Xen Holiday Screenshot

Black Mesa Archive News & Developer Updates
#1

Happy Holidays!

The team remains, as always, hard at work on Xen! Currently our specific focus is on gameplay: crafting a fun and cohesive experience from start to finish. We want our version of Xen to feel like it really belongs with the rest of the game in terms of mechanics, cohesion and progression. But we also want to push the boundaries and explore this unique and varied setting; to build an experience that feels both fresh and familiar to players from all walks of Half-Life veterancy. While our Xen is certainly going to be gorgeous, we are first and foremost really committed to making sure that the gameplay works on every level.

To give a bit of an exciting tease into what we’re doing at the moment, and as our own little holiday gift to you lot, please enjoy our first ever publicly released screenshot of Xen!

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We will have more media for the community in the coming months, as well as more detailed updates as to how we are progressing. Right now we are up against a tough deadline, but we are committed and excited to work towards it and to finally unveil the definitive Black Mesa experience for everyone to enjoy.

Be kind to each other out there, and again, have a happy holiday!

#2

YOOOOOOOOO I love you guys! It’s my perfect birthday gift XD

But I will patiently wait until it’s done. Keep it up and don’t hurry. Quality need time you know XD

#3

Looks gorgeous. It’s going to be exciting to see what paths we’re taken on with the imagination of the BM developers!

#4

Ooh, neato! Lighting looks pretty sick, good shades. And the godrays really do add pleasant nuance, I can see why you guys wanted them. And damn, those rocks on the floor look super good, they blend so well. Are they all modular pieces or are they very specifically designed to fit where they’re used?

Damn guys, nice work.

#5

Thanks for the kind words, guys. Means a lot to us! Very excited to finally be sharing some stuff with you lot. This is just the beginning, as well!

Kind of both. Our current pipeline is using modular pieces. Once we deem a scene to be relatively complete, the modular pieces will then be collapsed into a single model, which is thus optimised and has all the non-visible back faces deleted and such. This will dramatically save on performance compared to using modular pieces, but also allows us to keep the flexibility of modular pieces.

#6

That looks amazing! Very interesting mix of the “natural” environment and equipment left by the scientists who visited there. I hope there might be some passive storytelling going on about what happened to them (will we meet any survivors?).

A great start to the holidays indeed!

#7

This looks nothing like Xen, which is good because Xen was butt-fuck ugly

#8

OH

MY

GAWD

I’m such a sucker for this. Looks absolutely amazing! Is this still source, though? Just amazing what some decent programming and mapping/modelling craftmanship can do to an engine!

Absouletly great work guys! SO looking forward to this! And thanks for sharing, too! you must super duper excited about this!

#9

Oh jeez guys, I showed this single screenshot of Xen to Neogaf and they’re not impressed. They say it just looks like a generic terrestrial cave and barely alien at all.

I would recommend either cancel the whole game altogether or restart Xen from scratch and make it look so alien our brains can’t process any of it.

#10

That’s fine, this is one of the less alien parts of Xen. You should see what comes before this screenshot area, haha.

Some parts are very grounded and earthy, others are very alien. We’re saving the really juicy stuff for later.

#11

It looks SWEET.
Thanks for the teaser, this just made my Christmas.

I’m sure Maxey was being sarcastic, clues include mentioning the cesspool that is NeoGaf and saying you should cancel the whole game. lolz[/size]

#12

COOL . New sprites ?

#13

Oh my god, the level of tease.

Thank you for the screenshot. It is absolutely stunning. 2016 is not ending as shitty as it was in general I guess :slight_smile: …

#14

Interesting…

Going to have to extend the bridges on the grounds that the other sections sheared off and fell in the water…

#15

I really like the look and feel of those pic, correct atmopshere!

If XEN is completely made like this, with outdoor areas aswell of course :wink: , then I gonna enjoy my holiday on XEN!

#16

Will those pieces themselves also be made available, for modders?

#17

HYPE TRAIN!!!

love the image, so many minor details that I can see. I love the major detail that is the long jump platforms. for some reason I see the science team as being lazy. Why build a bridge when we have freaking jet packs.

Though out side of the things like the lense flare, light stalk, and mist. I have to say the biggest detail I see is the dead HEV scientist near what I am guessing is a research pod.

#18

It just didn’t feel like Christmas to me until now. <3

#19

That’s so beautiful… it makes me cry that I won’t be able to see this until summer 2017.
like wtf this is the source engine but i didnt know source engine could be pushed to make visuals so damn awesome

#20

You should checkout Dear Esther, that game sure pushes the source engine to it’s limits too!

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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.