Xen Timeline

Black Mesa Archive News & Developer Updates
#1

Happy Halloween!
We wanted to use the holiday and the sale to announce our rough timeline for Xen. We are currently targeting a summer 2017 release. We will keep you up to date on our progress and we plan to show off some media as we finish developing Xen to give everyone a glimpse at what we are working on.

Why so Long?
We can’t overemphasize how much work it was to get the game on Steam. Most of our effort before launching was put into porting to the retail engine and getting the game to work better than it did in the mod. Since release, the team has been focused on developing Xen. We even planned our updates to have features that would help improve the earthbound levels and Xen (for example CSM).

We want to do Xen the justice it deserves, and have it be the definitive climax to the Half-Life 1 story. To do this we have completely redesigned and expanded the Xen levels to what we think Valve would have done without the limitations of the time.

To help illustrate this, here are some comparison shots of our levels to the original Half-Life levels in Hammer. Not only are our maps substantially bigger than the originals, there are more of them as well.

Comparison of HL1 and Black Mesa’s first Xen Map

4280×3742

Comparison of the first map of Interloper

5870×5035

As always we want to thank our awesome community for supporting us in Early Access and for being as passionate as us about Half-Life. We have been working really hard on Xen and we hope you are as excited as us to see the full release of Black Mesa. We’ll have more in game media to show off in the near future!

Patch
We also wanted to quickly mention that we have a patch coming for our latest update. This patch fixes:

  • The hitching on Linux multiplayer servers and on Linux single player
  • Russian closed captions
  • UI fonts being broken for people that do not have Steam set to English
  • Workshop publish tool not launching
  • ZECU torso crashing hammer and the game

Thanks!

-The Black Mesa Team

#2

NEWS… oh it is so good to hear.

Now lets take bets on when the delay will be announced :stuck_out_tongue: .

That said, the expaned maps look epic in that image, strange to say I am happy cause I can see the traces of science team equipment on the first one, and MANTAS! yes a xen which actually uses them!!!

#3

Woah that’s a lot of area to explore!
This is amazing guys, thank you for the outstanding work you’ve been doing all this time!
:thumbup:

#4

OMG that scale…XD

#5

HUGE it is!

XEN A? So also a XEN B?

#6

looking at teh scale I can see how xen would be impossible in the mod version, you guys would at minimum have to cut maps in half.

#7

Great to hear that it’s all finally coming to a point where it can come out!

Will be 12 years when it comes out next year.

#8

I’m stunned :o .

Keep up the good work, can’t wait to see how it turns out.

#9

So first and foremost, bravo on committing to a long-term ETA and then announcing it. That’s uncharted territory. I’m gonna take that as a show of team confidence, which is a cool thing to see.

Secondly, I’m intrigued by the seemingly gigantic amounts of open space. Certainly suits Xen in a way, but curious as to how that plays. Also goddamn, having to work on those displacements would make me quit the team, alone. Christ.

Promise?

#10

Beautiful update, I was waiting like other for YEARS for the second part of the game.

Thank you guys, you’d deserve to produce also HL3: EP3 after this…

#11

Sweet Baby Headcrab! That is some awesome news!

Geez, I’m really curious how this is going to play out, but, Crowbar collective, we have complete confidence in you.
Also, have to agree with crypt. While I don’t understand anything of mapmaking, I can imagine that this world geometry must’ve been a huge pain to get right! Especially as you took the liberty in expanding the maps as much as you did. Also, I’m very curious in what else (MP -wise for example) you have in stock!

Anyway, big thanks for letting us glimpse into what is to come!
Kind of grinding my teeth, though, cause next summer, I most likely won’t have any time to play it and I really planned to play the whole game start to finish in one or two gos, as soon as Xen is out. I’ll save that for later then.
Still, excited as chickenshit about this! :smiley:

#12

What interests me is that, while the boxy structures on the left side of the first map just look unfinished, there is a section of corridor (?) on the far right that clearly looks regular and artificial.

A long time ago, I thought of making a ‘Pre-Disaster Xen’ as an April Fools’ joke with peaceful Agrunts and vortigaunts, but now it seems like I may end up doing something along those lines.

#13

Yeah, I peeped that obviously human architecture too but tried to not read into it because that takes away some surprises.

#14

#15

I have a question that only the developers will understand: when you release the Xen update, will you be uploading Carlos’ concept art to the wiki?

#16

I’m so hyped! Official news regarding Xen! What a time to be alive.

#17

Well this was a nice thing to wake up to.

I was actually expecting you guys to announce the Xen release a week before you were ready to ship it, if not on the day of - So having the date 6 months in advance is a good sign you guys are confident about it!
(I suppose it will stop all the people complaining on all the facebook posts, too)

#18

I am pretty sure them releasing xen wouldn’t stop people from asking where it is. At this point I don’t think people even check the news they just post “where is xen?” and move on.

#19

This is awesome news to hear! I would’ve been okay with a couple weeks warning. It’s nice to see that you are confident in your ability to meet this date. Thanks for all the work you’ve put in over the years! :slight_smile:

#20

Fantastic!

Crikey, there’ s a voice from the Elder Days! how are you doing, jambo?

This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the return of jambo, it will see the return of a 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.