!
Translations are currently being finalized! Thank you everyone!

My name is Joel Nielsen, and I am the music composer and audio lead on Black Mesa. I joined the team in June of 2005, and am one of the few original members that made it through the entire development cycle.

I played a 'tram-demo' that was given out prior to Half-Life 1's release. I couldn't believe what I was seeing was an actual video game. How could computer graphics possibly look so real!? That was enough to seal my fate as a Half-Life-For-Life-r.

Most notably from the release of WorldCraft in my early teens. I loved creating replicas of buildings around my town that had interesting gameplay layouts and had an odd fascination with trying to create a working waterslide map. I would also end up placing large boxes around the entire levels to 'fill all the leaks', then wait days for it to compile. (and now you know why Chris Horn never let me touch a map on Black Mesa)

Cowbell... Well that and simply learning how to work with audio and music in general. I jumped into Black Mesa with no prior experience. I began with more of a, "how hard could it be" mentality. Suffice it to say I quickly learned otherwise. Acquiring the skills required of ‘good’ sound and music production has been one of the most convoluted rabbit holes I've ever been down. And because of that I also love it. There’s always something more to learn and improve upon.

I used a central-vacuum and some super-sized un-inflated balloons to make the suction sound for the vents in Xen. Also, and even more interestingly, the footstep sound for the flesh surfaces contains the light open-handed slap of a wet ass cheek. I'll let your imaginations fill in the rest of the blanks, but will add a hearty 'thank you' to my wife Kala, who has helped with so many aspects of this project.

Quite honestly, it was a lot more enjoyable than difficult. I love being set free from a creative perspective and Xen gave me that opportunity. Musically it allowed me to breathe something fresh and unique into the world. And as you can tell I embraced that in full force. Adding a vocal track to every song. (oh yes, every single song has at least one female vocal track within it) I may have gone a little overboard in retrospect but I wouldn’t change it if I could. A huge shout-out again to my lovely wife for all her work!

Again, great fun. Taking a fairly regular sounding animal or environment, and then absolutely sonically mangling it beyond recognition was a welcomed change of pace from the very 'standard' sounds of the Earthbound portion. Unfortunately, some of the depth/detail is lost in-game, but if you crank the volume and listen close, there are many layers of complexity to a lot of them.

Definitely the Lobby shoot-out in QE. Many people seem to love it, which is great, but it also isn’t very Half-Life-esque in flavor, in my opinion. Being that it would likely spark a small insurrection, I won’t be making any modifications.

Somewhat unlikely considering the time required to do such a thing. That, and I want to put out my own remixes every few years, so I never have to work ever again.

Musically, I am classically trained and took lessons from age 3+. As for formal education? Yeah, definitely not. I barely have a high school diploma, if you count how little I paid attention in class or the grades... My method has always been; if you want to know how to do something, go learn it. Get your hands dirty, trying, and failing until you succeed. Don't let anyone or anything hold you back, and don't use your current reality as an excuse for why you can't. All success originates from an attitude of perseverance.

I’ll of course be helping with the next CC project. Outside of that, I have started my own game company where my small team and I are working on a unique indie MMO. Throw me a follow on twitter if any of that would be of interest. Love you all, you are an incredible community, and thanks for sticking with us to the end!

I’m Mike Hillard, My handle is CornetTheory because I’ve been a trumpet player for most of my life. In terms of games and mods, I’ve been a level designer, musician, and digital artist since 2004. I am currently composing or covering chip/game adjacent music over here: https://soundcloud.com/michael-hillard

I started down the path of voice acting because my Unreal Tournament 2004 level design friends needed voice samples for a mod. This directly led me to getting the role in Penumbra: Overture, and getting hired at a local radio station. Since then I’ve acted in at least 8 commercial indie games, and many many mod projects.

For Crowbar Collective I am primarily an actor, but over the years I have made tiny contributions in other areas, such as customizing vrad, programming the tau cannon’s wallshot particle effect, making small tweaks to the lighting on some earthbound maps, and manually editing the 2015 Multiplayer trailer on real VCRs.

By 2006 my local friends and I were obsessed with HLDM and making silly custom maps and player models. The Black Mesa team put out a general casting call for voice actors, so I decided to give it a shot.

At this time, I did not start out sounding similar to Hal Robbins, but I’m told they were not looking for a dead-on impression because they wanted several kinds of scientists. Eventually, after I was given the first script for the general chatter, I recorded the whole thing in one night out of excitement, and I started figuring out how to get the voice very close. I think it took about a year or two of practice before the similarity got to the point of fooling people with A/B comparisons; Just in time for the 2008 trailer.

As soon as I joined the team, I moved away to college. So I had two options after that: Drive 6 hours one way to my house on weekends to use my own studio to record, or find out how to treat whatever dorm room I was in. I found that a lot of walls are too smooth to stick on foam, or too hard to hang up hooks for blankets.

Kevin and I did a lot of skype calls, testing solutions. Some of which are pretty funny, but effective. For example, Buying a golf umbrella big enough to fit my mic and computer monitors, and covering the entire thing with a comforter. Eventually I built a 7ft^3 room within a room, and treated it with deadening moving blankets.

When it came to driving home, I would have to disassemble my PC and lug it back and forth.
After a few years I had assembled two sets of PCs and equipment, one for home and one for college. This also helped out when we started needing the female scientist lines, It made scheduling my mother [Lurana Hillard] easier, and we could act scenes together.

The challenge wasn’t only to get a good environment, but also to make my space and mic placements, etc. match Kevin’s setup. We were pretty strict about the sessions and I would always send test lines to compare before starting.

I recorded all of the Scientist’s general chatter at least 3 times over the years. As more scripted scenes were created and added to the game, we needed to make it match how my voice and recording environment had changed.

Adobe Audition. When I worked in radio I had learned how to edit audio to make commercials. Back then it was Cool Edit Pro.

Starting in 2007 through 2012, Kevin and I maintained using the “MXL 990” condenser and “M-Audio Delta 1010-LT” for consistency. Windows updates and driver support ended the Delta card, plus it was a PCI only board. After that, I began using the “Shure Super 55” and the “Scarlett 6i6” also, shoutouts to the Cloudlifter for dynamic mics.

It began at a very young age, wondering how cartridges worked. But a real turning point was my older brother playing with WADED.EXE for doom. It was mind-blowing that you could make your own levels. I was hooked from then on. From Duke3d to Half-Life, and then to UT2004 where the majority of my released deathmatch maps are.

Half-Quake is one of the most unique mods out there, and it really shows off what Goldsrc can do. Sven co-op, for consistently adding crazy features to the engine itself. Earth’s Special Forces (The Dragon Ball Z mod) was fun to fly around in. SMOD for HL2 because of the shovel and bullet time.

But, Rocket Crowbar will always be the gold standard.

I wish we could pack-in the awesome Hazard Course remake mod by PSR Digital for Black Mesa.

Everyone is allowed to have their own preferences, but folks should just let people enjoy things. Personally I think pineapple on pizza is tasty.




#TEAM RED SHIRT

Benjamin Truman, Design, and Narrative Lead.
Comic author and teacher living in Tucson, AZ.

Half-Life was such a resonant work of art for me. I really enjoy seeing my passion for the game connect with other people. It means a lot when I hear that our game recaptured or enhanced a memorable experience from a player’s past. It’s also wonderful to hear that our game has been an entry point to Valve’s franchise for so many people.
I also do a fair bit of work on our Twitter (@BlackMesaDevs) searching for fan-made Half-Life content. One of my favorite things to do is drop a couple hundred likes on an unsuspecting artist’s houndeye doodle.

Once Xen began, my writing job consisted of working against the idea that we needed dialog in Xen. When a design was struggling, it was only a matter of time before somebody would suggest audio diaries or a radio transmission from Earth to explain the objective. I wanted to preserve that sense of “alone in the unknown” once you reached Xen. That commitment meant we had to take special care when communicating our intention to the player.


I became involved while attending the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for Game Art & Design. Some of my friends asked if I wanted to join as a 3D modeler. I declined and pitched myself as their writer instead.

Despite attending the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for Game Art & Design, there were hardly any classes that dealt with design. The emphasis was on modeling/texturing/animating in 3D. I’m lucky that I got involved with the team when I did because I was quickly losing interest in school.
Black Mesa let me breakdown my favorite game and analyze the entire design. I also got to adapt the existing script, write new dialog, direct voice actors, choreograph big scenes in 3D, and design gameplay sequences. This project gave me the chance to pursue the exact education I was seeking.

I also had a lot of support for all my creative endeavors from both of my parents. I would say my real education came from my Dad, a comic author, and an illustrator. I was introduced to a lot of comics and movies from all over the world while I was growing up. I learned a lot about visual storytelling and narrative by hanging at his side.

I used Faceposer for all the choreography work.

I usually point towards this Gamasutra article about Shigeru Miyamoto’s influence while creating the original Mario (I’m especially partial to that one because it says sequential illustration is the foundation of game design).
I like to think of that article as a point-of-no-return for beginner designers. Once you understand the basic game structure in that article, you see it everywhere.

I have fond memories of some Half-Life multiplayer mods, like Action Half-Life, Firearms, Science and Industry, Counter-Strike, TFC, but the most important Half-Life mods were always the singleplayer experiences.
The biggest ones for me were the Neil Manke/Black Widow Games “U.S.S. Darkstar” and “They Hunger” series that came on PC Gamer CDs. I also liked a short mod called Deliverance. I don’t know if Gunman Chronicles counts as a mod, but that also sticks out in my mind.

My love of games began early on. I would fill up notebooks with game ideas. These were usually just little pencil or marker “screenshots” of imaginary games. I would draw up character rosters for fighting games and side-scrolling beat ‘em ups, with lists of detailed stats. When my family got a PC at home, I started making games with a program called Klik & Play that I received as a holiday gift. I eventually got into 3D level design after playing Duke Nukem 3D. I don’t think I knew the Build Engine existed until I stumbled across a How-To book for the software at a bookstore.

After that, I purchased a Quake level editor from Electronics Boutique in the mall but quickly returned it. I struggled and failed to understand the Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight editor. I was frustrated that nobody in my life knew how to work this stuff.

But, Half-Life really compelled me to learn Worldcraft on my own. Once I figured out the basics, I was hooked. I searched all over this new frontier, the internet, to find info on the program. I would print out tutorials from Handy Vandals Almanac and read them over and over again, trying to make sense of them. This all came in handy when I had to start developing in Source on Hammer.

My name is Anthony Stone and I am one of the long-standing level designers for Black Mesa. I have worked on much of the AI encounters and logic events across the game as well as building a few of the maps from scratch. I am the team’s encyclopedia of how everything works.

My first experience with Half-Life almost didn’t happen. I had no idea what I was getting when I first Installed the game and only installed it because I wanted to play Counter-Strike which was a mod back then. I began the game just to see how the graphics looked on my new PC of the time. I started playing it and was confused at first… a 10 min tram ride and then I arrive at Anomalous Materials and walked around offices with no real gameplay insight. This was very unusual. I put the game down at that point with no real intent to go back to it, but I’m glad I did. The next day I booted it up to show my brother the game I was dubbing the “work sim” when I got to the residence cascade. I was blown away and finished the game over the next day or so.

Not the most difficult thing for me personally, but a difficult thing to watch was the differences in opinion on art and style across a group of very talented people. Everyone on the team is super good at what they do and everyone has an opinion of what works and what does not. This tends to do areas over and over again in order to really master the idea the team is going for and can cause a considerable headache if you don’t check your ego at the door. You are going to have to have many hands-on your work and you may see things you really slaved over get ripped out or changed. It could be a hard pill to swallow for some. It can lead to bitter feelings or discontent but in the end, we all just want the best product that flows well in the end.

MUSIC!!! LOTS AND LOTS OF NEW MUSIC! Seriously, I can keep working for hours with music I have not heard before. It makes the hours fly by. Just no country music please… and for my wife’s sake keep me away from dubstep.

I originally started making maps for the HL2 leak way back when and then moved into making Counter-Strike Source maps. There was something super satisfying about creating content and seeing how people enjoy it and the way they play it. It also was a great creative outlet for my mind. I always loved to build stuff and this was a great way to take things in my mind and get them into a 3d world I could actually visit.

Yes and no. There was a point where we had to choose to release the Earthbound section of the game or keep fighting on to get XEN done as one major release of the game. I was very on the side of we should put out what we have rather than take the additional years to finish the full game with no end in sight. I set an ultimatum for myself. So while it was not giving up… I felt very strongly that we needed to give our fans something. It never came down to it because we did release. Truth be told it probably would not have left anyways…

I am so guilty of this. I love to watch streamers play my work. When it first came out, I would watch a few hours a night. Nowadays I check it once or so a week if I am super bored. I’ll never get tired of seeing people blow themselves up calling the lift up in the trip mine puzzle in Surface Tension.

I’m Nate! Lead Animator, VFX, Simulations at Crowbar.

The limitations of trying to make a good looking game in 2020 on an engine that first came out in 2004.

I was one of the first 5 people on the team, in early 2005. Back then they had no animators at all so my mere application meant I got accepted immediately haha.

The planning did not fall primarily on me, but it was incredibly challenging for all involved. Much of the difficulty was the immovable pillars of the original Xen campaign itself. Jumping puzzles have aged very poorly in FPS games, but we’ve got this long jump module that we have to use. We have to brainstorm emergent gameplay with only like 3 enemies (headcrab, bullsquid, houndeye) that were all early-game enemies that stopped being challenging 10 campaign hours ago. We have to make non-linear and alien-feeling levels without the aid of objective markers, tooltips, cutscenes, or any of the other crutches that modern gamers are used to.

Join a mod project for a game you’re passionate about. They’re full of like-minded people just trying to have fun and make something cool. They’ll let you make mistakes and learn the skills you need while on the job.

I’m very proud of the end product we shipped and don’t think there are that many areas it could have been better. But parts of the campaign could have been shortened so the whole experience was a little tighter in places. It’s not really an issue compared to so many modern games that pad their campaigns with pointless stuff, but just in further pursuit of a perfect FPS, there are sections of Black Mesa where you’re kinda thinking “how much longer until this part is done?”

The Source engine had several limitations that made it very difficult to get the types of animations the Xen campaign demanded. In any game engine, most movement is controlled by “bones”. That’s easy to visualize with a character like a human that anatomically has a skeleton, but bones are also controlling the pieces of a building as it blows up, or the pulsing of a protozoa membrane in Xen. With regards to bones, Source does not support “bone scaling”, it has a 128 bone limit per model, and each vertex in the model is only allowed to be influenced by 3 bones. These are all limitations that modern game engines do not have and it caused a lot of headaches. Many of the bigger destruction models were split into 5-10 “parts” and reassembled back together in Hammer to get around that 128 bone limit. When you’re dealing with something like a barrel cactus swelling up to a huge balloon and bursting, that should be just a couple of bones being scaled up. But Source can’t do that, which means you need “point clouds” of bones all over the model moving outwards to achieve the same effect. Only 3 influences per bone also meant those bone clouds had to be pretty dense or else you would get jagged deformations instead of smooth. I had to develop all sorts of strange pipelines to work around these limits.

I’d love to see a game with the crazy weapons and enemy types of Painkiller combined with the intricate level design of Half-Life. I also think technology is at the point where, with a little engine resource re-allocation and gated level design, we don’t need to have disappearing corpses, we can use bodies and gore as part of the gameplay loop.

That was the result of several inside jokes. There was an application we got early on in development that was over-the-top ridiculous (we later found out it was submitted as a joke). And we started imagining how this applicant might dress himself, and one of the artists whipped up this purple hat. Our Level Designers love to cram their maps full of easter eggs, and then Half-Life 2 Episode 2 with the gnome run gave them the idea to do a hat run.

Oh, lots. Anytime a good FPS game came out in the last 10 years we’d be like “oh we need X, Y, and Z in Black Mesa!” For the Xen campaign, probably DOOM 2016 was the strongest influence in terms of how to craft cool boss encounters, and lots of sprawling vertical levels with minimal navigation hints (though they did have objective markers like everybody else these days).

We knew that our Xen was going to be dramatically different from Valve’s, and in turn both of our versions dramatically different from what Laidlaw originally envisioned. Comparing Half-Life Alyx and Half-Life 1, you can pretty much see how that’s the same artistic vision, despite a 20-year graphics jump. But Half-Life 1 to Black Mesa Xen, absent the iconic Half-Life fauna, you wouldn’t peg those to be the same universe. And we knew that. It was part of our core strategy to break from the original Xen campaign and forge our own path. We didn’t want 6 hours of green-grey levels, we wanted to experiment with distinct biomes and different color palettes, so it was an intentional choice for us.