Fans of the Half-Life series were treated to a phenomenal remake of the original Half-Life in the form of Black Mesa. Fully released in 2020, Black Mesa was developed by Crowbar Collective and completely reimagined some segments of the original Half-Life bringing the title to a new audience and in some cases improving on Valve’s original game design.
Fans of the original Half-Life will remember the Gearbox expansions for the title which included Half-Life: Blue Shift and Half-Life: Opposing Force. While Opposing Force certainly has its fans, many players fell in love with the Blue Shift expansion.
Half-Life: Blue Shift is currently getting the Black Mesa treatment in the form of a Black Mesa mod. The latest mod brings the story of Barney Calhoun to current-day audiences. Modeling itself off the design approach and engine that made Black Mesa, Black Mesa: Blue Shift currently has three chapters already ready released with more on the way. A huge update scheduled for December 10th, 2022 will see the introduction of the next level, Captive Freight, as well as a number of bug fixes, gameplay improvements, and visual tweaks.
Half-Life: Blue Shift is arguably the best expansion to come out of any Half-Life game and it should be a joy for fans of the series to relive Barney’s tale in an up-to-date engine. Originally developed by Gearbox, known for titles such as Borderlands and Battleborn in 1998, Half-life Blue Shift has you playing as Barney, a lab security guard attempting to escape Black Mesa, and the resonance cascade event parallel to Gordon Freeman. It was originally intended to be part of Half-Life‘s port to Dreamcast before the cancellation of the port and made its way to Windows PC as a standalone title on June 12th, 2001.
Needless to say, if Black Mesa is anything to go off this remake of a beloved expansion should be a treat for new and returning players. So for those looking for a distraction while they await the news of whatever new property or sequel Valve has got lined up this is the best thing for the job!
Alongside this, there’s also been a huge increase in discussion around a Portal 3 title given the writers have noted they have an idea of where they’d like the story to go. Maybe we won’t have to wait that long for the next Valve title to hit Steam.
Source: Steam