Xen

[Fake]

First of all the mod is great and you really deserve some reward!

The only thing that bothers me a bit is the exclusivity of Xen for the Steam version only.

In this way you are leaving the free mod in a rather unfinished state although it was promised that Xen would be a part of it in the first place.
What also bothers me is that this case was never directly clarified/revealed (in a news post) until now.

“Purchasing the Steam version of Black Mesa is more about supporting the team and our efforts than anything else.”
“the Steam version will include features that the free version simply can not have.”

Except for the “features that the free version simply can not have” there was no word about making Xen exclusive for the paid version.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to blame you nor am I in the position to claim something from you.
I just wanted to share my thoughts here.

[Crypt]

Like you specified, it wasn’t explained in an official news post, however it’s been around for a while now.
I consider it an additional incentive to purchase the game, in addition to the multiplayer and massively upgraded bits overall.

[Slendgy]

I think there was talk about a new free version without multiplayer and some other features once the entire game is finished.

[Stairway_To_Sto_Vo_K]

The way i’ve gathered it, i’m pretty sure that the free version can’t have all the same features since it isn’t using a licensed copy of the engine or something. They had to edit some parts of the engine in the steam version to fix/improve some stuff that couldn’t be done with a free mod.

[Crypt]

bscly
It’s a different branch of Source that’s incompatible with previous versions. They’ll be fixing bugs and “supporting” the free version, but it will remain more or less identical to what was released in 2012.

[bkdale86]

Going to close this, Crypt basically nailed it.