The original Half-Life reinvented the FPS genre by showing that shooter games could tell a story while still having the same exciting, fast-paced gameplay that retro shooters like DOOM and Quake had made popular. Half-Life 2 broke the mold of the standard grey-and-green military shooters of the early 2000s, reintroducing puzzles and platforming into FPS games. Half-Life Alyx continues to be one of the best VR games on the market.
As beloved as Half-Life is, it would be daunting to try and remake the original game. That's what the team at Crowbar Collective set out to do with Black Mesa, a community-created and Valve-approved remake of Half-Life that began life as a mod.
Black Mesa was finally released in 2020 and has since been praised by critics as a phenomenal remake of the original game, recently crossing over 60,000 positive reviews on Steam. Black Mesa's popularity comes down to balancing modernizing a classic FPS and recreating the original game. Crowbar Collective understood what needed to keep for the game to be recognizably Half-Life and what needed to be changed for the game to work as a true reimagining.
There are a lot of things that fans of Half-Life will find familiar with Black Mesa. For one, the opening tram ride into the titular facility is kept relatively untouched, though it is shortened down slightly. The rest of Half-Life's intro is there too. The intro of Half-Life is well-served in introducing players to the Black Mesa Research Facility and also providing a comparison to the disrepair the science center falls into later in the game.
Black Mesa also follows the same general plot as Half-Life and takes the player through the Black Mesa Facility much like the original game did. During a routine test of anomalous materials, Gordon Freeman is instructed to make some slight deviations from normal protocol, which leads to a critical malfunction known as a Residence Cascade. The alien world of Xen is forced over Earth, causing the hostile residents of Xen to appear in Black Mesa.
Black Mesa's approach to Half-Life's story and settings is essentially a shot-by-shot remake with a few extra scenes thrown in. While the similarities are numerous, the differences are where Black Mesa really comes into its own as a reinvention of the original game. Entire segments have been reworked, expanded, replaced or even removed to polish and modernize Half-Life's existing progression. For example, a much-detested segment known as "On a Rail" from the original game has been shortened to be far less confusing and maze-like. For purists, the Crowbar Collective team released an uncut version of that segment on the Steam Workshop page for Black Mesa. Other changes include giving enemies new AI that wasn't possible in the GoldSource engine and implementing some physics-based puzzles that are very reminiscent of the ones in Half-Life 2.
The biggest change to Black Mesa, however, is the complete rework of Xen. While Xen isn't quite as disliked as "On a Rail," the levels set on the alien planet in Half-Life felt far emptier and less thought-out than the corridors and test chambers of Black Mesa. Crowbar Collective dedicated a ton of time to reworking and tweaking Xen to the point where Black Mesa's version is almost completely different from Half-Life's. Instead of leaping across chunks of rock floating in space for most of the final levels, players navigate diverse environments that feel much more like a diverse alien landscape.
Still, the spirit of the original Xen remains. Jumping puzzles make up a majority of Black Mesa's Xen levels, with some minor deviations to complete some pretty enjoyable puzzles. Xen in Half-Life serves to contrast the Black Mesa levels so that the Xen aliens are no longer the invaders, with Gordon Freeman instead invading Xen. Nothing makes this clearer in Black Mesa than a segment where the player goes through a complex alien-built building on Xen, where players end up getting some subtle vibes of the earlier segments of the game.
Black Mesa's reinvention of the original game comes down to many things, but the main explanation is that the team at Crowbar Collective just understands how important Half-Life is. They knew what made the original such a refreshing and enjoyable experience while also accepting that they couldn't remake Half-Life without taking the risk to be refreshing themselves. Black Mesa isn't just Half-Life again; it's a reimagining that feels new in its own unique ways.
There's a lot to be said about how Black Mesa injected new life into a classic FPS, but the game is far better experienced rather than explained. Black Mesa is available on Steam and is absolutely a worthwhile experience for fans of Half-Life. Currently, Crowbar Collective is working on a remake of Half-Life's first DLC, Blue Shift, which is being released in chapters, meaning there's no better time to explore Black Mesa, especially for those who never checked out the genre-defining original.