Black Mesa News

Now you can play the first three chapters of Half-Life: Blue Shift, rebuilt in the spiffy new version of the Source Engine used in Black Mesa. The modding group behind the Blue Shift mod, HECU Collective, continues to publish new chapters of the Half-Life spin-off FPS game, which tells the story of a Black Mesa Research Facility security guard on the day of Gordon Freeman's fateful misadventure.

The first playable chunk of the mod arrived back in March, and it only included a brief introduction to Blue Shift. Now you can play Living Quarters Outbound, Insecurity, and Duty Calls, including all the taut combat sequences and environmental puzzles featured in the original game.

The most recent version of Black Mesa: Blue Shift also adds in some fixes for chapter two, new character animations, and some maintenance workers - all of whom, like protagonist Barney Calhoun, are having an extremely bad day. Duty Calls is where events in Blue Shift really pop off, and it begins in the wreckage of an elevator shaft, where Barney wakes up after Freeman sets off the resonance cascade, filling the facility with ravenous alien monsters.

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RELATED LINKS:

Black Mesa's Half-Life: Blue Shift mod hits Chapter 2

Black Mesa is better than Half-Life 2, here's why

The new Half-Life: Blue Shift mod for Black Mesa now has a playable intro

• CPU - Intel Core i5-11600K
  
• Ram Memory - 32GB of Corsair Vengeance White RGB PRO DDR4 @ 2666Mhz
  
• GPU - EVGA RTX 2060
  
• OS Drive - 480GB Force MP510 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD
  
• Storage - 500GB BarraCuda Seagate HDD
  

• Fixed crash in Interloper A (offset enemy spawn in times).
  
• Fixed the HEV chargers giving you the wrong charge amount.
  
• Fix for “No Free Edicts” issue in Interloper (timer on Interloper Agunt Pods).
  
• Optimized Interloper elevator sequence.
  
• Fixed female scientists not healing you.
  
• Fixed HEV scientist bodies showing revolver icon on item pickup.
  
• Added enginetools.txt to the bin folder.
  
• Implemented a fix for the new UI not working on Linux.
  
• Fixed hangs on Linux when pressing the Escape button.
  
• Fixed for the workshop on Linux.
  

• Fixed bug with video quality presets.
  
• Added separate label for gamepad options in menu (scroll down in the menu).
  
• Added enable/disable for vibration on controllers.
  
• Added an option to invert the Y-axis on controllers.
  
• Added sensitivity sliders for X and Y axis on controllers.
  

• Fixed WGH subtitle crash.
  
• Updated/fixed translation files based on community feedback.
  
• Fixed Arabic not being oriented correctly.
  
• Fixed text size during HEV bootup sequence on various resolutions.
  

• Fixed Lambda Core portal white screen bug (the spinny bits were killing players on teleport).
  
• Fixed smoke clipping through distant blue haze on Surface Tension cliffside.
  
• Slowed down bunker explosion animation on Surface Tension Cliffside to better portray sense of scale.
  
• Fixed scientist falling speed in Office complex.
  
• Fixed a small visual issue with the Tau’s sprint animation.
  
• Fixed missing wall stripe near control room in Unforeseen Consequences.
  
• Fixed weapons being removed if a satchel or snarks are thrown into portal 9 in Lambda Core.
  
• Adjusted emergency shutters in Lambda Core to prevent players from backtracking where they should not.
  
• Fixed rare softlocks in On A Rail (for the tram elevator by the rocket).
  
• Fixed I/O in Nihilanth chamber that would cause player to have noclip in endgame.
  
• Update to dm_crossfire skybox art.