15 years ago, one of the most influential and adored games was released, and turned the FPS genre on its ear. Still seen as the epitome of everything a game should be, Half-Life was that game. The company behind it, Valve, would later go on to develop Steam, a digital distribution service that would revolutionize PC gaming. A few years after Half-Life was released, a group of dedicated fans gathered together to remake the game using Half-Life 2's Source engine. Now, after being greenlit in September, that remake is set to hit Steam. It may not be Half-Life 3, but damn if it's not a move that should be celebrated.
The Dev team took to Steam Community earlier this week where they made their announcement that in addition to the game hitting Steam, it would also be available at a "relatively low price:"
"Black Mesa has been given the opportunity to be sold as a retail product on Steam!" reads the post. "This is an incredible honor - one we never expected - but also one we found hard to accept. We never developed Black Mesa with money in mind. Our team is made up of average, hardworking people, and no one joined the team to make money. For us, Black Mesa is purely a labor of love. We believe this philosophy has significantly contributed to the overall quality and feel of the game. Our decision to sell Black Mesa rests on two key points. One is we believe we can make the game even better by having full access to the Source engine. This lets us tackle and fix limitations instead of working around them. The second is because frankly, our team could really use the financial help."
While the team will no doubt be focusing on this new endeavor, making "multiple interesting additions" for the Steam version of Black Mesa, they're not abandoning the free version. The post went on to say that "shortly after the Steam release there will be a completely new free version of the game. We also plan to open source our maps and some game assets to the modding community!"
"Purchasing the Steam version of Black Mesa is more about supporting the team and our efforts than anything else. However, the Steam version will include features that the free version simply can not have. We will be paying careful attention to feedback, and you'll have a very real say in how the final game turns out."
It's unclear when fans can expect to grab the game from Steam, as the team still has to finish the game's final chapters in the alien dimension of Xen. Said the post, "Xen is still a ways off. Over the past year, we have spent a HUGE amount of time porting the game to a new engine and fixing hundreds of bugs. The work to port to the new engine was not because of the decision to go retail, this was work that had to be done to get Black Mesa onto Steam and support our future plans."
We'll keep you posted if we hear any further developments. Until then, keep your crowbars at the ready.