History VideoGame / BlackMesa

Following the completion of the original game, work is not quite done yet for ''Black Mesa''. In February 2021, a FanRemake mod for ''VideoGame/HalfLifeBlueShift'' was announced, and is being developed by the HECU Collective team. As of November 2021, the first three chapters of ''VideoGame/BlackMesaBlueShift'' have been completed.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: A scientist you reduce in “Office Complex” states how everyone is crazy trying to run to the surface. His reason was believing someone will eventually rescue them if they stayed put, even when surrounded by alien creatures. However, there really was no one coming to rescue them, and the ones heading for the surface were probably all gunned down by the HECU.

* BooksEnds: Your first and last fights on the surface take place during sunset. In the former, which happens during "We've Got Hostiles", the HECU have arrived in force at the complex and are so overwhelming that you eventually need to find a way to retreat back underground to evade them. The latter fight, set during "Forget About Freeman!", has the HECU worn down by a combination of Gordon and the aliens, and is clearly their LastStand.

* EasilyThwartedAlienInvasion: Subverted HARD. Like in the original Half Life, while the HECU managed to contain the extra-universal alien incursions at first, as time goes on the AlienInvasion becomes more organised and coordinated, leading to the HECU gradually losing ground and the fighting increasingly desperate as they are overwhelmed by both sheer numbers and powerful alien soldiers and machinery/monsters like the Grunts and the Xen Manta Rays. The situation gets bad enough that by ''Surface Tension'' and ''"Forget About Freeman"'' the US government had issued an evacuation warning for the ''entire state of New Mexico'' as the HECU retreats in utter rout, showing how badly shit has hit the fan.

* AthleticallyChallenged:
* AwesomeButImpractical: Late into the "Office Complex" level, should you choose to have a group of security guards and scientists accompany Gordon Freeman throughout the level, one of the scientists will tell a fellow guard and the player that he can't make the jump towards the nearest ladder of an elevator shaft, having failed physical education when he was younger. It's also for this reason that the aforementioned guard also chooses to stay behind, in order to watch over him.

* AwesomeButImpractical:

** Buried mines in outdoors sections are ''much'' easier to spot, as they are now "Bouncing Betty" types with three small metal prongs very visibly sticking out of the sand. These mines can be detonated by hitscan bullets, and not just other explosives.

** Buried mines in outdoors sections are ''much'' easier to spot, as they are now "Bouncing Betty" types with three small metal prongs very visibly sticking out of the sand.

** The Black Mesa facility is much more sensibly designed. The [[Machinima/FreemansMind box smashing room]] is now clearly a shipping room.

* AdaptationalContextChange: The final HECU encounter on the surface in "Forget About Freeman!" is never givne much context in canon, but presumed to be a token force guarding the entrance to the Lambda Complex. Here, it's a full on LastStand for the HECU, as an alien craft destroys a convoy trying to flee the facility, forcing the remaining soldiers and surviving tank to dig in against Gordon. Accentuating this is a trio of ospreys fleeing the facility while helicopters and jets dogfight with alien craft.

* TheCavalryArrivesLate: During the last third of "Surface Tension", Gordon overhears an Osprey with the callsign Goose-4 calling for aid as it prepares to take off, with the Bradley Bloodhound-3 acknowledging and moving to support them. A couple of seconds later, you witness Goose-4 be destroyed by Vortigaunts just before Bloodhound-3 bursts through a nearby gate (and then gets destroyed by newly arrived Xen forces).

* DiesDifferentInAdaptation: In the mod, an Osprey is destroyed by an Alien Aircraft as it prepares to take off and evacuate several wounded HECU. In the game release, it's instead destroyed by Vortigaunts blowing up a tanker parked near it (implied to be used for refueling).

* EarlyBirdCameo: Isaac Kleiner, Eli Vance, and Barney Calhoun are retroactively implemented in place of generic [=NPCs=] from the original ''Half-Life''. Kleiner and Eli are featured as two of the scientists overseeing the experiment in the Anomalous Materials lab, with the latter taking the role of the scientist urging Gordon to find help topside as implied in ''Half-Life 2'', while the guard in front of a locked door during "Inbound" closely resembles Barney, right down to his lack of gear at that time as demonstrated in ''VideoGame/HalfLifeBlueShift''.

* FromBadToWorse: The Emergency Broadcasts become gradually worse and worse. The first warns the public a disaster has occurred at Black Mesa and recommends evacuation of a 75-mile radius around the facility. The second increases that evacuation area and orders everyone to leave, while hinting that an infection is spreading from Black Mesa. The final one basically spells out an alien invasion is underway, that the U.S. military has gotten its ass kicked and the President is ordering Black Mesa nuked. It orders an evacuation of ''all of New Mexico''.

** The HECU Artillery gun from the dam segment of "Surface Tension" is gone, with the primary opposition instead being several squads of soldiers and the Apache. The Tentacles encountered in the next map are also absent, with a mine-turned toxic waste dump in its place.

* RuleOfSymbolism: Due to graphical improvements allowing for better lighting and backgrounds, the environment and time of day gains a new connection to the HECU -- during their initial encounters, when their strength is initially unknown, it is night. When the full extent of their forces are revealed, and it looks like they have a real chance of repelling the Xen aliens, it's midday. And during the final portion of "Forget About Freeman", when the HECU is fought for the last time as several ospreys evacuate the facility, it is dusk, signifying the beginning of the end not only for the HECU, but all mankind.

%% (WANE) * HilariousOuttakes: An official compilation can be found [[https://youtu.be/y6gJWv8GjZU here]].

* HilariousOuttakes: An official compilation can be found [[https://youtu.be/y6gJWv8GjZU here]].

* MainliningTheMonster: Try mainlining a ''parallel universe''. In this game Black Mesa is much more blatantly shown to be exploiting as much as exploring the Xen borderworld along with its resources and alien life, using what they found out and recover for with little regard for possible consequences. It ultimately backfires come the Black Mesa Incident as it attracts both the attention of an alien entity in the Nihilanth who sent an invasion force to try and conquer Earth, and the ire of the US government who sent in the HECU to contain said invasion and kill everyone else in the facility.

** The LaserHallway building in "Surface Tension" is greatly increased in size and there's even [[UpToEleven MORE mines in it than before.]] As part of Update 1.0, "Surface Tension" received a gameplay overhaul, which included even '''''[[NoKillLikeOverkill MORE]]''''' trip mines in the warehouse.

*** Taken UpToEleven in "Interloper", which greatly expands the short altercation with a Gargantua in ''Half-Life'' into [[spoiler:an island-hopping escapade which sees you running from an entire ''horde'' of the monsters]].

* EternalEngine: The waste processing plant in "Residue Processing", with its conveyor belts, pistons, grinders and crushers. There's also the Grunt factory in "Interloper", which is [[UpToEleven much,]] ''[[UpToEleven much]]'' [[UpToEleven more]] of an Eternal Engine than in the original game.

* MadeOfExplodium: The infamous tripmine warehouse, for one. There are also exploding plants in Xen; a couple of segments involve tight locations with lots of these plants, where allowing any kind of impact will result in death. For [[UpToEleven added explodium]], one of these such locations is also filled with tripmines and sleeping Houndeyes.

** During "Gonarch's Lair", if you're carrying the pizza or purple hat with you for the "Pepperoni Precipitation" or "Rarest Specimen" achievements, the webs that you usually need to shoot to break apart will break on their own, to alleviate unfair deaths while you're running from the Gonarch with said webs in the way.

* AwesomeButImpractical: Snarks were this initially, even more than the base game. The idea of using little alien bugs to rip your enemies to shreds for you is cool, but the throwing distance is so short that, unless you're doing it from the high ground, they're more likely to attack you than your enemies, and are slower than they were in ''Half-Life'', as well as less damaging. One achievement requires killing at least 10 enemies with snarks. Later patches would try to fix this, such as snarks being thrown much further.
** The double-barreled shotgun blast can do a LOT of damage and can straight up one-shot most standard HECU grunts and, if [[WebVideo/SamONellaAcademy RNG-esus]] is on your side, Voritgaunts. Problem is, the fire rate is worse than the regular shotgun blast, and you have to get really close and personal in order for it to even have a chance at doing any damage. Not to mention taking up two whole shots of your precious shotgun ammo.

* TheStinger: If you successfully complete the Rare Specimen achievement (where you take a [[NiceHat purple top hat]] found at the start of "Unforeseen Consequences" ("Lambda Core" in the 2012 mod release) and send it through the portal to Xen) and then beat the game, after the credits roll, [[spoiler:a short bit plays out where a Vortigaunt finds the hat in question and tries it on.]]