How to install Black Mesa

Black Mesa Archive In-game Issues (Mod)
#1

I’ve seen numerous recipes to try and install Black Mesa (I had to search too since it wasn’t working). Here’s what did the job for me, where other recipes didn’t.

  1. Launch Steam and install, in Library/Tools, “Source SDK Base 2007”. This takes a little less than 4 GB on the disk.

  2. Download the BlackMesa.7z file.

You can download the installer as well and try to run it but here it failed, probably because Steam has changed (I’m not sure this project is still on), and also because it wasn’t uncompressing the .7z archive. So in this case you can simply follow the next steps.

  1. Uncompress it into \SteamApps\sourcemods\BMS, so it looks like this:

\SteamApps\sourcemods\BMS\BlackMesa\bin
\SteamApps\sourcemods\BMS\BlackMesa\cfg
…

  1. Create a shortcut.

For example, if your Steam directory is D:\games\Steam, the shortcut target should be:

D:\games\Steam\Steam.exe -applaunch 218 -game “d:\games\Steam\SteamApps\sourcemods\BMS\BlackMesa”

You don’t need to see it in the Steam library, I doubt that these days it’s still possible to make it appear there anyway.

  1. Launch the game from the shortcut.

HTH. Have fun!

#2

Which is pretty much what the wiki directions say eh?

#3

Nobody reads the wiki. It’s only the most comprehensive and easiest to access set of organized info regarding the mod, why would anyone ever bother with it?

#4

Not really, no. If it were the case, it’d been much easier and I wouldn’t post this :wink:

As I said, the setup only puts a .7z and it has to be decompressed manually (maybe it depends on where one downloads it). And Black Mesa isn’t listed in the Library, or at least not for many people.

#5

Assuming you downloaded the mod correctly, you should have:

BlackMesa.7z
BlackMesa.md5
BlackMesa-Setup.exe

BlackMesa-Setup is all you need to touch, as it automatically decompresses the .7z into the right directory.

#6

What Crypt said.

But for what it is worth, I updated the wiki to offer exact links to the files on gamefront.
https://wiki.blackmesasource.com/Installation_Manual#Installation_Instructions_.28step_by_step.29

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.