Crowbar Collective has released arguably the most-anticipated update for their Early Access game Black Mesa. The Half-Life remake has been available on Steam since 2015 and now can be fully enjoyed from start to finish, by the introduction of the final Xen levels.
A few months ago, the modders-turned-professional-developer ensemble Crowbar Collective first pushed an early teaser of the alien world of Xen with a few early levels. After a short stint in beta, owners of Black Mesa can now enjoy the complete package. This marks the first time that the entirety of Valve’s seminal FPS can be played fully.
In their development update, the developer states that this doesn’t mean the end of development, however. In fact, Black Mesa is still in Early Access. Crowbar Collective has further detailed three future updates that will add even more features. First up, is the introduction of new achievements and general polish with a 0.91 version on the horizon.
After that, the full 1.0 release will be pushed together with Multiplayer, AI and Workshop pass. These aim to bring the entire game up to par to the most modern feature-set. Most interestingly, even after this release out of Early Access, the developers have one big plan with the Earthbound Update. With that, the entire game will receive a visual overhaul among other improvements. After close to five years in Early Access, the developer states that these remaining updates shouldn’t take that long.
