Half-Life Remake Black Mesa Has Part-Playable Xen Chapter

Black Mesa, the fan-made remake of Half-life, has been available for a number of years now and part of the expected Xen chapter is also available to play. This allows players to explore a part of this alien world from the original Half-Life.

According to the makers, it is a technical beta, in which the first three maps of the Xen chapter are playable. This allows players to pick up after the cliffhanger of Lambda Core from the original Half-Life. The entire chapter on the alien world covers a total of six maps, although the makers say the full Xen campaign will consist of nineteen maps. It is not yet clear when they will all be available. The developers say that players who want a polished and complete Xen experience will have to be patient for a while, but it won’t be long.

The purpose of the beta is to collect feedback on how the game has been played on a variety of computers. In addition, the makers indicate that they have made significant improvements and changes to the Source engine. There are a number of known issues with the beta version, such as a significantly lower frame rate when a 4k resolution and maximum graphics settings are set.

Black Mesa came out as a free mod of Half-Life in 2012, followed by a commercial Steam Early Access release of Black Mesa in 2015. This is basically a graphically revamped version of Half-Life, with developer Crowbar Collective using a modified version of the Source engine. The levels and designs for Xen are mostly new material and not just a simple graphical remaster of the Half-Life world.