Black Mesa (video game)

Black Mesa is a 2020 first-person shooter video game developed and published by Crowbar Collective. It is a fan-made remake of Half-Life (1998) made in the Source game engine. Originally published as a free mod in September 2012, Black Mesa was approved for commercial release by Valve, the developers of Half-Life. The first commercial version was published as an early-access release in May 2015 with an abridged campaign, followed by a full release in March 2020 restoring the final chapters.

Black Mesa was developed in response to Half-Life: Source (2004), Valve's port of Half-Life to the Source engine, which lacked new features or improvements. Two teams wanted to improve on the Source remake and eventually merged to become Crowbar Collective. The project was originally slated to release in 2009, but was pushed back significantly for quality reasons.

Adapting the game to an improved version of the Source engine and completely reworking the often-derided final 4 chapters of Half-Life (which are set outside of the Black Mesa facility on the alien borderworld of Xen) had lengthened the development efforts of the remake. Due to its long development time, the modification became notable for its delays on the status of its completion. Major changes include a reskinned collection of textures, models and NPCs, a longer runtime, altered level and puzzle designs, along with different enemy artificial intelligence, and additional dialogue and story elements. Black Mesa received positive reviews, with critics praising the gameplay and attention to detail akin to that of an official Valve release.