For those of us who have been waiting eons for Valve to finally put out the next installment of the Half Life series, which left us on an agonizing cliffhanger at the end of Half Life 2 Episode 2, the next best thing to the fabled Half Life 3 would be Black Mesa, a mod project that recreates the original Half Life with the Source engine.
A massive project that has been well received by fans, the first part of Black Mesa was released in September 2012. This first half lasted up till the point where Gordon Freeman enters the portal to the alien homeworld, Xen. Since then, the second part of the mod taking the game to its conclusion has yet to be released.
This may soon change with the appearance of a mysterious countdown timer on the Black Mesa website, which now displays a wall of color bars, the afore-mentioned timer, and TV static hissing in the background. The infamous G-man sporadically appears as well, so there’s little ambiguity as to what this timer is counting down to.
The countdown is scheduled to end at 10:47 on May 5, and at that point we’re likely to see the release of the second half of Black Mesa, or at the very least an announcement of a release date. Or perhaps we could have news on Half Life 3? One can dream.