Bill Paid

The story of Black Mesa’s development is an inspiring one. A rare reminder of what’s possible when passionate fans and reasonable companies can work in tandem rather than opposition. Originally scheduled for release in 2009, the game began as a mod with the goal to remake Half-Life in the Source engine. Valve of course had seen this opportunity too, releasing Half-Life: Source in 2004. It however failed to take advantage of most of the engine’s features, made limited attempts to upgrade the visual fidelity, and was riddled with bugs not present in the original game.

The gap in the market for a remaster was clear even in the 2000s, but it’s safe to say that Crowbar Collective missed their scheduled release date slightly… In September 2012, the work they had completed so far was released as a mod for Half-Life 2. Notably absent from this remake however was the Xen portion from the end of Half-Life, but given its poor reception in the original this was hardly a major setback.

Despite this, Crowbar Collective made it clear that a full remake of the Xen chapters was in the works. In doing so, Black Mesa began to divert from the true remake pathway and more into a position of spiritual successor or faithful tribute. To stand up straight and tell gamers they were going to beat Valve at their own game… Excitement was certainly mounting.

These lofty expectations did not come without the appropriate wait expected from anything where Valve is involved. Shortly after the release of the mod, Crowbar Collective were given permission by Valve to give the game a commercial release, massively amplifying the reach of what had been barely more than a passion project. Finally in 2020, Black Mesa released in full on Steam – clearly not a second was wasted.

To say that the game had made some improvements to Xen would be to say that the iPod made some improvements to the gramophone. With the addition of longer and considerably more beautiful Xen chapters, as well as the fleshing out of many early chapters, Black Mesa took me about 18 hours to complete compared to the original Half-Life’s 12 hours according to HowLongToBeat.com. It’s amusing in hindsight to see Black Mesa’s Steam Store description…

Relive Half-Life.

A slight underselling of years of work and community input. So much so that even the loyalist of Half-Life fans have taken to recommending Black Mesa and Half-Life as separate experiences, both must-plays in their own right. Black Mesa does however meet an important goal; Providing a way for a new generation of gamers to enter the Half-Life universe without some of the foibles of a 1998 title. As a 1998 title myself, I can understand the importance of this.

My original engagement with Half-Life had been at the age of 6, after my father purchased the Half -Life 2 Collector’s Edition – coincidentally creating his Steam account and in the process realising a brand new outlet of hoarding for the both of us… I was unashamedly far too scared to play the game beyond a certain point, so most of my experience was that of watching him play while I sat quietly on a drum stool beside the family PC hoping that my bedtime would pass by unnoticed.

By the time I had my own PC, Half-Life’s system requirements were already laughably minimal, so naturally I revisited it and Half-Life 2 a few years later to form my own experience of each. They had aged, so had I.

With the release of Half-Life: Alyx coincidentally a matter of weeks after the commercial release of Black Mesa, the completionism instincts kicked in for a brand new audience to the series. What better way to understand the origin of these stories, characters, and mysterious world, than via a modern reimagining. In 1998 jaws were dropping at some of the sequences in Half-Life, in much the same way as my jaw dropped many times while playing Black Mesa.

That is not to say that Black Mesa is without its faults. The Xen chapters, while, beautiful, really need to be played with the context of the game’s long development cycle. As well as the reception of the original Xen chapters. Picking up this game blind to the significance of Xen will make it overstay its welcome. I found myself rolling my eyes at times as the pacing slowed, the Interloper chapter being a particularly weak spot for this. I could definitely have seen myself setting down the game at this point had I not already been very aware of this criticism prior to playing.

Sometimes the art of preservation isn’t about the material itself, but the way it makes you feel. The excitement, anticipation, frustration, all that it makes you feel. Black Mesa captures every essence of this.