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[ashecitism]

http://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/548704690350103809

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

Comparison of the first map of Interloper

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!

 

[Branduil]

Well I sure hope their version of Xen is good if it's going to be that huge.

 

[strafer]

Great news.

 

[Patrick Young]

Does the release of Xen mark the real release of Black Mesa? I'm waiting for this to come out of Early Access before playing.

 

[the TMO]

This is a huge work of passion. Get Xen back to the roots.

 

[DieH@rd]

At last!

 

[abracadaver]

Black Mesa is awesome

One of the best FPS campaigns available right now



Hint: its on sale right now

 

[DarknessTear]

Is Xen the last part of the game, or?

 

[Deleted member 102362]

Amazing watching this thing finally get finished, great news!

Is Xen the last part of the game, or?

yup

 

[Ludens]

Black Mesa is awesome

One of the best FPS campaigns available right now



Hint: its on sale right now

Will the price increase with Xen release?

 

[JaseC]

Will the price increase with Xen release?

No.

 

[Stevey]

Sweet, can't wait to play through it again.

 

[Rodney McKay]

Awesome, I've been wanting to pick this up, but I've hesitated because I knew it wasn't 100% finished yet (I know Xen isn't that big of a part of the overall game, but I still wanted it really bad!).

I loved Black Mesa back when I played the demo for it, the only thing I'll change when I do get it is the mod that puts back in some of the original games sound effects.

Some of the new sounds just weren't as good to me like the sonic dog enemy's charge up blast and a few others. I was happy when I found out someone had almost immediately had that mod available too, haha.

 

[Nostremitus]

Wow, read it as Zen when I first clicked...


I was like "Really AMD? Damn..."

Glad I was wrong.

 

[krang]

So they're extending Xen, rather than rebuilding 1:1 the original? That's awesome.

 

[playXray]

Ive been waiting for so long since Black Mesa was announced that I've had two children in that time, and I sold my rig a few months ago as I didn't have time to play it any more!

Would love it if this came to consoles one day.

 

[Arkanius]

I still remember when I saw this project start in the Svencoop forums back in the day.
Can't wait to see it finished.

 

[Big_Al]

Well their Xen couldn't be much worse than the original games version so be interesting to see what they come up with. Maybe I won't stop each subsequent playthrough just before Xen like I do when playing the original.

 

[Yarbskoo]

I didn't hate Xen in the original game, but I'm interested in seeing what they come up with and how much of the original level is retained.

If they pull it off, this could finally be a contender with the original for the best way to play Half-Life.

 

[Candescence]

Xen was an absolute mess in the original game. Looks like the Black Mesa team are redesigning it to be more consistent in terms of structure with the rest of the game, which is good.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

If they actually make Xen good then Valve has to give these dudes some kind of award

 

[Branduil]

If they actually make Xen good then Valve has to give these dudes some kind of award

Let them make HL3.

 

[Aangster]

Great to hear. Of course there being separate parts of the team and all, but it's been disappointing to see work on multiplayer content with a small multiplayer community that's not going to gain any traction. The singleplayer updates, like CSM and new models, have been much welcome, however.

 

[ashecitism]

Does the release of Xen mark the real release of Black Mesa? I'm waiting for this to come out of Early Access before playing.

I don't know. Depends on where the MP is atm. They said the final version would have Xen and more MP maps and modes.

 

[Newboi]

My hype meter is sky high right now!

 

[BigTnaples]

Nice. Pumped.

 

[Menitta]

Awesome. I'll finally get it then.

 

[RedToad64]

I never had an issue with the original Zen when I played through the game. I actually find it a bit odd that they are moving away from Valve's original vision.

 

[ashecitism]

Also never hated it or anything, but if they can make it better, sure why not.

 

[BAW]

So Xen squared. Either it will totally redeem Xen or it will be even more obnoxious than the original.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

Die... you all die... you all die...you all die...you all die...you all die...

That freaked me out so much when I was a kid.

 

[EGM1966]

Xen was great. It merely separated out those who got it and those who:

• didn't pay attention to the assisted jump training
• couldn't platform in FPS POV
• couldn't handle suitably odd and interesting environments vs normal real world stuff

It was a blast if you learnt the assisted jump properly and - for the time - a really unique setting with some very cool bosses.

Never had an issue with it at all and TBH was disappointed that it didn't feature in HL2 at all really.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

Xen was great. It merely separated out those who got it and those who:

• didn't pay attention to the assisted jump training
• couldn't platform in FPS POV
• couldn't handle suitably odd and interesting environments vs normal real world stuff

It was a blast if you learnt the assisted jump properly and - for the time - a really unique setting with some very cool bosses.

Never had an issue with it at all and TBH was disappointed that it didn't feature in HL2 at all really.

Xen is the level that thought me that the internet isn't right all the time. Cause I remember thinking "Oh everybody hates Xen, it's probably bad and I don't remember it" until I played it again and guess what: It's totally not bad at all. It's weird though.

 

[Hylian7]

Xen was great. It merely separated out those who got it and those who:

• didn't pay attention to the assisted jump training
• couldn't platform in FPS POV
• couldn't handle suitably odd and interesting environments vs normal real world stuff

It was a blast if you learnt the assisted jump properly and - for the time - a really unique setting with some very cool bosses.

Never had an issue with it at all and TBH was disappointed that it didn't feature in HL2 at all really.

I agree with you, I never really understood the Xen hate.

I do think everything else before Xen was more fun, but Xen was certainly great.

 

[Nzyme32]

Definitely all for the expanded vision they have of Xen. I'd not really mind the original but it also left a lot to be desired after the fun of the rest. At least this also gives me another excuse to go through og HL again before digging into Black Mesa and probably even going through the rest of the HL games afterwards.

 

[rackham]

Black Mesa is great so far. I'm pretty disappointed how long this is taking but what can you do

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Anyone whose dying for a new Half Life game should check out Black Mesa. It feels like a proper new Half Life game, even if it wasn't developed by Valve.

 

[finley83]

I hated Xen because exploring Black Mesa was so much fun that I didn't want it to end. It felt a bit like the zombie levels in the original Thief, where they weren't terrible in their own right but were taking me away from what I was actually enjoying.

 

[tci]

Fantastic news. Still one of the best fps games in the last few years. Might play it again this Christmas and then do it again when Xen arrives.

 

[Real_Madrid]

Finally! I bought the game a long time ago thinking Zen would come sooner than later...
That said, the quality is the most important aspect and when it's done I hope it would be worth it. Still only played the first few levels.

Afterwards they hopefully remaster the Half-Life expansions.

 

[ashecitism]

Afterwards they hopefully remaster the Half-Life expansions.

Another team is already doing OpForce(Operation Black Mesa) and Blue Shift(Guard Duty).

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1164933

Been a while since the last status update.

 

[Valkyri von Thanatos]

What very interesting timing. I literally checked for Xen news last afternoon.

Can't wait, I'm glad after all of this time, it may finally be complete within the next year. The wait for Xen has been way easier than the first portion, since that was years of waiting past the prominent "2009" release date, but Xen has been easy to forget about after 2012. I've of course kept up with Black Mesa since then, and bought the official version on sale in anticipation for the completion of the expansion back in 2015, but waiting for it hasn't been very difficult, since the initial release had relieved much of the anticipation.

I'm looking forward to what they have in store for us. It's been a long time coming. I know the team is probably going to be quite glad to be finished, and I feel happy for them that they will be soon, but they should honestly be allowed to start doing other Half Life spin offs. I was going to say Half Life 3, but I think that is too much pressure for them, and I'd love to see a 7 hour war spinoff or something that takes place simultaneously with HL2 or one of the episodes, and lasts about the same time as episode 1 or 2.

Edit:

It has been a long ass time coming though. It's actually hard to fathom that it's been 4 years. So much of my life has changed since then. I was still in high school when the first part came out for example, and I had been waiting for it pretty much since I saw the famous 2008 trailer, so I had been effectively waiting for it to come out for almost my entire time in high school. I remember a friend I had there who eventually got somewhat tired of me talking about it so much, lol.

 

[GavinUK86]

They still haven't done Xen yet? I haven't played this since it went paid a while ago. Finished what was available before then. I completely lost track of development.

 

[InsaneTiger]

I'm confused, I have Black Mesa already...is this an update or a new thing entirely?

 

[TyrantII]

So they're extending Xen, rather than rebuilding 1:1 the original? That's awesome.

That was always the plan, since xen never really worked and no one liked it.

 

[ashecitism]

I'm confused, I have Black Mesa already...is this an update or a new thing entirely?

It's going to be an update.

 

[Valkyri von Thanatos]

I'm confused, I have Black Mesa already...is this an update or a new thing entirely?

No it'll be an update to the game. I'm surprised that so many people either didn't know there was more coming or that Xen wasn't already in. Heh.

Based on how large and expansive the Xen levels are, it looks like this might be where the game opens up life HL2 did. I always thought that I would have liked for Black Mesa to have a really expansive are or two in Surface Tension or something, but it was still fairly contained, so I'm hoping those Xen map previews are really indicating that there are some expansive environments there.

I'm really interested to see what they've done to make Xen better. I agree with people that say that Xen wasn't as bad as most make it out to be, but it also wasn't quite as good as what came before, so it'll be really interesting not just to see what they've done differently in terms of gameplay design, but also visual/graphical and sound design. I really hope that Xen impresses, even though Source is very old at this point, it can still pull off some pretty good looking visuals at times.

One thing I just remembered was that the most we saw of Xen in the main game so far were cavernous and dark environments, so I'm betting they've taken a couple of cues from HL2's dark and cavernous levels. I also expect maybe the return of a couple of cut enemies to surprise us, they did say that they are trying to do what they think Valve would have done if they had no restrictions when they made HL1.

 

[ashecitism]

Oh, yeah these were from a few days ago in the update. Got accidentally included

https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1498922&p=51271581&viewfull=1#post51271581

I've mentioned this everywhere else we talked about it, so:

The "leaked" Xen map was the very first version of that map that any of us ever saw. A very long time ago, the mapper accidentally committed the first version to the wrong branch (CU4 instead of Xen). It ended up being accidentally deployed today with CU4, because I guess we missed that.

It's Interloper C.

But it's now Interloper D, and will possibly be Interloper E soon. Take from that what you will. No biggie. We're actually happier it was that one and not any of the other maps!

People also found a grappling hook, which was listed as a Xen prop. Maybe it's really just a prop and won't be usable.

 

[Deadbeat]

Xen was great. It merely separated out those who got it and those who:

• didn't pay attention to the assisted jump training
• couldn't platform in FPS POV
• couldn't handle suitably odd and interesting environments vs normal real world stuff

It was a blast if you learnt the assisted jump properly and - for the time - a really unique setting with some very cool bosses.

Never had an issue with it at all and TBH was disappointed that it didn't feature in HL2 at all really.

It also translated into the multiplayer. Master all techniques to dominate.

 

[RBIYF]

Even in it's incomplete state, I regard Black Mesa as the best fan-made game release ever made (AM2R comes in a close second) and in terms of overall game remakes, Black Mesa is second only to Resident Evil remake as my favorite game remake of all time.

It was one of my personal gaming highlights of 2012, when it released. They really captured what made the original Half-Life so special back in the day, while modernizing it.

I'm looking forward to the project being fully completed with the release of Xen. Through we might not see a Half-Life 3, at least Half-Life fans can look forward to this.