Black Mesa News

Hello again, Black Mesa friends!

We have pushed another build to public beta on Steam. This is the second revision to the 1.0 update, which will take us out of Early Access on March 5th! If you are interested in helping us test, we would greatly appreciate it. You can find instructions on how to opt into the beta here.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/1711867920418803575


Since the last beta, we have tackled any important issues that were raised by the community, along with eliminating the previously known issues list. Moving forward, we are most importantly looking for any major game-breakers or issues with the UI.

We also believe that all the achievements should now be fully working for everybody. Those of you who struggled to earn some achievements in the previous beta, please attempt to do so again. If you experience any further issues with them, let us know!


At this point, we have addressed most of the issues (if not all of them) with the game that we intend on fixing for 1.0. The goal of this beta is mostly to check that the game is fully functional and ready for the final release, start to finish. Please let us know if you run into anything major.


Most importantly, a big thank you to everyone who helped us test this beta, and all the betas thus far. Your feedback was invaluable and we have absolutely loved pouring through your notes and thoughts!

The previously mentioned MASSIVE 1.0 changelog will be shared with you all once we have set 1.0 to the main branch on Steam, so those of you who would love to devour every little detail will be able to do so.


Finally, we are currently at PAX East! In case you didn’t see our last update on this, please check it out here:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/1716372156954041181
If you’re at the convention, please stop by Booth 24081 and check us out, have a chat, and play our demo! We’re having an absolute blast so far!



Thank you, and have a very safe and productive day. See you all for the 1.0 RELEASE on March 5th!

In March 2006, two of my college classmates got onto the Black Mesa mod team. I applied as an artist, and they more or less vouched for me. The team “hired” me without even completing an art test. From there I became the art lead, a partner in the new “Crowbar Collective LLC”, project lead, and eventually owner of the company.

As I write this, I am realizing that we plan to FINISH Black Mesa exactly 14 years to the month from when I first joined the team. 14 years working on a single project, with a dedicated team, that had a vision, and saw it through.

There are probably a fair number of people who if you asked them “Do you want to own a video game company?”, would say “Yes! Absolutely. Whatever it takes!”, but it is easy to commit to something when it is guaranteed. If instead in 2006 someone said to me “This will be difficult. You will consider quitting multiple times, and it is going to take you at least 14 years to complete.” I am not sure I would have signed up for that.

Who would have blamed me if I didn’t? For the majority of its development, Black Mesa was a volunteer project. Even after we got the green light to sell the game, we still did not make any money until late June of 2015.

I have heard “you should never work for free”, and I really couldn’t disagree with that more. I did multiple free side projects in college that either eventually paid off, or got me connections I otherwise would not have had. I learned communication and leadership skills in my volunteer fire department. I got my first game industry job because of my free work on Black Mesa, and then after a round of layoffs, my job BECAME Black Mesa. The thing that was supposed to be a portfolio piece to launch my career, became my career, and I would not have been in that position if I didn’t commit to the work as a volunteer.

The key to doing work for free is it has to be important to you AND it has to be important to other people. For Black Mesa, the quality of the source material, and the excitement of the community when we would post even the smallest amount of media is what kept us going.

The fact is, all roads are long roads. If you fear that, you’ll shy away from choosing the one that excites you most, and has the biggest reward. Not everyone is going to have reliable friends to pull them onto projects, not everyone is going to have the opportunity to own a video game company, but if there is something you want to accomplish there’s nothing left to do, but to do it. You can not win the game if you don’t play.

Through luck, hard work, and maybe a bit of ignorance we didn’t shy away from our goal of bringing this game to completion. We are proud of what we built. We think this upcoming 1.0 release is the best, most polished, and most fun version of the game yet. The anticipation and excitement around our project is beyond flattering.

Black Mesa is a video game, it is our video game, and it has its strengths, and its flaws. As Leonardo da Vinci said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned” and while we plan to fully support this game after 1.0 with bug fixes and more, it will never be a perfect game.

This is not to downplay, or make excuses, but as the person who drafts most of these media posts, I think it is important to break away from the marketing and the “hype”. Before Astroneer launched, they made a blog post about managing expectations for their game, and it really resonated with me, and inspired me to someday write a post like this one. We are super excited to have Black Mesa be “complete”, but acknowledge it is not perfect and won’t ever be perfect.

I hope that everyone has something that inspires them as much as Half-Life inspired us. I hope that everyone embraces the setbacks and challenges that come, and I hope no one fears the long road in front of them.

Black Mesa 1.0 will launch Thursday March 5th on Steam.

Thank you,
-Adam Engels
-The Black Mesa team

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

Crowbar Collective and Black Mesa will be at PAX East this year in Boston, MA, booth 24081, located on the map below (and be sure to check out the super handy app):


The expo will be from February 27th to March 1st and there are still some passes available. Come say "hi" to some of the team, check out the game, take a picture in the HEV suit, and get some free stickers (if we have any left)!


This is our first big convention, and we are excited to see everyone, and experience PAX for ourselves.

We plan to have more information for everyone about the game in the next few days.

Hope to see you there!

Discord - https://discord.gg/PSZfh8N

Hello Black Mesa friends,

We have pushed a build to public-beta on Steam. This is our candidate for our release out of Early Access! If you are interested in helping us test, we would greatly appreciate it. You can find instructions on how to opt into the beta here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/1724246478625804044




Most importantly, game breakers. We obviously want the 1.0 experience to be as smooth and enjoyable as possible, so if you find any crashes or progression blockers, please let us know so we can fix it. The game has been very stable during our internal testing, but we need to test on a wider set of players and machines.

We are also looking for difficulty spikes. Throughout all of earthbound we rebuilt combat spaces and upgraded the AI of the HECU and Vortigaunts. We think this dramatically improves the combat in the game. Let us know what you think, and let us know if there is a section that feels too hard.

In addition to redesigning the combat spaces, we took time to make sure the player path is as clear as possible. Let us know if you find any part of the game unclear. We still have some sections of the game that make you stop and think, but we made a huge effort to keep the player’s momentum up throughout the game.

Lastly, we need help testing the achievements. We now have 50 total achievements, so if you have trouble completing one, let us know on the Steam forums or Discord.




As you’d expect with any 1.0 release, we worked to have the most stable and complete game possible. We think the main game is solid, but we do have another patch on the way to fix what is found in the beta, and to finish off the new game user interface. Here are some quick notes on what you might find broken in the game:

User Interface
-The new UI can’t launch MP listen servers
-Workshop section of new UI is not working
-The Xen maps do not display the correct chapter title for save files
-The godray setting will not save in the settings menu
-The new UI occasionally flickers
-Manual saves show a screenshot of the UI, not the game
-The developer console needs some polish
-Searching for games online takes too long
-Other misc UI errors

If you need to use the old UI for any reason, launch the game with -oldgameui.

Besides that, we don’t expect much wrong with the game. As always, we want to hear about everything you find, but we will be focusing on the issues listed in the section above for 1.0.

We will be back soon with a MASSIVE change list that details the entirety of the 1.0 update!

Thank you, and have a very safe and productive day.



Discord - https://discord.gg/PSZfh8N

Happy Lunar New Year from the Black Mesa team!

We wanted to let everyone know we are close to having a release candidate for Black Mesa 1.0! We also wanted to give an update on what is going to be included in the full release, what our road map looks like going forward, and to mention we are 20% off for the Lunar Sale.

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


As soon as it is ready, we will push the build to public beta like we have in the past. After lots of internal and external testing, we will patch the build as needed, and finally, FINALLY (FINALLY!!!) release Black Mesa out of Early Access!

This is a huge deal for us. The team has put in a ton of effort to improve the game in ways big and small.


The biggest change we have made is a complete overhaul of the HECU AI. Soldiers will now lay down suppressing fire, flank your position, communicate more, throw grenades more effectively, use their MP5 grenade launchers, and more.

We have also evaluated and changed a number of the combat spaces to better utilize the AI and to reflect what we have learned since we first built Earthbound. It has been a lot of fun redesigning areas of the game to work better, and to use “creativity through constraint” to make the most of our levels without completely rebuilding them.

The team watched a number of playthroughs and identified sections in the game where the pace came to a grinding halt. We redesigned or fixed these sections so that players can keep up their momentum.

In addition to the design, we evaluated the art as well. We took what we learned in Xen and updated A FEW sections of Earthbound to better match Xen and current graphics standards.





We will fully support the game after our launch, and plan to expand upon this process to give the whole game an upgrade while keeping the performance the same.


[h2]1.0[/h2]
As mentioned above, we are close to a release candidate for Black Mesa 1.0. We will test the whole game internally, push the build to public-beta for even more testing, patch the build if necessary, then release the game in full.

[h2]1.5[/h2]
We jokingly call this Black Mesa: Definitive Edition, but don’t worry, it will not be any type of re-release or paid content. After 1.0 we will take a few months to go through the game, identify rough spots, and polish the art on Earth and Xen. We’d also like to continue to improve the workshop and organize team and community events to document as much as we can about the Source engine and how to best use it. We don’t have a scope for these events yet, but after years of loving/hating/fixing/breaking the Source engine, we would love to help others get information and solve problems.


We like to sign off these updates by thanking the community, but know they are not canned lines or something we tack on to look grateful. We are really proud to have been able to finish this game, and it would not have been possible without our patient and helpful community. I don’t think it has fully set in that we are almost “done” with Black Mesa. We REALLY look forward to some low-pressure fun updates for this game, as well as starting in on new projects.

Thank you for the support, thank you for the constructive criticism, and thank you for all the time spent in our game. We will be back soon with release notes and a beta!

-The Black Mesa Team

Discord - https://discord.gg/PSZfh8N