How many guards and scientists can we find in the game? - Here is the answer.

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#1

Greetings everyone!

While waiting patiently for the next great update, I decided to make an attempt at determining the number of Black Mesa employees we can find throughout the game. Years ago I did it with Half-Life. There, excluding the Hazard Course and the Xen chapters, we can find:

34 security guards alive, 22 dead.

104 scientists alive and 57 dead.

35 zombies and 3 awesome forklifter guys, called “Gus”.

This puts the total number at 255.

With Black Mesa, this quest took me… slightly longer. First thing first, I made a couple of rules for the job, like:

  • Anomalous Materials and Unforseen Consequences chapters are considered completly separate.

  • Scripted events are ignored. If an npc is alive at the moment we find him, than he is marked as alive.

  • Zombies… alive, dead, half dead or very dead… they are all the same to me.

  • Burnt bodies are counted: usually it’s easy to determine wether they were friends or foes.

  • If only a part of the body remains, I look for a vital part like torso, spine or skull. A lonely severed leg doesn’t have to mean it’s owner is dead (rip Eli Vance)

  • Sometimes only some suspecious blood mark remains on the floor or on the walls. Those are counted as well.

One question remains. What version of the game I used?

  • The up to date Steam version of Black Mesa, extended with the OAR: Uncut and WGH - Vent Mods.

So , here is the brakedown of all the chapters. Or you can just skip it it to avoid nightmares with all these numbers.

BLACK MESA INBOUND

bm_c0a0a: Security guards: 4 Scientists: 18

bm_c0a0b: Security guards: 4 Scientists: 10

bm_c0a0c: Security guards: 1 Scientists: 6

ANOMALOUS MATERIALS

bm_c1a0a: Security guards: 6 Scientists: 33

bm_c1a0b: Security guards: 2 Scientists: 21

UNFORSEEN CONSEQUENCES

bm_c1a1a: Security guards: 1 alive, 1 dead Scientists: 7 alive, 6 dead, 2 zombified

bm_c1a1b: Security guards: 3 alive, 1 dead, 3 zombified Scientists: 1 alive, 9 dead, 23 zombified

bm_c1a1c: Security guards: 1 dead Scientists: 4 alive, 5 dead, 11 zombified Suspecious blood / gibs: 2

bm_c1a1d: Security guards: 1 alive, 2 dead Suspecious blood / gibs: 1

bm_c1a1e: Scientists: 1 dead Suspecious blood / gibs: 2

OFFICE COMPLEX

bm_c1a2a: Security guards: 1 alive, 1 dead, 1 zombified Scientists: 3 alive, 3 dead, 4 zombified Suspecious blood / gibs: 2

bm_c1a2b: Security guards: 2 alive, 2 dead Scientist: 4 alive, 7 dead, 3 zombified Suspecious blood / gibs: 2

bm_c1a2c: Security guards: 2 alive, 6 dead, 4 zombified Scientists: 4 alive, 8 dead, 11 zombified Suspecious blood / gibs: 3

“WE’VE GOT HOSTILES!”

bm_c1a3a: Security guards: 1 alive, 4 dead Scientists: 6 alive, 5 dead, 2 zombified Suspecious blood / gibs: 2

bm_c1a3b: Security guards: 1 dead Scientists: 4 alive, 5 dead

bm_c1a3c: Security guards: 1 dead, 3 zombified Scientists: 2 alive, 2 dead, 2 zombified Burned bodies: 1


BLAST PIT

bm_c1a4a: Scientists: 1 zombified

bm_c1a4b: Security guards: 2 alive, 1 dead Scientists: 2 alive, 2 dead, 3 zombified Suspecious blood / gibs: 1

bm_c1a4c: Security guards: 2 zombified Scientists: 1 dead, 7 zombified Suspecious blood / gibs: 1

bm_c1a4d: Security guards: 1 dead Scientists: 2 alive, 2 dead Suspecious blood / gibs: 1

bm_c1a4e: Burned bodies: 2

POWER UP

bm_c2a1a: Security guards: 2 alive Scientists: 1 dead

bm_c2a1b: Security guards: 1 zombified Scientists: 1 zombified

ON A RAIL

bm_c2a2a: Security guards: 2 dead, 1 zombified Scientits: 1 dead, 2 zombified

bm_c2a2a1: Security guards: 2 dead, 1 zombified Scientists: 1 zombified Engineer: 5 dead Burned bodies: 1

bm_c2a2a2: Security guards: 7 dead Scientists: 10 dead, 4 zombified Suspecious blood / gibs: 1 Office clerks: 8 dead

bm_c2a2b: Security guards: 1 alive, 1 dead

bm_c2a2b1: Security guards: 1 alive, 4 dead, 1 zombified Scientists: 2 dead, 1 zombified Engineer: 7 dead

bm_c2a2b2: Security guards: 4 alive, 3 deead, 4 zombified Scientists: 1 dead Suspecious blood: 1 Engineer: 9 dead

bm_c2a2c: Scientists: 6 dead, 1 zombified Suspecious blood / gibs: 1

APREHENSION

bm_c2a3a: Scientists: 2 alive, 1 dead, 2 zombified

bm_c2a3b: Scientists: 1 alive

bm_c2a3c: Security guards: 1 alive

RESIDUE PROCESSING

bm_c2a4a: Security guards: 1 alive, 3 zombified Scientists: 2 dead, 1 zombified Suspecious blood / gibs: 1

bm_c2a4b: Security guards: 1 dead Scientists: 1 dead

bm_c2a4c: Suspecious blood / gibs: 1

QUESTIONABLE ETHICS

bm_c2a4e: Security guards: 1 alive, 1 dead, 1 zombified Scientists: 11 dead

bm_c2a4f: Security guards: 4 dead Scientists: 3 alive, 12 dead, 3 zombified Suspecious blood / gibs: 2

bm_c2a4g: Security guards: 1 alive Scientists: 1 alive Suspecious blood / gibs: 2

bm_c2a4h: Security guards: 4 dead Scientists: 6 dead Suspecious blood / gibs: 1 Burned bodies: 2

SURFACE TENSION

bm_c2a5a: Security guards: 3 dead

bm_c2a5b: Security guards: 1 dead

bm_c2a5c: Security guards: 1 dead

bm_c2a5d: Security guards: 2 dead Suspecious blood / gibs: 1

bm_c2a5e: Security guards: 2 alive, 1 dead Scientists: 2 dead

bm_c2a5f: Security guards: 1 alive, 4 dead Scientists: 1 dead Suspecious blood / gibs: 2

bm_c2a5g: Security guards: 4 dead, 2 zombified Scientists: 2 dead, 2 zombified Ssuspecious blood / gibs: 1

bm_c2a5h: Security guards: 1 alive, 4 dead, 4 zombified Scientists: 1 dead, 15 zombified Suspecious blood / gibs: 1

bm_c2a5i: Security guards: 6 dead Scientists: 2 dead

FORGET ABOUT FREEMAN!

bm_c3a1a: Security guards: 1 alive, 1 dead Suspecious blood / gibs: 1

bm_c3a1b: Security guards: 1 dead

LAMBDA CORE

bm_c3a2a: Security guards: 1 dead Scientists: 1 dead

bm_c3a2b: Scientists: 2 alive, 2 dead

bm_c3a2c: Security guards: 1 alive Scientists: 1 alive, 7 dead

bm_c3a2d: Security guards: 1 zombified Scientists: 2 dead, 2 zombified

bm_c3a2e: Security guards: 1 zombified Scientists: 3 dead, 2 zombified

bm_c3a2f:-

bm_c3a2g: Security guards: 2 alive Scientists: 2 alive, 3 dead

bm_c3a2h: Security guards: 1 alive, 1 dead Scientists: 5 alive, 2 dead

Summa summarum, in Black Mesa, I’ve found

  • 51 security guards alive, 81 dead and 33 zombified.
  • 146 scientists alive, 136 dead and 106 zombified.
  • 34 suspecious blood or body remains.
  • 6 suspecious burned husks.
  • 22 dead engineers (in OAR UNCUT)
  • and 8 dead office clerks (in OAR UNCUT)
    This puts the total number at 623. - 39% of the total 1600 employees the BMRF claims to has in an advertisement.

Phew. This is it for now…

… or did I miss anything? Well, if we want to go even crazier… there is a total 147 barnacles spread around the facility. When killed, every single of them spits out some human remains, including a skull usually. Guess our collegues really lost their heads in the chaos.

#2

I’d been meaning to do an analysis like this but simply never found the time. Hats off to you good sir, this will be very useful for any number of different things.

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.