Black Mesa’s Xen levels have been delayed again, but the development team is still releasing an engine update in December, which includes new dynamic lights, Godrays, lens flair, and various other technical features.
They also released two new concepts of Xen:
To celebrate Half-Life turning 20, the Black Mesa team have released a trailer showing off their vision for Xen.
Yeah that looks beyond fantastic. I am glad they took their time with it.
If I was VALVE , I’d give the Black Mesa team the nod and resources to make HL3.
Good write up on HL 1 over here:
I really just don’t get Valve. How can they be se stupid and dumb, not even in any way celebrating 20th anniversary of a game that made them…it is just embarassing.
And yeah if they did not want to do HL3 themselves for whatever reason, why not let Laidlaw and Bailey work with some outside talented team like the Black Mesa guys or 4A (guys that made Metro).
I wonder how the Black Mesa team will handle the alien grunt manufacturing facility. I hope they are able to implement the “Vortigaunt Uprising” aspect that Value was unable to do back in 1998. That would be cool.
Completely agree. It’s a shame. That game is something I remember fondly and I am going to play it again this weekend, crap graphics be damned! If Valve won’t mark the occasion I will.
I highly recommend Black Mesa Source, if you have’t played it.
I have - but I am going to go old skool here - right back to the beginning… :)
Sadly old school doesn’t look as pleasant on a 4k screen. :P
I have no doubt - I am pretty sure it’s much worse than I recall as I played the source version recently and Black Mesa. So this will be a shock to the system.
But I still expect chills when I put on my HEV suit and that female voice runs through the checklist and concludes with a sultry “Have a VERY nice day” in a not so subtle foreshadowing…
Looking at the May and June updates, it looks like the Xen levels are on track to be out this year!
Please tell me they are removing the jumping puzzles.
Xen levels? What Xen levels?
I never missed the Xen levels when I played Black Mesa Source. The transition point felt like a nice ending point. I wouldn’t have had much of an appetite to push through the Xen levels so it was nice that they weren’t part of the mod.
A technical beta for Xen’s available now (Black Mesa’s also 60% off for the summer sale):
they are not gonna make 2019 are they
Been a long time coming, but now all of Black Mesa is playable in beta! It’s a 6.4GB update if you already have it installed.