But I’ll tell you this, if Black Mesa wasn’t its own game before, it sure as hell is now.īlack Mesa: Xen is amazing. Is Black Mesa still a mod at that point? I’m not sure. So good, in fact, that in 2015 Valve gave the team permission to release Black Mesa on Steam as a paid-for Early Access game. It was brilliant, better than anyone could hope for from a band of voluntary modders coming together from all over the globe. At what point does a mod become a game in its own right? Eight years ago, Crowbar Collective launched the Black Mesa bit of Black Mesa, taking players from Gordon Freeman’s iconic tram-ride to work right through to his departure via the Lambda Core portal to the border world of Xen.
