Black Mesa: Definitive Edition

We are happy to announce that we are releasing our final big update to Black Mesa as a free “Definitive Edition” update. Since March, we have worked to polish the game in terms of both art and design.

If you have been waiting to try Black Mesa, now is a great time to dive in. We’ll continue to support the game to fix major bugs, and the known issues below.

• Massive polish and art updates throughout the game
  
• Complete lighting and gameplay pass to the chapter “Power Up”
• Complete redesign of second “On A Rail” map (map B)
• Significant optimizations across the whole game that will improve performance on low to mid range PCs
• Outdoor art passes for “We’ve Got Hostiles”, “On A Rail”, “Questionable Ethics”, “Surface Tension”, and “Forget About Freeman”

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New shield and architectural art for Interloper

Full workshop support

Updated closed caption/translation files for:

• English
• Spanish
• French
• Finnish
• German
• Italian
• Norwegian
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Ukrainian
• With all the languages from our Crowdin campaign on the way!

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• We’re still working on controller support for the main menu
• Still have to add multiplayer player model select for new UI
• Female scientists unintentionally do not heal player
• Still have to release map source files (we are looking at the best way to do this)
• Sometimes maps in multiplayer have their bloom blown out

• Significant further improvements to workshop functionality. Mods should now be able to properly support a wide variety of custom content, without any need for a custom folder
• Deprecated scenes.image. This means workshop content can now ship custom scenes without overriding Black Mesa’s scenes too.
• Added a convar which allows users to disable all workshop loading functionality entirely. Add +workshop_disable 1 to the game’s launch options to try this.
• Fixed Workshop crash bug related to multi-part VPKs
• Smoothed out suit charger animations and increased update rate on player’s HUD, to make everything feel a bit punchier and smoother
• Fix deferred rendering bug related to gbuffer, which should fix all the rendering artifacts/bugs and potential crashes related to secondary render targets: including reflection/refraction/monitors, etc.
• Fixed soda cans from vending machines not colliding with each other
• Added little color pops when the player picks up a health kit or a battery, just to help draw attention to that fact
• Fixed a crash related to old depreciated flashlight sprites
• The Multiplayer scoreboard can show up to 24 names now
• Fixed key binding bugs related to the new UI
• Added dynamic lights to chargers, Gargs, flames, and a few other things which should’ve had lights
• Added support for justifying the closed captions to the right side of the screen, for the languages which do that
• Fixed monitor functionality on the Surface Tension mortar screen
• Fixed a bug related to newpostprocessing, where it wouldn’t turn off completely when disabled
• Reduced collision/rendering volume of newSpotlights by half for better culling and faster rendering
• Fixed rotation bugs for newSpotlights and func_tracktrain, for a prettier game
• Procedural dynamic lights have been disabled on potato quality mode for better FPS
• Significantly buffed the Gluon gun in multiplayer

• Improved fidelity of blood splatters
• Fixed some of the charger lights occasionally being in the wrong position
• Fixed flickering slime vines at end of Xen swamp level
• Increased water frame rate in Lambda Core
• Added additional architectural art to Interloper C1
• Fixed car windshields to render objects behind them properly and sort better
• Fixed multiple Interloper shields to display properly, including the Vort Village intro and the large circular shield in Interloper D
• Fixed excessive shine on some rocks in ST
• Fixed floating props in Xen B1
• Added electric particles to knocked over radio tower in Surface Tension
• Fixed rock collision in Surface Tension
• Fixed green plant alpha cards in Interloper to work properly with gbuffer

• Fixed multiple issues with the in-game audio sliders. Fixed the “sound effect” slider adjusting everything except footsteps and gunfire, resulting in poor audio mix. Now you should be able to hear everything mixed as intended, which really improves the audio experience for anyone who has adjusted their audio sliders!
• Major improvements to the in-game music entity, which fixes maps which use the more dynamic music system. Music tracks should blend more seamlessly and quickly as a result
• Adjusted Inbound tracks so they finish slightly before the level transition. No more abrupt cuts in music!
• Moved Surface Tension Dam fight song over to the new dynamic music system, so the piece properly underscores the fight now no matter how you play it
• The music in the elevator fight in Interloper D is even smoother and cooler now!
• Fixed many missing NPC sounds, such as reloads

• Autosave pass on the entire game to reduce frustrating deaths that send you back really far in the level
• Dynamic light optimization pass on the entire game to improve performance, especially on low to mid-range PCs
• As always, many many small bugfixes and tweaks based on community feedback, that might not be mentioned here
• Multiple balance adjustments game-wide to smooth out the difficulty curve and remove frustrating pain points
• Significantly improved damage output of Guards (both Glock and .357) so they are much more worthy and effective companions now
• Fixed several instances where the Guard’s arms would clip through his chest

• Prevented the player from being able to use the HEV charger next to the suit pickup before the suit battery functions of the suit had initialized. This prevents an odd edge-case bug where if you did that, your HUD would disappear forever.
• Moved the toilet paper slightly closer to the edge of the sink, to make it easier for players to grab
• Improved lighting on AM lockers

• Fixed player being able to prevent the tube headcrab from spawning in Map B
• Adjusted some of the logic for the Map B “headbanging” Zombie, to better signpost when he comes out to attack you
• Added a little hudhint for the Glock in Map B, so new players know about the alternate fire
• Clipped off a spot in Map C where players could get stuck behind a cryo tank
• Locked a door in Map C to encourage players to break things with the Crowbar, as a form of basic training

• Added more Zombies to the Map A post-Shotgun ambush
• Fixed Guard interactions with the turrets in Map A

• Significantly adjusted the Map C (warehouse/outdoor) fight to properly draw players outside and use the space more effectively. Added some barriers and adjusted the side of the bunker the player’s exit is on, to force players to run around the space a bit more than before. The fight is a lot more fun now!
• Prevented the Osprey from being damageable via the mortars, which should fix instances where the Osprey is running around on fire

• Fixed the missing VOX sounds that were added in the 1.5 beta
• Adjusted the “dying” scientist in Map B so he doesn’t turn his head to face you after he’s dead
• Destroyed one of the bridges in Map B as a callback to the HL1 iteration
• Adjusted the scientist that gets killed by the Tentacle, to prevent him being completely frozen in place before the scene starts. Also fixed an edge case where players could get crushed by the door closing behind them.
• Several fixes to the Guard that gets killed by the Tentacle, to prevent a weird edge case where he would sometimes become invulnerable
• Fixed player being able to break the puzzle by pressing both generator buttons in quick succession in Map D
• Fixed bad lighting on a pipe at the end of Map E

• Clipped off some points where players could get stuck
• Added an emergency light to the bottom of the lift that the HECU come down in Map B, to draw attention to the movement
• Made the crate blocking the generator in Map B be invulnerable before the player goes down there, to prevent a scenario where the Houndeyes/explosive barrels would sometimes prematurely destroy the crate and cause the map to progress without the player’s intervention

• Substantial rework to the new silo puzzle based on community feedback from 1.5 beta. The puzzle is now properly linearized and better signposted with visuals. This should alleviate all/most of the soft locks and potential confusion during this section.
• Added an elaborate series of cool scenes that play out if you bring the Guard with you up the silo. Give it a try!
• Added corner pieces to silo platforms to help NPC with pathing and give the player more space to run around (and prevent falling between levels)
• Fixed the elevator in the new silo so that players won’t get crushed/stuck in the door when it closes
• Adjusted the Marines throughout the chapter who are scripted to fire the RPG at you, so that they should now do so every single time without fail

• Fixed a bad decal that was showing up as a glitchy puddle in Map A
• Re-arted the skybox outside the helipad in Map C to match the new art and style
• Fixed some visible nodraw at the end of Map C

• Clipped a tree that you could walk through

• Further attempted fixes for a soft lock that was possible at the end of Map F, by running into the door before the scientist had fully played his sequence

• Fixed many instances of shiny rocks from the previous beta throughout the chapter
• Removed lots of old and ugly detail foliage models throughout Surface Tension and replaced them with newer ones
• Rebalanced the Map A warehouse fight to reduce difficulty spike and improve gameplay smoothness/experience
• Rebalanced Map A Apache to reduce his accuracy to ⅓ of what it was before. He won’t laser beam players quite as hard anymore (though he is still pretty accurate).
• Adjusted a lot of the new art in Map A to use better/newer foliage and rock models, for consistency with the rest of the chapter
• Many small tweaks to bits and pieces in the new Map B art to fix up things like visible world seams, floating rocks, etc
• Added level fog to Map C (cliffside map) to help reduce visual noise and provide better layer separation for players, to help make the map more readable with the new art. We found a neat little trick here that allowed us to keep the existing sky fog effect while also using a different level fog effect simultaneously!
• Rebalanced Map D “whack-a-Gordon” fight to provide the player with more cover and reduce difficulty spike
• Fixed Guard in Map F being unresponsive past a certain point, he should now play out as he did before, with a few of his existing improvements
• Fixed broken mortar and fuel truck in Map I end scene (this bug was insane on the code front!)
• Added a trigger to Map F which deletes the Osprey gibs before you go up to the TOW Launcher, preventing a situation where sometimes the gibs would block your line of fire to the Abrams
• Fixed TOW Launcher in Map F firing hilariously slow rockets

• New art for snark nests throughout Map A, to make it look beautifully disgusting and to match the infestation type found in Map B

• Rebalanced the Map A Assassin fight to prevent players from cheesing it by simply sprinting to the end. Prevented Assassins from being able to jump onto the upper walkways and shoot down at players through the grate. Adjusted the container maze layout slightly to encourage players to move through it and fight in there. Added many supplies to help achieve the same goal. Spaced out Assassins into multiple waves, so the player doesn’t end up fighting too many at once.
• Added some signposting into the ladder the Scientist drops in Map B, so players are more likely to know where to go when the fight is over
• Fixed Map B gun-range door not opening properly
• Removed an extraneous Long Jump hudhint from Map H, as the player is already told about it so much

• Added a tumbling hat animation for when the player takes the Hat through to Xen
• Changed Houndeye “alert island” sound used on the Houndeye island in Map A
• Added an animation to the winch prop that pulls islands around, so that you can see something is happening even without looking at the islands
• Fixed floating ground polyps under the Tree of Truth in Map B1
• Fixed ugly areaportal when looking back into previous level while in Map C1

• Further adjustments to the new forcefield models to boost visual quality and improve consistency
• Cubemap pass on Map A1 (Gargathon) to help boost the visual quality
• Fixed up the Gargantua lights on A1 to look better and to improve performance
• Gave the Gargantuas things to do after the player has escaped in A1, so they don’t just stand around…menacingly
• Fixed visible world FarZ in Map B2
• More art passes on Map C to help boost the visual quality
• Art pass on the boxes which hold the Controller shield crystals in Map C2

• Significantly improved performance in Nihilanth’s chamber for low/mid-range PCs

Thanks Everyone. Stay safe and have a great holiday season!

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