Crowbar Collective, the team responsible for the really good remake of Half-Life called Black Mesa, appears to be teasing something new in the making. The studio dropped a very brief teaser on YouTube (via GamesRadar) over the weekend called “Incoming Signal” and invited fans to sign up for “future updates and beta tests.”
Black Mesa took a lot of years to make, evolving from a fan-made mod in 2012 to a Valve-approved commercial project. It hit early access in 2015 and then finally achieved full release in 2020, but it was worth the wait: “Xen doesn’t suck anymore,” we said in our 84% review, and that in itself is a remarkable accomplishment.
So it’s great news that Crowbar Collective is getting up to something new—unfortunately, we have no idea what it might be, and the teaser isn’t much help in that regard. Gunfire and shouting can be heard in the background, and the four colored neon lines that eventually merge into a four-color logo could suggest a multiplayer game of some sort.
Some Resetera users have theorized that the four colors in the teaser actually represent the Half-Life series—orange for the original release, green for Opposing Force, blue for Blue Shift, and purple for Decay, a lesser-known expansion that was only released for the PlayStation 2—which is a clever idea but, I think, a real stretch: For one thing, someone else is already well into making Black Mesa: Blue Shift.
Other fans, including former Valve News Network guy Tyler McVicker, say it’s an all-new, original project. That theory might be supported by the Crowbar Collective jobs page: The studio is currently looking for a couple of Unreal Engine 4 programmers. Black Mesa, and Valve’s shooters (except the original Half-Life), use the Source engine.
Personally, I hope it’s an original project. Black Mesa is excellent but I’d really like to see what the team can do with its own ideas. I also hope that whatever’s going on, it doesn’t take as long to cross the finish line as Black Mesa: Yes, it was worth the wait, but man it was a long wait. I’ve reached out to Crowbar Collective to see if anyone wants to share more about the new project, and in the meantime you can sign up for those promised updates and beta tests at crowbarcollective.com.