Black Mesa

Sci-fi first-person shooter reimagining Half-Life with expanded alien-world levels

Crowbar Collective · Released Mar 6, 2020

Reviews: Very Positive; 95% of 145K
Recent reviews: Very Positive; 94% of 611 in 30 days
Playing now: 335; right now
Steam Deck: Playable
Last update: 2 months ago; Jun 25, 2026

What is Black Mesa?

Black Mesa is a fan-made first-person shooter that reimagines Half-Life across a 19-chapter campaign. As physicist Gordon Freeman, you travel through laboratories, deserts, railways, and alien dimensions, fighting invading creatures and a military cleanup force after an experiment goes wrong. It also includes multiplayer PvP across 10 maps.

For you if...

+you want a story-driven sci-fi shooter with a linear campaign
+you enjoy exploring labs, deserts, railways, and alien dimensions
+you value atmosphere and environmental level design in shooters

Not for you if...

−you expect a faithful remaster instead of a reimagining
−you dislike long, repetitive puzzle sections late in campaigns

What players say

95% of 144,890 reviews are positive · 94% of 611 in the last 30 days

Players praise how the remake preserves Half-Life’s atmosphere while updating its visuals, combat, and level design. The most common complaint is that the expanded Xen chapters, especially Interloper, run too long and become repetitive; some players also criticize weapon balance and unclear navigation.

Screenshots and trailer

Black Mesa system requirements

As published by the developer.

Minimum

OS: Windows® 10 or Newer
Processor: 2.6 Dual Core Processor or Greater
Graphics: 2 GB Dedicated Video Card or Greater
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Storage: 20 GB available space
DirectX: Version 9.0c

PC version details

DRM, required accounts, controller support and Steam features.

DRM: None declared on Steam
Controller: Keyboard and mouse
Platforms: Windows, Linux
Achievements: 50
Steam features: Workshop, Cloud saves, Family Sharing, Trading cards

Steam Deck: Playable

Sometimes shows mouse, keyboard or non-Deck controller icons
Some text entry requires manually opening the on-screen keyboard
All functionality is accessible with the default controller configuration
In-game text is legible on Steam Deck
Default graphics settings perform well on Steam Deck

Multiplayer and co-op

Languages

Full audio: English. Text only: German, Spanish - Spain, Finnish, Norwegian, French, Portuguese - Portugal, Russian, Italian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Hungarian, Korean, Polish, Romanian, Simplified Chinese, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, Greek, Japanese, Portuguese - Brazil, Spanish - Latin America, Vietnamese, Croatian, Georgian, Indonesian, Lithuanian.