With Valve's blessing, a retail version of Black Mesa was made available on Steam in May 2015 as an Early Access title, which added advanced graphics technology and multiplayer.

The game's first public release came in September 2012. Black Mesa is a Fan Remake of Half-Life 1 by the Crowbar Collective (formerly known as the Black Mesa Development Team), beginning life as a total conversion mod for Half-Life 2 shortly after the latter's release in 2004.