It was almost four years ago that we first saw that incredible trailer for Black Mesa: Source, which looked like a full update of Valveâs classic PC game Half-Life. It truly was incredibleâhell, I rewatched that trailer just now and I still feel incredulous about it. It basically looks like the first game redone with the graphics, animations and visual effects of Half-Life 2
I like Valveâs official Half-Life: Source, but it sure doesnât look anything like what the folks behind Black Mesa: Source were showing.
That trailer, however, aired back in 2008. Since then, itâs never quite been entirely clear the state of the projectâand it certainly hasnât come out.
Over at Rock, Paper Shotgun, reporter/superhero alter-ego Nathan Graysonâs got a great two-part interview with Carlos Montero, the project lead of Black Mesa: Source
Talking with Montero at length, a picture begins to emerge: a picture of a talented team that perhaps bit off more than they could chew, overpromised early, and then realized that what they were attempting was much, much more difficult than theyâd even guessed.
As Montero points out, Black Mesa: Source canât actually be a straight-up port, since that is illegalâinstead, itâs become a full-fledged remake, featuring over 2,000 custom models, 2,000 choreographed scenes and over 6,500 lines of dialogue, by Monteroâs reckoning.
âWe have always wanted Black Mesa to be Valve-quality,â Montero tells RPS. âTurns out that is very tough to do from every angle of development. Imagine that!â
I shudder to think of the challenges presented by doing thisâitâs like trying to recreate a symphony not just by transcribing and re-writing the parts, but by re-making every instrumental performance one by one. No, you know what? Itâs much, much harder than that. Itâs like doing a shot-for-shot remake of The Godfather, but first you have to build the cameras Coppola used from spare parts. Then, you have to build the actors in a lab.
Montero says that they made a mistake by overpromising early, by hyping people up with that incredible trailer. âIf I could go back in time and prevent us from releasing the media and hyping up the public the way that we did,â he says, âI would. In the end, all of that hurt us more than helped us.â
Heâs quick to assure people, however, that they are still working on the project, and they havenât turned their back on anyone. Theyâve just learned not to promise release dates or overhype their product. Hereâs Montero:
This hasnât been about polish for polishâs sake; itâs been about learning all there is to know about how to make great games, and using it to make a great game. There arenât any shortcuts there. We just had to learn by doing, by making mistakes, by screwing things up and starting them over again. Sometimes along the way we have learned things that fundamentally changed our way of thinking, and sometimes we have gone back and fundamentally changed parts of the game to reflect that.
So no, I donât think it is tempting to over-polish at all. We are all eager to get the game out. We are dying to get this game out and show everyone what weâve been working on, but we arenât so eager that we would sacrifice our values and what we believe will make this game great. We arenât going to put out something that isnât good enough for us.
Hmm, that actually sounds a bit like another game developer I can think of⊠maybe Monteroâs team has more in common with Valve than even they know.
And when, pray, will this incredibly ambitious project finally come to some sort of playable fruition? Montero will only go so far as to say âsoon-ish.â
Hey, itâs more than weâve got to go on with Half-Life 3
What ever happened to Black Mesa: Source, Part 1 and Part 2 [Rock, Paper Shotgun]
Black Mesa: Source [Official Page]
