Black Mesa

What is Black Mesa?

Black Mesa is a complete reimagining of the first Half-Life created by the studio Crowbar Collective. The game is built on the Source Engine and retells the journey of scientist Gordon Freeman through the Black Mesa Research Facility — from the failed resonance cascade and the escape through the ruined laboratories all the way to the alien world of Xen.

At its core it is a classic first-person shooter with puzzles, platforming sections and firefights. Familiar weapons such as the crowbar, the crossbow or the tau cannon meet redesigned levels, reworked enemy AI and a far more elaborate presentation than the original. The Xen chapters in particular were designed from scratch and expanded considerably.

Alongside the single-player campaign, Black Mesa ships with its own multiplayer mode. It is played as deathmatch on dedicated servers, with ten official maps from the Half-Life universe included. There is no matchmaking — players connect through the server browser or directly via IP address and port, which makes your own server a great fit for regular rounds with friends or for your own community.

Because Black Mesa runs on the Source Engine, your own server can be extended extensively. Using Metamod:Source and SourceMod you can run plugins that add admin features, game rules or statistics. On top of that the community project SourceCoop makes the campaign playable in co-op. Custom maps and other custom content are placed directly in your server files.

Black Mesa is especially popular among players who want to experience the Half-Life classic with modern visuals while running a customisable multiplayer server for deathmatch rounds or co-op experiments. The game is available on PC via Steam.