Does Crowbar Collective have any plans to remake Opposing force or Blue Shift? We do not. There are other, unaffiliated mod teams working on those. We recommend you check them out!
Will you ever make Black Mesa an officially mountable game in Garry’s Mod? Players who own Black Mesa and Garry’s Mod are able to mount the game locally. There have been no discussions about officially supporting Black Mesa in Garry’s Mod and we probably would not pursue it because of:
- Model orientation errors - Broken 4-way blends - Various lighting issues - No Post Processing support
Basically, it would take a lot of effort to get Black Mesa working correctly within Garry’s Mod. We know a lot of people would love full support for our game, but it’s not in our hands and it is not a simple process.
Are there any plans to add co-op mode into the game? We have no plans for a co-op mode. We may at some point in the future fiddle with entities and support that allow for ad-hoc co-op through the single-player campaign and in mods, but it is absolutely not something we are committed to at the moment.
If we did a co-op mode as a feature, it would not be simply a way to play a single-player with a friend, but gameplay built for co-op, and we would like to focus on new ventures at this time.
What can we hope to see in update 1.5? - Visual updates - Refined levels - Updates to UI and controller support
We’ll be applying similar art updates seen in 1.0 to environments across the game. We are making small design edits across the board to make even small encounters have a purpose, and we have a big change we don’t want to spoil. We are also working on updating the UI to work as smoothly as possible and adding more keyboard/controller functionality.
Is update 1.5 the last update for Black Mesa? We do not have any planned updates for after 1.5 but will continue to support the game.
How do you switch to using the old menus? In Black Mesa’s properties (right-click BM in your Steam Library), under “Set Launch Options…”, you can enter -oldgameui to boot Black Mesa with the legacy Source engine menu. This menu will be unsupported going forward and may have missing features or bugs.
Are there any plans for the Black Mesa: Hazard Course in the making? Not at this time. The game's mechanics are taught within the game and we think they all work pretty well. While the Hazard Course is a memorable part of the original; it would be redundant if we added it to Black Mesa.
Can we hope to see the uncut version of “On a Rail” in the future? OAR Uncut is available at the workshop (it just needs to be re-compiled by Chon).
Are there hopes of bringing Black Mesa to VR? No. Bringing Black Mesa to VR would be a herculean effort. We would need to redo a vast majority of the assets, so they don’t look horrible up close. Various aspects of our game would need to change as well, such as the HUD, to prevent motion sickness. We had a dedicated VR programmer on it some time ago, and they said it was not a good idea to implement.
What does Crowbar Collective have planned for their next project? We have some ideas for an original IP that we are exploring. Nothing concrete yet, but when we’re ready, we’ll announce.
Are there any chances of seeing further optimization down the road? We have already optimized the game as much we could without compromising too much on visual quality. There are no planned big optimizations patches anymore because we have already done as much we could. That being said, we will keep fixing and improving the game as we discover new bugs/problems.
Will there be an upcoming fix for the broken shadows? Sun shadows on view models are little wonky or not 100% correct; we may look into this and fix it if it doesn’t affect perf too much. (Apart from this we are not aware of any broken shadows)
Will there be a macOS version of Black Mesa? Sadly, no. Linux has been a challenge to support, and MacOS would be even more difficult, especially considering MacOS dropped OpenGL.
How do you fix the AI disabled bug when it appears? There should be no broken AI in the game. If you see it, make sure you are not running any mods, and post a report on the forums or the discord.
Do you have any plans to release Black Mesa to consoles? No Mesa on consoles. We would need proper licenses, we would have to completely port the game to a graphics engine that works with modern consoles, completely rebuild assets to work within console specs, and probably re-engineer levels to work on current generation hardware.
Would you guys ever consider porting to Source 2? It’ll take another 15 years... Jokes aside, no plans. Nobody outside of Valve has access to Source 2.
How often do you converse with the team over at Valve? We have a licensing contact at Valve. We only message them if we need stuff for Steam or licensing.
Will you guys ever release the soundtrack to Black Mesa on Steam? We’ve not considered it much. The soundtrack is available in multiple locations and is included within the game file.
Does the team at Crowbar Collective work remotely or in an office setting? Remotely. We are a mostly part-time team with developers all around the world.
Would you ever consider adding developer commentary to the game? It would be great to hear your thoughts on individual sections. We’ve looked into it a few times and seemed to be more work than it was worth.
What was the creative process for the reimagining of the game soundtrack? I am a massive fan of the HL1 OST. That said, I did not want to remake/redo what had been done. There was no way I could live up to the original if I chose to remake it. Music and sound do not age the same way graphics do. So with that in mind, I decided to go in a unique direction. I did take cues from the original, (the synth/industrial vibes) but decided to take a more musical/emotional/dramatic approach than Kelly Bailey.
In the early days (2005), I played the original game while noodling with ideas. I was very new to composing when I joined the team, having no prior professional experience. This shows a bit, with how the themes weren't as nailed down, and may even seem out of place at times. Because of this, Black Mesa Earthbound kind of has its own musical identity that is a bit more indie sounding. Many love it; others have expressed that it was too far from the original. I did attempt to change a few of these out, but there was a lot of push back from the community. So I ended up leaving most of them in. Either way, (and over a decade later), I think most of these songs have held up decently.
The Xen Soundtrack was a different beast. I knew we were going somewhere entirely different out of the gate. This opened the game musically for me to experiment, which I began around 2016.
The opening track when you arrive on Xen was the first piece I wrote. I originally had the synth/bassline kicking around for a few months, and it seemed to fit with the concept art, but was missing something. My wife and I were hanging out in the studio one night, and we had had a few glasses of wine, so I coerced her to go into the booth and sing 'something' over what was there. What you hear in the game is mostly that first take. (Had to tweak a couple of things later on) But that was the birth of the Xen OST.
From there, I used many existing tie-ins from the earthbound portion, but fleshed out the themes and linked all the similar areas together with a stronger foundation. You will hear it from the swap of chord progressions to melodies and should notice that most of Xen is built on a flipside of the primary Earthbound themes. I then also chose an entirely new set of instruments, each of which represents something unique to the Xen world. As the game neared completion, any tweaks necessary were made and is the reason some of the songs have a V2. The finished Xen soundtrack plays out as a musical crescendo, with the shared melodies building from song to song. A metaphor to the game itself, and hopefully details the love and care that went into crafting it.
How do I stay tuned about Black Mesa and future projects of Crowbar Collective?