Greetings there, folks!
It's been a long time since the last updated and demo for Black Mesa: Classic, isn't it? Don't worry we preapred something special for you today and that is - Black Mesa: Classic "Office Complex" chapter - demo release. That was a long journey for Lambda Team to release this demo.
But, what will it contain? The answer is easy, whole "Office Complex" chapter, with the Level Design of Black Mesa: Source remake, that many adore and love, but there's for sure will be few secrets, easter eggs and our own things that we added. Feel free to give us feedback, on what things you enjoyed, liked most, disliked or even hated, every feedback is important to make mod play and feel even better.
Also! Do not forget about our Social Media, that you can join to get any feature update, give us feedback and do any bug-report over demo and future releases!
Before we start you might like to watch our collaboration with LambdaGeneration youtube channel, that many of you know. There you'll be able see first feedback and reaction to the chapter, from Skyspawn(aka. Robo), who was able to play early access before the relaese. Also you might find some interesting infromation about Black Mesa: Classic future updates, news, and even exclusive content that isn't available anywhere at the moment.
Enjoy the watching and thank you for staying!
You might remember many other looks that Black Mesa: Classic had before, from very high-poly models and detailed textures, to more LD models and detailed textures, which were mostly ported from Black Mesa remake. Now, we finally found our vision, that is most likely will stay like this to the end of project development. Most textures is now back from HL1, OPF, BS etc. We're not using Black Mesa's one and if we can't replace some textures from it, we'll just make our own to fit the style.
Models now - is more a mix of LD and HD, it doesn't have that many polygons, but still will look and feel great! As for original weapons will be done with a mix of what we got in Black Mesa, but this is something to discuss in the future. Overall we changed things alot, and we hope that you, our dear fanbase, will appreciate our dessicion. But it doesn't mean that you can't make Black Mesa: Classic look more HD, once SDK for the project will be released with many source materials, you can edit the game as you want.
(ALL RENDERS BY RYDER_JOESTAR)
Now let's move to the things that changed. As you might remember back then when "We've got Hostiles" chapter released, everyone was surprised for its visuals and improved graphics, sure it was great and many thanks to Trinity Render, but, at the end it made so many little bugs that can't be fixed, and we had to move from that. Now Black Mesa: Classic works on SteamHL25 with SoloKiller code. And because of that we might not be able to support Xash3D players, since the codebase is way different between newest one and that what Xash3D use.
(updated Menu look and Advanced Settings)
We had to removed most of improved thing with Trinity Render, but at same time we brought back some other things, that you may like. Most of visuals were improved from explosions to battery light, a lot of NPC's got more variations, improved AI for most of NPCs that is showed in this "Office Complex" demo and many more stuff. Oh! Also - an Advanced Menu, where you can set some different things you want or not. Those including, shadows, new stamina system, weapon swaying and other things, feel free to experiment with Advanced Menu so you can get best settings for yourself!
(Gameplay Programmer - ConTraZ_VII)
(UI, Client-Side Programmer - ScriptedSnark)
From what we had in "We've got Hostiles" chapter demo, we moved alot. Level Design will still be same to Black Mesa remake for sure, but there will be some additional things, rooms, little details that overall stuff that will fit in the game and chapter it's in. If you want to find out more about such things, be sure to check LambdaGeneration video, where some of those improvements were showed as a part of exclusive materials.
(Mapper - Chilion.txt, FireFox, KillAllPlayers, ConTraZ_VII)
Detailed textures isn't anymore in this demo, as you heard before, we now use mix of different original textures we have with something that were made by our mappers for this project. Take a look at what we managed to do in "Office Complex", in most aspects it was improved alot.
(Mapper - Chilion.txt, FireFox, KillAllPlayers, ConTraZ_VII)
Demo is finally available to download, feel free to share feedback if you want. Enjoy!
Check out other reviews and gameplay showcase over Black Mesa: Classic - Office Complex Demo on YouTube.
Many thanks for mappers, programmers and other team members that made this demo come true. We people at Lambda Team hope that you will enjoy this demo, we're surely waiting for any feedback, bug-reports and discussions! Thank you for staying with us and helping us move forward!
Cheers, Lambda Team
looks good
Uof, nice.
Finally you guys are back. YESSSSS.
And we wont dissapear again
where is the download?
its not in the files
Downloading on ModDB will be available in a day or so, after verification. If you want to play now, you can join discord server and found link to the demo in announcements channel, can't do much on moddb, besides wait.
Nice to see this is moving on! That is the most promissing remake of HL I am aware of!
You know it will be good when it lags trying to scroll through the features. lol