If one thing is clear, is that Half-Life is one of the top video games ever: its fantastic gameplay, superb atmosphere and realism made it an instant classic back in 1998. Also, the game’s protagonist Gordon Freeman is regularly mentioned in any conversation about gaming’s top characters. The game also boasts characters like the enigmatic G-Man, who’s seen in the image which accompanies this article.
Sadly, Half-Life looks a bit long in the tooth nowadays, and even Valve’s own remastered edition (named Half-Life 1: Source) leaves much to be desired too.
Thankfully, though, fans of the 1998 classic have Black Mesa. This fan-made remake is currently available on Steam Early Access, but until this point had been missing a portion of the game.
This is because Black Mesa ended just after protagonist Gordon Freeman made the jump to Xen, the alien world from which the invaders attacking Black Mesa (a research facility in the New Mexico desert) had come from.
However, Half-Life fans will be happy to know that Black Mesa is now complete, and the Xen portion of the game is now available, meaning Black Mesa can now be played from beginning to end more than seven years after its original release.
But although Black Mesa is complete level-wise, the game is not finished yet, as more work is left to be done on the remake, development on which started back in 2004.
So said developer Crowbar Collective in a recent post, adding that another round of fixing and polishing is coming now, and that the non-Xen part of the game will also be getting graphical and gameplay improvements and further tweaks to make the whole experience feel more cohesive.
The game, however, will remain on Steam’s Early Access for the time being, an indication that this is not yet the final release, so you might want to hold off on a purchase until Black Mesa hits Steam’s regular catalogue, even if the game is going at a 20 % discount right now.
But still, this is certainly good news for those longing to play Half-Life again and couldn’t stand the game’s dated graphics, so here’s hoping a definitive version of Black Mesa is available to buy on Steam sooner rather than later.
Read more: Half-Life remake ‘Black Mesa’ likely to have a full release next summer