Half-Life Fan Remake, Black Mesa, Finally Hits 1.0 Next Month

Black Mesa, the fan-made Half-Life remake from the team at Crowbar Collective, will leave Early Access and release its 1.0 build on March 5, 2020. The game, which hit Steam Early Access in May 2015, has been in development for an extremely long time–as project lead Adam Engels says in the release date announcement, he joined the project 14 years ago.

“For the majority of its development, Black Mesa was a volunteer project,” Engels’s post says. “Even after we got the green light to sell the game, we still did not make any money until late June of 2015.”

“We think this upcoming 1.0 release is the best, most polished, and most fun version of the game yet. The anticipation and excitement around our project is beyond flattering.” The game will continue to receive support and bug fixes after its 1.0 release, the post states.

The game, which started life as a mod, currently costs $20 on Steam. The game’s last major update was the Xen beta in August 2019, which added the final area into the game.

Black Mesa is not the only Half-Life game launching in March 2020–Half-Life: Alyx is also coming to VR devices on March 23, 2020. If you’re looking forward to it, check out our preorder guide.