Black Mesa Source announces release on September 14

***Commissar MercZ*** · September 1st, 2012

Black Mesa Source is a pretty ambitious "remake" of HL1 with current Source Engine capabilities. When it was first announced way back when, it was hotly anticipated, but quickly fell into a period of long development with no public releases. I had written it off too for a long time, but was surprised today to see that they had finally decided to do a release.

According to them, they have the game completed up to the Lambda Core- pretty much a good chunk of the game right to when the player goes to Xen.

The Main page has been updated with a counter, with a formal announcement on its forums.

Quote:

We're freaking out over here! It is so exciting to share this news with you!
You can now Download the Black Mesa Soundtrack, courtesy of our very own Joel Nielsen, at the very generous price of whatever you want! Enjoy and share!
In the near future you'll see our Website, Wiki and Forums all taken down temporarily for renovations.
On September 14th you will see the first release of Black Mesa! This will include our re-envisioning of Half-Life all the way up to Lambda Core. We believe this is a great way to provide a complete-feeling 8-10 hour experience with a solid ending, make our fans happy and help us make the best overall game possible.

We are still working hard on Xen and BMDM, but instead of making you wait we are giving you Black Mesa as soon as it's ready! We're doing our best to help bring the immense vision of this project into reality, and we are very excited for what the future brings!

High-Fives Yo,
Carlos Montero - Project Leader

Well, that just leaves Valve and HL3

Still, with its protracted development cycle, not sure if it will make the big splash it could have made during the heyday of its cycle.

Red Menace · September 2nd, 2012

You forgot the video!

Looks pretty good, been meaning to play through HL again, so maybe I will just do it in the Source engine.

***Serio*** · September 3rd, 2012

I wonder how many announcements for a release date they've had so far? I remember at least five, half of which were back in 2008. It seems rather suspicious to me that after such a long time with no media or word, barely even an update, they're suddenly ready to release what can be considered the full remake. We'll see, come 14th of September.

FileTrekker · September 3rd, 2012

Oh, this is awesome. I've been looking forward to playing this for the longest time.

Shame it's not the entire game (yet) - since I won't want to play it up to a point just to have to re-play it.

***Commissar MercZ*** · September 4th, 2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by Serio

I wonder how many announcements for a release date they've had so far? I remember at least five, half of which were back in 2008. It seems rather suspicious to me that after such a long time with no media or word, barely even an update, they're suddenly ready to release what can be considered the full remake. We'll see, come 14th of September.

The last one I recall them doing was in 2009, but they have more videos and screens to support that they have a more complete build.

Even missing Xen, that's still a lot of game made. Modding is really time consuming and it's hard to keep a team together, and honestly I thought they were dead when I stopped really following in 2011.

(I didn't like the Xen part of the game all that much anyways

)

Fetter · September 5th, 2012

I was just talking to someone about vaporware last night and BMS came up. Glad to see that's not the case! I remember waiting all night on the day before the projected date in 2009, and being hugely disappointed.

Now I've got to reinstall HL2.

***Commissar MercZ*** · September 12th, 2012

Black Mesa source was chosen, among with several other titles, as the first of Steam's Greenlight titles. It will be available for download through Steam as a result.

If you do not own HL2 for some reason, or any other source engine based game (Portal, TF2, L4D, etc), you can also download the mod if you have the (free) Source SDK installed.

***Serio*** · September 13th, 2012

Tomorrow is the day, if their schedule holds. I'm still sceptical, so I'll believe it when I have the mod installed and see the first tram ride play out.

I'm baffled by its acceptance through Greenlight. Considering how it's a total remake of the original Half-Life title, I'd have imagined Valve would have sent them a cease & desist letter long ago. Instead, while fully aware of its contents, they allow it onto their own distribution system through a community vote? At least they know how to treat their modding communities.

***Mr. Matt*** · September 13th, 2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by Serio

Tomorrow is the day, if their schedule holds. I'm still sceptical, so I'll believe it when I have the mod installed and see the first tram ride play out.

I'm baffled by its acceptance through Greenlight. Considering how it's a total remake of the original Half-Life title, I'd have imagined Valve would have sent them a cease & desist letter long ago. Instead, while fully aware of its contents, they allow it onto their own distribution system through a community vote? At least they know how to treat their modding communities.

Valve are famous for knowing how to treat their modding communities. They're legendary for knowing how to treat their modding communities! They revolutionised how to treat modding communities! Much of their past success has been based on how they treat their modding communities. I'd actually be surprised if they haven't been offering the BMS team any kind of assistance to get them to this point.

Counter Strike, Team Fortress and Defence of the Ancients started out as mods, for crying out loud! The BMS team are likely looking at careers in Valve in the future!

Red Menace · September 13th, 2012

There be a countdown: Black Mesa: A Half-Life 2 modification

Quote:

Originally Posted by Serio

I'm baffled by its acceptance through Greenlight. Considering how it's a total remake of the original Half-Life title, I'd have imagined Valve would have sent them a cease & desist letter long ago. Instead, while fully aware of its contents, they allow it onto their own distribution system through a community vote? At least they know how to treat their modding communities.

I'm not baffled at all, it's genius. We can be dicks and loathed like most major publishers or we can bring them under the Steam umbrella and make a shit-ton of money off them by being loved by the community? Is that even really a question?

They did make them take "Source" out of their name and then it was all cool.