Celebrate Half-Life's 20th anniversary with this Black Mesa: Xen trailer

[Shawn Knight]

Through the looking glass: Half-Life is one of the most iconic franchises in all of gaming and perhaps the one that's most due for a sequel. Unfortunately, Half-Life 3 will probably never be released and maybe that's for the best. Could Valve possibly live up to the game's incredible hype?

Crowbar Collective, the third-party developer and publisher behind the Half-Life remake that hit Steam Early Access in mid-2015, is celebrating the game’s 20^th anniversary with a new trailer highlighting the final chapters of Xen.

In a Steam community post on Monday, Adam Engels said almost everything in Xen is design locked and functioning as intended. The levels and design are mostly the team’s original work, we’re told.

Everything you see in the trailer was captured in-game and boy does it look stunning.

Early testing has shown that Xen will add roughly six hours of playtime to the game, and even more for those who like to explore.

The last bit of time between now and launch in the second quarter of 2019 will be used to bring the game up to their art and polish standards. Additional details regarding graphics and NPC changes will be showcased in December, Engels said.

Found is a TechSpot feature where we share clever, funny or otherwise interesting stuff from around the web.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/77502-celebrate-half-life-20th-anniversary-black-mesa-xen.html

 

[VitalyT]

The original Xen world was designed to be scary and creepy as hell. Making it pretty turns the idea upside down.

The original story suggested that the incident hit the classic definition of s### hitting the fan. And now it's gonna be a good pretty thing?

But let's think positive, right? Next, let's revisit Resident Evil, go back to the Umbrella headquarters and make a sitcom, 'cos surely that was all just a misunderstanding too.

 

[amstech]

The original could have been interpreted many ways, the visual restrictions at the time let use you some imagination...the idea from Valve was to feel isolated and alone, and you most definitely were.

 

[Uncle Al]

I still want #3 ...... so we can find out if Freeman gets the girl!

 

[Puiu]

The original Xen world was designed to be scary and creepy as hell. Making it pretty turns the idea upside down.

The original story suggested that the incident hit the classic definition of s### hitting the fan. And now it's gonna be a good pretty thing?

But let's think positive, right? Next, let's revisit Resident Evil, go back to the Umbrella headquarters and make a sitcom, 'cos surely that was all just a misunderstanding too.

The original was rushed and barely had any content which made it one of the weakest parts of the game. Valve devs were already very late with the release.

Maybe this will add something more of value in it.

 

[trgz]

Well, as I never finished HL1 (I simpy got fed up trying to get to Xen) then I'm not really worried if it looks different

 

[ET3D]

Half Life 3 confirmed!

(Sorry, had to say that. The aliens made me do it.)

 

[amstech]

It was not very hard at all to make it so Zen, and it had plenty of content.
Both of those comments are silly.

 

[urbanman2004]

Zen's been put on the backshelf since 2016 so how are we to believe it'll be releasing by 2Q 2019