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Black Mesa: Definitive Edition is the final big update to the re-imagined fan-made Half-Life game, and it's looking pretty awesome. Easily the best way to experience the first part of Half-Life.

Don't get me wrong, the original from Valve still has plenty of true charm but for modern audiences it's not the ideal way to try and get into it. Black Mesa (especially now with the Definitive Edition) makes it easier for a new generation to get invested into the crazy world that is Half-Life and experience the adventure of Dr. Gordon Freeman.

With the Black Mesa: Definitive Edition out now here's the highlights (patch notes here) of what to expect from it:

  • Massive polish and art updates throughout the game
    • Complete lighting and gameplay pass to the chapter “Power Up”
    • Complete redesign of second “On A Rail” map (map B)
    • Significant optimizations across the whole game that will improve performance on low to mid range PCs
    • Outdoor art passes for “We’ve Got Hostiles”, “On A Rail”, “Questionable Ethics”, “Surface Tension”, and “Forget About Freeman”
  • New shield and architectural art for Interloper
  • Full workshop support
  • Updated closed caption/translation files for: English, Spanish, French, Finnish, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian and more on the way.

Some updated shots they shared from it:

While this is the final major update, there's still a few issues they're sorting through so expect minor patches. After this though, they're moving onto work on something new and not another remake either. They're clearly a talented bunch, let's see what they cook up next.

You can buy Black Mesa: Definitive Edition on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: FPS, Steam, Update | Apps: Black Mesa
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7 comments

AzP Nov 25, 2020
I will take a run at playing it, when I find the time amidst the chaos that is life. I actually never played the original, even though I was the "perfect age" for it when it came out. I was stuck in Quake 1, and didn't play any Half Life-based stuff until we moved over to Team Fortress from Quake 1 to the Half Life-engine one.
Julius Nov 25, 2020
After having seen how well Half-Life works with the unofficial port to the Occulus Quest:
https://youtu.be/M7sY1HmMBKc
I sincerely hope the next step is to port Black Mesa to the Half-Life: Alyx engine... Shouldn't be impossible I think ;)
Mumrik93 Nov 25, 2020
Aww.. I'd hoped they would keep making remakes of the expansions as well, Blueshift, Opposing Force and Half-Life: Decay. Would love to replay those in the newer Source Engine.
M@GOid Nov 25, 2020
Such a poor Linux port. Is ridiculous that it didn't have multi-core rendering enable, leading to very poor performance compared to other Valve Source games, nor allow any major change in the graphic settings without crashing. It have been like this for years and those patches never changed the mentioned problems. And judging by the behavior of the developers, it will never be fixed.

I advice against spending money on this, just for the lack of respect to the Linux community.


Last edited by M@GOid on 25 November 2020 at 4:53 pm UTC
omer666 Nov 25, 2020
No Linux bug fix, still have shadow acne in some places, still no godrays, still no high quality world shadow.
I love Black Mesa, but this update does not bring enough for me to play through it again...
Vasya Sovari Nov 25, 2020
On sale how on Steam, as is half my wishlist
jarhead_h Nov 28, 2020
Just reinstalled it. Running fine on a Ryzen 2600 with GTX1060-6gb through a 60hz TV on my Fedora 32 machine. Turned virtualsync off, and put shadows on low. 2xAA. Multicore enabled. I could probably raise quality settings, but it's running well enough. Haven't played through Xen yet, and last time I played Black Mesa it was a stuttering mess. Game is actually enjoyable now that it's running smoothly. It always makes me wish Valve had put any effort at all into the Source port of Half Life instead of leaving fans to have to do it for them.
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