Xen still isn't available in Black Mesa, but this latest update brings it a step closer for the fan-made re-imagining of Half-Life.

This latest update, which they're saying is mainly to give Black Mesa the latest version of their "Xen Engine" is mainly a bug-fix release along with performance improvements. The developers say the will do more more "Engine" release after this, but then the big Xen levels release should be upon us. I'm quite excited to play it through in full and see what they do with the end.

Here's what's changed:

Fixed screen freezes / crashes on Radeon RX 3XX 4XX 5xx cards!

Fixed most dynamic shadows flickering and improved the overall quality and performance

Fixed most dynamic lights flickering on lower quality levels Nvidia GPUs (and some AMD GPUs)

CSM quality and perf improvements

Fixed CSM not working on some AMD cards

Fixed decals flickering in some maps

Fixed full screen blur when using dynamic light godrays

Fixed zombie headshots with the crossbow. Now when you headshot a zombie using the crossbow, they will no longer spawn a live headcrab.

Fixed assault points for Houndeyes

Added texture scrolling for dynamic light cookie textures

Fixed tilemap animation bug in light cookie textures.

Fixed rim lighting not working with old light entities

Fixed Phong/skin shader specular not working on static props

Flashlight intensity and range increased

Settings optimization for new deferred lighting and shadows

Sadly though, they seem to have broken the Linux version! They're aware of this and they're looking into a fix, hopefully it won't be too long. I was hoping to jump in and see if the bug where it crashes after the test chamber had been fixed, but seeing it completely broken now was a bit of a let-down. Still, it's Early Access and issues are to be expected.

Find Black Mesa on Steam, they've also put it on sale with 60% off although the sale won't last for much longer.