The studio that somehow improved on Half-Life with Black Mesa teases beta tests for its next game

(Image credit: Crowbar Collective)

The studio responsible for refining Half-Life with an unofficial, Valve-approved reimagining has teased an upcoming project that needs beta testers.

Crowbar Collective, the team of Half-Life fans behind Black Mesa, has got our attention after semi-revealing a mysterious new project. On February 23, the studio uploaded a video to its YouTube channel along with a simple caption: "Incoming signal." As you'd expect, the video gives us very little context in terms of what this signal is, but its description tells fans to head to its website and sign up for "future updates and beta tests."

If you're not familiar with Crowbar Collective, the team started as a group of fans wanting to develop a mod for Half-Life. After a third-party remake of Valve's FPS using the company's Source game engine, the team managed to catch the attention of Valve itself, which approved a commercial version of Black Mesa that launched via Steam in 2015.

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Now, in 2024, the team has grown into an independent developer who, according to its website," loves Half-Life, loves game design, and is committed to creating high-quality content." It's unclear if Crowbar Collective's next project is another Half-Life reimagining, related to Valve at all, or perhaps an original IP - we'll have to wait and see what that incoming signal is before we make any proper predictions.

Naturally, this hasn't stopped fans from trying to figure out what Crowbar Collective is working on. Since the trailer features four different beams of light, many have begun linking the colors to various Half-Life add-ons, with purple being Half-Life: Decay, green being Half-Life: Opposing Force, blue being Half-Life: Blue Shift, and so on.

In other news, Half-Life could have been called 'Fallout,' according to a former Valve developer.

While we wait for more news from Crowbar Collective, take a look at the best FPS games.

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After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.