Do you want to return in "good old days" and experience that true classic - Half-life 1, (xen levels) but with improved graphics, geometry, and gameplay ? You can download it now, on the link below, or in Steam Workshop.
The only difference between these two resources is the way of installing the mod. During 7 years I made 7 versions of Improved Xen, which is a big number for this kind of work. You can see the evolution of the mod since its early version till now, and how Black Mesa influenced it. It was an amazing and exciting experience for me, and I share the result of my work with you, as usual. I tried to take the best materials from Black Mesa 1.0 to bring new spirit into my own mod. However, some things will not be changed because I have my own vision of Xen, and try to fallow the canonical Half-Life style.
New gameplay footage (Trailer)
In my opinion, even the latest version of Black Mesa still has some flaws and it is quite unstable. I faced them while adapting and updating my mod to its new version (1.0). I was surprised, because I expected to see more polished version of BM, than it is now. But the quality of Black mesa is the highest now, compared to all period of its development. I am sure, that all future BM updates will not destruct my mod anymore, and I put a lot of afford to avoid this possible problem. I hope you will enjoy my new Improved Xen. Meanwhile, you can monitor the news about Azure Sheep Remake, I am involved in its development too.
Also I am waiting for your feedback about my mod in the comments below. If you have some problems with it, I'll try to help you If I can. Thank you for your attention!
Latest news about updating Improved Xen to new version.
Latest news about updating Improved Xen to version 0.51 for Black Mesa 2012. Improved Xen will be published on April 7.
Latest news about updating Improved Xen to version 0.5.
As you can see, I updated the mod to v0.4.1, it was necessary because of the detected bugs in the previous version.
Improved Xen is now compatible with Black Mesa (2012) Free version. Here you can download the mod version 0.51.
Improved Xen was a great mod released sometime after the 1.0 release, and it works on the latest version (Definitive Edition), but it does have some flaws...
Black Mesa: Improved Xen version 1.0 is now available!
Improved Xen is now compatible with Black Mesa (2015) Steam version. Here you can download the mod version 0.5
Here you can download the mod version 0.4.1 This is the full version, does not need to install Xen v0.1 v0.11 and v0.4 Attention! This mod is compatible...
For everyone who's missing textures:
Install the alpha 0.11 update.
For everyone who has g-man not talking at the end:
You most likely installed a mod that overwrites scenes.image (like uplink and STUncut).
To fix this, first set up black mesa for source sdk.(You're smart enough to google it.) Then on the sdk select sdk engine 2007 and then black mesa.Then use faceposer and click rebuild scenes.image. This should update the scenes.image to include all the vcd files and therefore, make gman talk.
( I wonder what implications this has if I could figure this out just from looking at the files and errors in dev console. And I dont even know a thing about Source.)
how do i install it
Copy+Paste+Overwrite.
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There's all missing textures nothing is textured in this version for
me...
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The Nihilanth battle felt anti climatic without music, a future patch should add music to it.
The file Half Life 2 uses is HL1_song24.mp3, which is the original battle music.
Can you help? I have a couple of glitches:
- Gonarch's Lair crash when chosen from the Main Menu
- Several ERROR models
- Walls are white in one of the areas Nihilanth teleports you into.
Zloikot. Your Xen maps are great, very good.
But in your last version, you placed trees in the floating islands and that is a big mistake. The Xen is a different dimension with other life forms. Earth trees are not right in Xen, it breaks the mood of the alien world. The trees don´t fit on the alien world. I hope you take it away if you upgrade your mod again. Other than that your modification is perfect.
Since they only appear on the first level right after you get teleported from the Lambda Labs, I like to pretend that the trees were teleported in from Earth or something to that effect. Same with the pools of Earth water there. But you are correct.
This looks very good my only complaint would be that you stick almost 100% to the original level designs that's little disappointing never the less an amazing job well done.
Even if this looks amazing, I'll still wait for the Black Mesa team to get Xen done.