15 Essential Half-Life 2 Mods You MUST Play

15. Black Mesa

After finishing Half-Life 2, Valve updated some of their older titles with the shiny new Source engine. One such project, Half-Life: Source, was little more than a spit and polish job, leaving fans underwhelmed.

Inspired by Valve's lacklustre release, the Crowbar Collective was formed by a group of fans. Their mission? To build Black Mesa, a fully modernised version of Half-Life, using the Source engine.

Black Mesa is an incredibly ambitious mod project. It's a complete rebuild of the classic original with fantastic visuals, updated dialogue and a pounding soundtrack. After a tonne of hard work and significant delays, it was finally released in 2012 (albeit without Xen).

The team's effort didn't go unnoticed either and they were ultimately rewarded by Valve greenlighting a full retail release, available for purchase on Steam. With the missing Xen chapters now available, there's never been a better time to give Black Mesa a try.