Half-Life Alyx: 13 Biggest Questions Answered For New Fans
3. What Is Black Mesa? (Game)
In 2005, after Valve re-released Half-Life on the Source engine Half-Life 2 was released on, several modding teams had similar ideas.
They wanted to recreate the original Half-Life in the Source engine, giving it a new life and look, comparable to Half-Life 2. Updates, developments, hiatuses and fifteen years later, Black Mesa released as a full blown game. Funnily enough, it did so just a week before Half-Life: Alyx releases.
Black Mesa is not made by Valve, it has been developed by Crowbar Collective. They took Half-Life and re-imagined it, cutting parts off, sticking parts on and shaping it to better suit their vision of what it could have been.
Xen has been fleshed out, On A Rail has been chopped down and the experience has been overall smoothed. We won’t go into review mode here but overall it offers a fresh, modernised experience of the original Half-Life.
Should you play it? If you need to catch up before Half-Life: Alyx, Black Mesa is as good a place to play Half-Life as the original, honestly. You’ll get the general idea without as much jank and I feel that’s a fair justification for substituting it over the source material.