Black Mesa, the Half-Life remake, will end its five-year Early Access run next week. While the majority of the game has long been complete and playable, it is finally approaching its final development milestone with the arrival of an entirely new Xen level, map tweaks, and AI improvements.

Developer Crowbar Collective announced the launch update in January, and the release date has been set for March 5. Studio boss Adam Engles revealed the date in a post recounting the long development process of the game, which he joined in 2006 when it was still an unofficial Half-Life mod. From there he became art lead, project lead, and now owner of the company.

"Through luck, hard work, and maybe a little ignorance, we did not run away from our goal of completing this game," he wrote. We are proud of what we have created." The upcoming 1.0 release is the most polished and most enjoyable version yet. The anticipation and excitement for our project is flattering."

However, Engles stresses that development is not over; even when 1.0 is complete, there are still bugs to be fixed and he hopes to manage expectations.

"This is not to downplay or excuse, but as someone who drafts most of these media posts, I think it is important to stay away from marketing and 'hype.' Before Astroneer was released, they blogged about managing expectations for their game I wrote an article, which really resonated with me and inspired me to write a post like this one day, and while I am very excited that Black Mesa is 'finished', it is not perfect and will never be perfect."

If you have an itch and can't wait for March 5, the entire game is already playable from start to finish and is much larger than the team had planned. Perhaps the most important addition is Xen, an alternate world that the original game spent little time exploring, and Crowbar Collective has essentially expanded this section to include a full load of completely original levels and mechanics.

However, the 1.0 patch still contains quite a bit more, and you can check out the changes in last month's Developer Preview.