Black Mesa

This is, by its very definition, refined excellence.

It isn't a 1:1 of the original game, and it isn't supposed to be. It's better in some ways, I'm sure some folks will find things they find worse in some others.

But for me, I couldn't stop playing it. Couldn't stop taking screenshots like a little kid with a disposable camera. Loved it, loved the experience. Will probably play through it again at some point later on in my life.

Truthfully, knowing what I do now about how the game plays and runs, I'm surprised I only paid $19.99 for it.

Apart from some crashes, the game is very fun and a very modern way to play the HL1 story

The fact the games core was made 30 years ago is baffling. We went wrong some where along the way.

It is oddly refreshing to play a game that has no map, arrows, or quests... you just have to use your eyes and brain.

the definitive way to experience half-life. there really isn't a single way it doesn't improve upon the original.

Must-play to any half-life fan. It's good old half-life but remastered and enriched in the best possible way. Xen is remade entirely from scratch, looks and plays absolutely brilliantly.

Truly an incredible game. I never played the original at time of release but this is a beautiful remaster. Still maintains an old school charm and the early exploration combat and slight horror elements all add up to something special. I can only imagine what it would have been like to experience this when it first came out.

First part of the game is just good Half Life fun. 9/10
The Xen levels, however, are far too long and repetitive. 4/10

Crashes quite a lot when run with Proton.

Black Mesa. The lab, or rather, research complex, in which everything goes wrong, when a physics experiment tears open an interdimensional portal, or I should say, destabilizes our own world’s fabric of reality so that aliens start teleporting in pretty much everywhere, eventually leading to an invasion, a very brief war, followed by occupation, as detailed in Half Life 2.

Playing the game that started it all, and by it all I mean the slow paced, story-driven first person shooter genre, especially compared to fast paced arcade shooters like Doom 1 and 2 or isometric top-down RPGs like Fallout 1 and 2 which were your only other options in the 90s before Half Life, you come to realize how many other games have been inspired by Valve’s pioneer released in 1999. From Doom 3 to the first Resident Evil movie, many other IP’s have ripped their “all hell breaks loose in a high tech research lab” setting from here. And Half Life, remastered as Black Mesa, does try its best to offer a mix between classic linear shooter and platformer, probably inspired by the popularity of super mario in the 90s where timing your jumps to avoid death was an industry standard or something. Just like finding yourself in a room full of locked doors and having to find an unconventional way out. Whether it is grabbing a valve (see?) to shut off pipes leaking burning gasses, draining flooded areas, or turning the electricity on or off, MIT theoretical physicist Gordon Freeman has to occasionally do some basic thinking to progress in the game.

As for enemies, the headcrab, no doubt ripped from Alien 1979 and the zombified scientists it controls, make up the initial foes, but flesh eating plants hanging from the ceiling, alien dogs that want to give you sonic boom hugs, acid spewing alien gators and one eyed bipedal spellcasters from Xen make up the alien faction accidentally invited onto earth by Mr. Freeman’s unwitting resonance cascade event, while soldiers dispatched to neutralize anything that moves in and around the Black Mesa complex are the human antagonists you have to beat – a concept later copied by the F.E.A.R. franchise, along with its two expansions. Speaking of, Half Life had two expansions as well, in one you play as one of the mercs and in another, as a member of the on-site security team. The latter has also been remastered as a free mod called Black Mesa: Blue Shift, but is still somewhat buggy and you can only launch it in Black Mesa’s stead by downloading it from the workshop and changing the launch parameters after downloading. I might give it a try someday, but until then the official release is worth playing, especially for those who think the OG Half Life’s graphics are too retro and want something more modern (like...previous gen modern). The sheer amount of time (measured in YEARS) it took for the developers to finish the final leg of this game in Xen is however something I cant forgive them. Yes, I understand that it was free only because it was a combination of passion project and the devs not having valve's permission to make money off of it (until valve changed their mind and hired them) along with them being even fewer in number than an indie studio, but at the end of the day, it took them an entire console generation to add the final chapters, so the game, originally released in september 2012, didn’t see a full retail release with Xen until march 2020, aka 7.5 long years. Time long enough that made the cutting edge visuals look somewhat dated again. Oh well. They are still pretty. Maybe to make up for it, the devs did another update after launching the retail version where they claimed to have upped the graphics even more, the most visible example being dynamic shadows cast by Gordon's flashlight. All I can say is compared to valve's first attempt at integrating this game into the source engine called Half Life: Source released back in 2004, Black mesa is a worthy Half Life remaster.

Honnestly, its a nice game for sure, it is long, hard, but if you play it ones, you get it later on and completing it quickly.

I do recomend it for sure.

10/10.

-Honnestly.

ABSOLUTE BANGER. from the gameplay to the soundtrack everything about this game is top notch. if you like fps games this game is for you.

10/10

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☑ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

Having played the original, I can only say that this was one awesome remake.
Highly recommended, Zen deserves to be seen, Crowbar collective really shows the care and the love that they had for the project.

A most play for any Half Life enjoyer and anyone who has been thinking about trying Half Life out. For many people (Not me) Half Life 1 graphics is too outdated for them, this is one way for those to start getting into the series

The music is on top and I still listen to it outside the game afterwards. Without spoiling anything, once you get to "The Second part" of the game, you get mind blown of how well they made the world look like

There isn't much negative stuff to note. One of them is that I found some chapters (Mostly later on) dragging on for a bit too long in the same kind of area

Its HL1 + so much more! I love this game as its my childhood re imagined for today computers and play through.

Amazing recreation of the original and beloved game. While the original is a classic, this one does a phenomenal job in making the game series more accessible for newcomers. It creates a satisfying linearity that bridges between HL 1 and HL 2. The game play is slick, graphics are beautiful and faithful to the original while having some HL 2 influences in it. The HL community got pampered with this one.

The definitive way to replay HL. it really captures the feelings of the original while having better graphics. Recommended.

it's excellent till xen and i'd say it's still quite good even in those first few xen segments, but post-gonarch it becomes flooded with relentless tedium that is not enjoyable. the early xen plug puzzles even begin to become a little much, but then you fight gonarch and it's got exciting set pieces and right after that you're teaming up with the vortigaunts and it seems dope and then ... ride some conveyer belts around for an hour. it seriously does drag the game down. also, the nihilanth fight is less enjoyable & interesting than it is in the 1998 original lol

regardless, since these issues only pertain to the last few chapters, it's still worth on sale for sure. lovingly made, outside of the creative liberties w/ xen that tend to miss more than hit

halflife with better graphics. whats not to love. it is just different enough from the original to make it fresh

Excellent throwback to the original Half Life. It’s not an exact remake of the original but it’s a great way to experience it if you never played HL1.

This was made with love and passion. Half Life was already one of my favourite games, but this is easily in my top 15, maybe even 10 now.

Graphical glitches make Power Up unplayable, the torch does not work and the level is too dark

If you had some doubts about worthiness of the Half-Life nowadays - I can assure you that this 20th century game design is still a blast from the past.

The team behind this project must've been incredibly passionate about Half-Life. The talent put into this is incredible and it's an amazing experience to play. Black Mesa is a masterpiece.

The game is extremely buggy on GNU/Linux, and when I load it with Proton, it's stuck on loading forever.

Игра топ. Отличный ремейк первой халвы. Графика, уровни, музыка - всё на высоте) Мне понравилось)
Оценка 8/10.

Black Mesa is a true labour of love. In development for more or less 15 years, a mod team (Crowbar Collective) set out to remake Half-Life, the classic and iconic title that influenced an entire generation of games, using the Source engine. When funds and manpower were short, it was literally passion that kept the project going. Valve eventually even gave them their blessing.

The story remains the same, as players take the role as Gordon Freeman in the Black Mesa Research Facility. An experiment goes awry and a rift opens up, allowing creatures from another world to infiltrate and cause havoc. The military is sent in to contain the situation, and eliminate ANY witnesses that are present, including the science team and facility staff. Gordon finds himself on a journey to close the rift, while battling both aliens and soldiers, and has multiple interactions with the enigmatic G-man along the way.

The gameplay is faithful to the original, but with improvements to elevate it to modern day standards. Enemy AI is vastly improved, creating more dynamic situations. Of course the visuals have received a complete overhaul. Textures and models are beautifully rendered. The use of light and shadows is amplified thanks to the Source engine. Half-Life was known for its impressive level design and Black Mesa builds on this foundation. Many levels retain their iconic look and feel but have more expansive functionality. The levels are quintessential to the environmental storytelling experience, and are atmospheric and immersive. The Xen levels are the most drastic change in design compared to the original. In what was previously a barren and disjointed final act, Black Mesa has reworked Xen to feel alive with its stunning environments and textures.

Black Mesa is a homage to everything that made Half-Life great, with updated mechanics, design and polish. The dedication shown by the developers is nothing short of inspiring. This is the remake we had been hoping for.

They took everything everyone loved about the 1998 classic, Half-Life, made it look amazing (and running great), and improved/expanded on the original game too! Play it AFTER Half-Life still!

First time playing, I can see why its hailed as one of the best games of all time. If you haven't played this game in 2025 and you appreciate good game design, this is a must play. A really great piece of gaming history that is still fun today. Crowbar Collective did a phenomenal job on this remake.

Like a buncha others, I followed the development of it way back in like.... 2010-2014
The outcome? Well worth the wait.
It's FANTASTIC, *and* you should play all the half-life games for their fun as games.

It’s Half Life but better ig, i recommend playing this over the original if you aren’t familiar with 90s FPS games.

I didn't really appreciate the original because of the ugly graphics. Now I release what a masterclass this game really is. 10/10. Go headcrabs!

I cannot recommend this game enough. It is a very worthy, faithful remake of the original Half-Life, with some wonderfully beautiful new additions (particularly Xen). It's a feast for the eyes as well as the ears with plenty of puzzles to keep the mind busy. I would expect nothing less from Valve and Crowbar. This is what studios and publishers should strive for today.

Xen is fucking trash, nice looking, but absolutley chore to play.

When you teleport there, you may as well call it quit and uninstall.

It never was a story about saving the world. It’s a story about how the world ended.

half life 1 + actually good modification = black mesa + a not painful game

The game really captures Half Life 1 in all it's glory with an upscale in graphics. However, I don't think I can recommend this game. There are too many bugs in this game. From lighting issues, textures not displaying properly, and the game straight up crashing. Only get this when it's on sale and you really want to play Half Life 1 with better graphics.

I missed the Tau Cannon which only appears once and therefore never acquired it. Many people have griped about this, but the official developer response is, "how could you have missed a weapon that's introduced in such a way that it was one of the most pivotal moments of gaming history?" Yeah, that's the kind of autistic nerds who made this game.

Buggy mess of a game.
Its a very good replacement of HL:Source, however it still has a bunch of bugs that the devs just, don't fix?
You can see fog from other rooms, when I say that I mean its every single time theres fog, you can see it through walls.
Flashlight doesn't work? Only works on props?
And thats it. Its good if you don't mind a immersion breaking bug

Here we are !
I remember the first time I played Black Mesa, it was a free standalone amateur game. And it's been cooking for a long time now. Last I heard about the project, Xen was in the making, so the game was realistically "incomplete". So I waited, and eventually forgot about it.
Being a big fan of the original HL, and of the Sven Co-op f2p (I encourage you guys to try it !), I couldn't give Black Mesa a pass on sales recently.

You can tell Crowbar Collective was passionned about HL. Not only did they give their best to enrich the original with reimagined puzzles, facilitate some tedious sequences, rebalance a whole lot of things, add some QoL, and improved the scenery; they also preserved the very soul of HL : education and narration through leveldesign.
Devs decided to avoid any cutscene, tutorial prompt or document to pick up and read as it's often the case in modern games. Yet it's all still so organic and authentic ! As a player you are very proud and satisfied to achieve anything in this game (without any form of "reward" other than just progressing). That is a feeling I can't say I felt lately in recent productions.

Playing Black Mesa reminded me of the purest single player experience of old, without rng, xp point, skill trees, unlockables levels, etc. It felt good, is polished, and respectful of the original formula of Valve.

Still, you could argue that the Source Engine, while a nice enhancement, is dated already. And yes it shows (especially the NPCs faces). But you'll forget about this aspect in the end.

My only real complain about Black Mesa is the Xen chapters. While it was a surprising and impressive fleshed out overhaul, I felt it was too much complicated. Granted it's toward the end of the game, I still found it quite unbalanced compared to the earth chapters. I had a very hard time managing my ammo, and was very confused as to where to go and what to do. It was a mess of a levedesign maze. And that is where I saw Crowbar Collective limits : Valve would have handled this part of the game differently, hopefully in a smoother manner.

Nonetheless, I recommend Black Mesa for old timer that experienced such games back in the days, and know the drill.
For newcomers though, it may be challenging and frustrating without a compass and a journal. But if you want to see how a late 90s game respected players intelligence, give it a go, and think about the state of the industry nowadays.

Half Life 1? Good game. This game is literally HL1. But instead of some poopy goldsource graphics, it uses the source engine. Looks better than HL2. V. Nice.

Not a perfect experience (though that could be partially on me)
Saves - sometimes the autosaves don't work / just bring me to the main menu. Manual saves and Quicksaves always worked
Shadows - I had to follow some guides to get the lightmap to work (the flashlight did not cast shadows). I have an intel arc a750.
Some z issues (pool of water in xen rendering on top of a floating blob being / fog would often render on top of level geometry through walls) -- possibly related to the workaround for shadows (Thanks intel!)
I would have liked it if blue shift just installed without needing me to move/delete/replace folders.

Otherwise, amazing experience. Breathes new life into HL1.

Apart of the many great classic titles still love really getting lost and immersed in it.

94/100

This game is tight. One of the few remakes where I have a hard time going back to the original.

Black Mesa does have some optimisation issues though. Going through and fiddling with settings for shadows or whatever can sometimes make the game crash. Shadows, dynamic stuff and mumbo jumbo along those lines aren't implemented too well.

(Also, turn off vsync - go into your nvidia control panel and turn on Fast vsync for this game. Kept the frames stable for me but everyone has a different setup.)

Fantastic game otherwise, I love the escalation and one man army feeling.

An absolutely spectacular reimagining that stays true to the source material while introducing meaningful quality-of-life improvements and expanded lore, making it feel like a brand-new experience. The graphics hold up impressively well even by today’s standards, and they’ve even managed to make Xen not just enjoyable, but one of the most fascinating parts of the game—it might just be my favorite section. Truly stellar work, and I can't wait to see what this team does next.

The work-in-progress Blue Shift remake is also shaping up beautifully—and it's completely free at this stage. Here’s hoping they tackle Opposing Force as well.

On the downside, there are some graphical bugs on Steam Deck and Linux in general, though oddly enough, the Half-Life 2 version doesn’t seem to have the same issues.

Once you get to Xen this game becomes a job. ENDLESS, boring, repetitive puzzles. You climb forever with a wonky jump mechanic that either flings you off your platform and can't scale a tiny step. Constantly scouring the ground for some little hole to climb in. It was a relief to go to work, because it felt like less of a job than finishing this game. Just play Half Life. Where this game copied half life, it mostly succeeded. When it tried to go out on its own, it flopped big time. 18 hours into this game feels like 200. I just want it to end so badly, but the last level NEVER DOES.

a great remake, but still a game not as good as the original one due to inferior gunplay, technical imperfections and this one is more of a personal preference but I really love the OG's Quake-seque movement.

I haven't played the original Half-Life, so I can't make a direct comparison, but having played the sequel, Black Mesa feels like a proper Half-Life game. The game maintains a retro charm while visually sporting a fresh coat of paint. The earlier chapters appear to stay fairly faithful to the original, whereas the later chapters have been heavily reworked and expanded. Based on what I've seen, I'm happy with these changes.

A first playthrough takes around 16–18 hours. For achievement hunters, you can select individual chapters, which makes collecting most achievements very manageable, though some still require their own playthroughs.

The story is great, and the core gameplay consists mainly of gunplay and platforming, with some physics puzzles sprinkled in — though puzzles aren't a major selling point. The level design is good, and you rarely get lost. However, a few platforming sections are poorly communicated, making it feel like you're exploiting the map rather than following an intended path. This can be both frustrating and immersive.

Autosaves have on a few occasions screwed me over by saving in the middle of combat, causing repeated deaths upon reloading. Thankfully, the game saves frequently, so reverting to an earlier save isn’t a huge setback.

My biggest issue is the audio balance. Gunfire is incredibly loud, while dialogue is barely audible unless you're standing right next to the character. Worse yet, both are tied to the same volume slider, making it impossible to adjust them separately. I've tried some console commands, but that didn't seem to do anything. I’m not sure if this is a flaw in the game itself or a limitation of the Source engine. Playing with subtitles is highly recommended. Great soundtrack though.

Black Mesa is.. interesting, to say the least. I got this game after finishing Half-Life 2, as I wanted to see what all the hype was about.

I have never played the original Half-Life, but apparently people said that this is remake is accurate to the original, so I assumed i'd try it. Lets just say that I was surprised. I would say that gameplay is certainly similar to Half-Life 2, as is the style (because both games are made on the same "Source" engine", I presume) but in general, i would say that the gameplay is good on its own. The graphics are great, and I enjoyed the story, as it seemed accurate to the original Half-Life.

However, there is one major issue with this game. The bugs. I ran into multiple bugs in my playthrough, whether it something game-breaking like the game crashing after dying or something small like the enemies not moving. Nonetheless, these bugs really brought down the games value for me. I still recommend it, but only if its on sale. I personally got it for 5 bucks, and I would say it was worth it.

I havent tried multiplayer yet, but im expecting it to be solid.

One of the best remakes ever made. Characters and the environments feel alive and I adore the soundtrack. And with this remake Xen got a lot more going for it. Just the opening for Xen felt amazing.

Go play it even if you haven't played the original game.

The graphics are amazing and being able to use the original models in the workshop can make your gameplay even better.

Great remake and animations and graphics are a huge improvement, but I haven't played the original