Summer Update 2018

Summer Sale
Hope everyone is having a great summer. Black Mesa is now on sale for 60% off! It’s a GREAT time to pick up the game at a discounted price :wink:

Xen
There has been lots of progress on Xen. We have started external playtesting. The first two chapters, “Xen” and “Gonarch’s Lair”, clock in around two hours. For reference, all five chapters of Xen in HL1 can be completed in approximately one hour! We are really excited to show our work to everyone, but we also want to save the majority of Xen as a surprise.

Here is a brief breakdown of our current progress in each chapter:

Xen - Final Polish
We have locked the majority of the Xen levels. Most of the design and art is completed, and we are polishing one or two rough edges in the design.

Gonarch’s Lair - Art
As you can see, we have a good amount of art completed for Gonarch. We are doing some last minute design revisions to get the gameplay tight and consistent throughout the chapter, and then we can drop in our already created art. As you might guess, this chapter is very heavy on code and animation. The first map is locked, the second map is finishing its main art pass, and the final map is undergoing some design iterations, with some art already implemented.

Interloper - Final Gameplay
This chapter has gone through a hefty number of positive and ambitious design revisions since we started it. We are really happy with the direction and iterations that have gone in, for all five maps. They are very close to gameplay complete, and are playable start to finish. We are currently finishing the modular art pieces, trimming some of the chapter’s “fat”, and polishing the last of the rough design edges to produce a streamlined and action-packed conclusion to Xen’s main story.

As Interloper is a significant departure from the rest of Xen, our intention is to get Xen and Gonarch’s Lair completed through the final polish stages first, before shifting the entire team onto Interloper at once, to finish this chapter up in one quick fell swoop.

Nihilanth - Gameplay/Art
The art for this level is completed. Without giving too much more away, we have a really exciting evolution for this chapter, and we are starting the final push to get this chapter completely coded, scripted, and animated.

Endgame - Final Polish
This chapter is locked. There are some dependency assets and some polish we have to implement once the rest of the game is complete, but other than that, it is ready to go.

Multiplayer Playdate - 6-30-18
The Black Mesa devs are getting together for a play date on on Saturday June 30th at 12:00 PM EST (midday). We are looking forward to filling some servers, blowing off some steam, and having a good time.

Celebrating 20 Years of Half-Life
Oh cool, so it’s already JUNE. Time flies when you are grinding toward a deadline having fun. As many of you are probably already aware, Half-Life will be TWENTY this November. We obviously plan on doing some BIG THINGS to celebrate the game that inspired us and became such a huge part of all our lives.

One of the events planned is Black Mesa (Crowbar Collective) having a booth at Syracuse’s Retro Game Con November 3rd and 4th. Stop by if you are in the area and chat with us. I went last year as a guest and had a great time (and got some sweet video game themed magnets too). More info on this event to come.

We are also considering doing a dev marathon stream of Black Mesa, Half-Life 2, Episode 1, and Episode 2. Would anyone be interested in watching us do that? We would have to figure out the logistics, as we are all not in one place, but that is something that sounds like a good time to us.

There are some other big ideas we would really like to do, but can’t talk about just yet. If you have any ideas, please let us know!

1 Like

Hype train activated.

It’s hard to tell, but I’m pretty sure those tiny, heavily artifacted screenshots are showing off something gorgeous. Looking forward to the release!

https://www.blackmesasource.com/video/5.mp4
I know what I am going to watch for the next 12 hours. ^^

edit:
now on yt
youtu.be/YktnjkGP_Ao

1 Like

did you just copy that link from the xen chit chat thread?

when you talk about ‘art’ in the update, you mean concept art or ingame models?

In-game models, lighting, textures, and all the rest of the graphical elements, I assume. The screenshots indicate they’re clearly past the concept art stage.

WOW! Nice! Woke up to some awesome news!

Hopefully we’ll get the Engine update in July/August and the whole thing releases at the end of September!
Good job guys and thanks for your hard work!

Finally, it’s coming to an end!

Please make the portal (red) to Nihilanth’s lair really elevated making it like we’re climbing the final mountain to the final boss while hearing scientist noises on the way up! :smiley:
well just an idea

There are 6 steps and “art” is the fifth step, of course means in-game assets.

My god…WONDERFUL JOB

YES!! QUALITY XEN CONTENT IS WHAT I LIVE FOR!!!

Though I noticed that some of the screenshots are a bit too small and compressed to properly make out, especially with the Interloper screenshot. Did you think having us see all the fine details would be spoiling us a little too much, or was this unintentional?

Also the Gonarch chapter looks sweet. The piles of dead Houndeyes and Bullsquids definitely helps make the big Headcrab momma look pretty intimidating.

Thank you Crowbar Collective + anyone else involved!

So awesome! Guys, you did a great work! I can’t believe that’s an ingame screenshot!

Keep up your work guys, we hope we can get the final release as soon as possible, better in 1 or 2 months!

Thanks for your hard work, I really love them!

I mean I’d totally be down to watch a marathon of you guys, I’m too lazy to replay HL2 and the Eps myself

Wow, great job guys!

Nice try, but update without any actual in-game features nor fixes for us to see now, is no update for me. Thanks for the 6 screenshots after so much time, but considering how long you were preparing for this, I can’t help being dissapointed. You fixed the lighting issues in the meantime, I’ll at least give you that.

that has to be the second most self entitled piece of crap post on the net. Ok the devs have stated several times they want xen to be a surprise. The fact that they are willing to compromise that surprise just to post this shows that they do care about this community. Then you have asshats like you who can not see this and post self entitled bullcrap.

^ Best thing just to ignore the offending haters/trolls [/size]

On Topic: Awesome news!! And awesome pics! I am kinda getting to the point where I’d actually like to avoid seeing any more media, but I just can’t avoid it, when there’s something new…and looking and the pics I am starting to get worried about my system being able to still give some decent fps while playing this ;( But that’s of course my very own problem.

I’d love to see a playthrough of all the core HL games!

That emphasis on big things going to happen on the aniversary kinda has a ring of release date in it, doesn’t it? Well, this is my very own speculation of course, but I am half-expecting a release of Xen and the end of Early Access in November. Opinions?

I wouldn’t expect it per se unless we have official confirmation, but one can be hopeful. It would be the most poetic release date.

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.