It may have taken 4,000 years (or thereabouts) to get here, but it seems as though Half-Life fan remake Black Mesa may actually release this year. In a new update on the Steam community forums, developer Crowbar Collective has announced that the final beta for its ambitious rebuilding of Valve's classic shooter is now available. Yes, you can finally play from the beginning of Gordon Freeman's saga to the end of Xen in a single playthrough.
The last we heard of Black Mesa was back in July. Crowbar Collective had stated it would be releasing some of the long-awaited Xen chapters into a beta branch for players to test. That testing period has come and gone and it obviously went well enough. We wouldn't be here able to play the somewhat final build if it didn't.
If you simply cannot wait for a final release -and I don't blame you-, you'll need to opt into the beta on Steam. Simply right-click on Black Mesa in your Steam library, click on properties, and then open the "Betas" tab. From there, select "public-beta" and you'll be ready to take on the alien forces of Xen. What a time to be alive!
If these final chapters weren't enough of an update, this final beta also introduces some general bug and performance fixes to Black Mesa. Many noted in the initial Xen beta that rather beefy graphics cards would see laggy gameplay: that should now be a thing of the past. There's also a bunch of touch-ups with certain textures and physics properties, though the list is rather extensive. You can find the full changelog over here.
With it being mere weeks from the annual Steam Winter Sale, Black Mesa is currently not running a sale for this beta. The lowest price I've seen it go for is about $4.99, though this past summer saw it at $7.99. That's still a really solid deal, especially since Black Mesa is pretty good!
If you've never experienced Half-Life and want a somewhat modern interpretation of it, you can't really beat Black Mesa. That Valve has even allowed it to exist is pretty awesome. With this and Half-Life: Alyx coming within the next few months, it's never been a better time to pick-up your crowbar and smack some zombies.
Source: Steam Community