Half-Life mod Black Mesa makes standalone release on Steam Early Access

Last week, the folks behind Black Mesa started a countdown on their website, mysteriously counting down the days, hours and minutes all the way to today at 10:47 HMT+0. With the countdown having been completed, what was the major announcement?

Black Mesa made its standalone release on Steam Early Access.

For those unfamiliar, Black Mesa is a re-imagining of Valve's popular game, Half-Life. The game's single-player campaign mode is about 85% complete, Early Access supporters will be giving the developers the ability to complete the game by funding it.

The remaining 15% of the game includes the Xen section of Half-Life, the developers at Crowbar Collective simply did not have the resources to complete that part of the game. That's how the game ended up on Steam Early Access.

For $19.99, Half-Life fans can support the Crowbar Collective's goal of completing the game. Early Access will give you access to 10 hours of the single-player campaign (up to the Lambda Core chapter) and 6 mulitplayer maps from Half-Life. When the game makes its full launch, the price may very well rise (or stay the same) but it's a great deal!

When will the game make its full release? The Crowbar Collective has said that completing the remaining parts of the game will take a lot of time:

 "We feel it will take us considerable time to get the last 15% up to our standards, and putting a time estimate on it would be a total guess.”

Check it out on Steam here.