Black Mesa: Source has officially released

After a long fortnight since its countdown announcement, and an even longer 8 years since its initial beginning development announcement, Black Mesa has officially arrived for your nostalgic gaming pleasure.

*Download Black Mesa, right here, right now.*

The huge singleplayer mod – around eight hours long in this instalment – takes everything in the original Half-Life and entirely recrafts it in the Source Engine. Black Mesa will not be releasing fully complete however, as it will be missing out the ‘Xen Chapter’, the following paragraph reads from the official forums:

Community Update

“We’re freaking out over here! It is so exciting to share this news with you!

You can now Download the Black Mesa Soundtrack, courtesy of our very own Joel Nielsen, at the very generous price of whatever you want! Enjoy and share! In the near future you’ll see our Website, Wiki and Forums all taken down temporarily for renovations. On September 14th you will see the first release of Black Mesa! This will include our re-envisioning of Half-Life all the way up to Lambda Core. We believe this is a great way to provide a complete-feeling 8-10 hour experience with a solid ending, make our fans happy and help us make the best overall game possible.

We are still working hard on Xen and BMDM, but instead of making you wait we are giving you Black Mesa as soon as it’s ready! We’re doing our best to help bring the immense vision of this project into reality, and we are very excited for what the future brings!”

High-Fives Yo, Carlos Montero – Project Leader

Black Mesa will be available for download via their website, or through Steam, where it was greenlit only days ago. Black Mesa will be available for download free of charge, thanks to the hundreds of volunteer developers that gave their heart into remaking one of the most critically acclaimed games in existence.

What a prolonged experience it has been, announcement after announcement, delay after delay, hype after hype. It has finally arrived, and they are waiting for you…