To a lot of older gamers, Half-Life will be a subject that sparks both joy and dismay. Joy because of its innovative story and gameplay; dismay because it's a video game series that never got a third entry. To fans, the ending to the "Episode Two" DLC was too much of a cliffhanger for there not to be a continuation. While there was sadly no "threequel," at least there was a Black Mesa remake, which took the original classic and revamped it to bring it into the modern era. And now that remake is itself being remade.
In a recent report from PC Gamer, a developer calling itself Lamba Team is working on a mod for Half-Life that is essentially a reimagining of Black Mesa, only it's done in the original game's engine. It sounds a bit confusing given that the fan-made Black Mesa is already a remake. But this project, according to the description on ModDB, aims to give a new look to the 1998 release, with more detailed textures and environments and "pushing the limits" of the GoldSrc engine. It could be argued that this is more of a "demake" than a remake, then.
Taking 16 years to get a full release, and with the blessing of Valve, Black Mesa changed a lot of things about Half-Life. Aside from a significant update to the visuals, it also tweaked a lot of the environments and made some dramatic improvements to the alien Xen portion of the game, which many fans feel is where the original fell down slightly. As it was made in the Source engine, Black Mesa was able to incorporate Half-Life 2 mechanics, such as manipulating objects in the world. The team behind the original remake was able to achieve all of this while still maintaining the very essence of the classic game.
The Black Mesa 'Blue Shift' DLC is also due for release at some point, with screenshots and a brief clip being shown off last month. Fans of the original will remember the official Half-Life expansions, and the remake seems keen to honor both "Blue Shift," which tasks players with taking on the role of a security guard in the facility, and "Opposing Force," which is told from the perspective of a marine hunting down Gordon Freeman.
As one of the most innovative FPS games ever made, up there with the likes of Doom and Quake, it's interesting to see fans and modders still looking to keep the Half-Life in the limelight. At the moment, there's no release date for the Black Mesa remake, but there is a demo available right now and the team is looking out for anyone who can help with the project.
Half-Life was released in 1998 and is available on PC and PS2.