Breaking the Fourth Wall in Black Mesa

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#1

The ‘fourth wall’ is a theater term that is supposed to describe the imaginary wall between the stage an an audience, and conceptually, breaking that wall is supposed to describe a fictiional character acknowledging his fictional nature to the audience. In other words, winking at them. :wink:

The term has evolved over the years to include (very loosely) any instance where a work of fiction either intentionally or unintentionally reminds its audience that it is fictional.

I don’t mean this to be a BMS bashing thread, but there have been a few instances of this for me in Black Mesa. I’ll share one below, and feel free to share any of yours as well.

~

For me, I was very forcefully reminded that “this is a game” when in Surface Tension I came out to the outdoor area with the helicopter and the infinite rappelling marines. The infinite marines were irritating, but what hit me more was how the HECU prioritized me/Gordon as a target over the aliens in the area.

I have a distinct feeling that if I was standing next to my worst enemy on earth (let’s call him Bubba) and suddenly an alien appeared and attacked, I would instantly be forming a man-love bond with Bubba and joining forces with him to fight the alien. I just can’t see hating and being more intent on hurting Bubba than some completely foreign creature standing in front of me. I could, of course, resume my feud with Bubba after the alien was dead, but I’m pretty sure Bubba would be number 2 on my list as long as the alien was alive.

Likewise, I think HECU should prioritize aliens in battle. Maybe not insignificant threats like headcrabs, but grunts and vorts? Yes.

~

btw, Black Mesa is awesome. :slight_smile:

#2

You’re misusing the breaking fourth wall, what you said is breaking the immersion, breaking 4th wall is intentional, and is aimed directly at player, to show medium-awareness of you(Eg: when you die in HL2, rebel may say “Relax, he’s done this before”, referencing respawn mechanic, the "I thought he was invincible!"is not direct one,more like leaning on the wall, references Gordon beating the odds all the time).
I do see your point though, but it was brought up several times, so you risk of recieving negative feedback.

#3

I wouldn’t have the bit of disdain for this thread if it wasn’t both incorrectly labeled and entirely something that’s been brought up in other threads. So yeah, Mashak knows what’s up.

I don’t think they can really do much for the AI targeting system and still get it updated in a, “reasonable timeframe.”

#4

I thought this was an interesting thread about breaking the 4th wall, which would be great because there are a lot of easter eggs and little lines of dialogue that are indeed ‘aware’ of their nature as a videogame. As in, “Oh, you cut your ponytail”.

But… yeah, the OP misused the term. So… yeah… bye, I guess.

#5

Another one who doesn’t understand what breaking the 4th wall means.

“Oh, man! You cut the ponytail” has nothing to do with the 4th wall, ffs! It’s sort of “retcon” thingy explaining why Gordon doesn’t have a ponytail despite being shown as such on early concept arts.

Easter eggs are NOT breaking the 4th wall, because depending on who the audience is, they
a) don’t work at all (Audience didn’t notice that there are silly photos of BMS team on the walls)
b) are misunderstood (Audience noticed silly phots, but doesn’t know these are the people behind BMS)
c) make audience laugh (Audience knows the photos are of production team, and have a good laugh).

There’s a lot of immersion breaking stuff in the game, but that’s to be expected, considering the game has to teach the player how to do different things (“Press E to charge your suit”)

#6

The game has loading screens and a HUD. It really tears down the fourth wall.

#7

Actually, the loading screens and HUD are the fourth wall, pretty much :3

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.