Black Mesa – Assurance for Bio
blackmesa.com

The bottom of the page there is a countdown that will expire at midnight Eastern standard Time tonight.

This company claims to be in Boston. They’ve received federal grants. I’ve done a small amount of digging, but it would be entirely within valves resources to set up such a company. They have a LinkedIn, but it doesn’t really seem like anyone really works there? It seems like a viral marketing campaign.

There was a Reddit thread. A while back. Some people noticed classes in the HTML that referenced other half-lifey things. But, some people in that thread shut it down as nothing out of the ordinary.

Then, there have been recent leaks with regard to a new game being developed. Someone found a resume suggesting that a person had done voice-over work for an unreleased project with Valve in 2023.

There was also a leak of some files with .hlx file types, and I guess prior to the half-life alyx release some .hla files leaked.

In the .hlx file leak, I guess there was found references to things like the EV suit.

Here’s a YouTube video that touches on all of this.

  • EccTM@lemmy.mlEnglish
    33·
    3 months ago

    I don’t see a timer at the bottom of their website - instead I see this line of text:

    https://blackmesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/SampleinGC.png DAMN! You guys are quick... Didn't even have time to put the right image up yet.

    That SampleinGC.png image is accessible, and is a picture of a vial in a testing chamber of some sort. The image also has metadata attached; a description that is a string of morse code:

    -.-- --- ..- / .-. . .- .-.. .. --.. . / .-- . / .- .-. . / .--- ..- ... - / -- .- -.- .. -. --. / - .... . ... . / -... . -.-. .- ..- ... . / -.-- --- ..- / ... . . -- / - --- / .-.. .. -.- . / - .... . -- / .- -. -.. / .... .- ...- . / ..-. ..- -. / .-- . / -.. --- / -. --- - / .... .- ...- . / .- -. -.-- - .... .. -. --. / - --- / -.. --- / .-- .. - .... / - .... . / ...- .. -.. . --- / --. .- -- . / - .... .. ... / .. ... / -. --- - / .- -. / .- .-. --.

    translated:

    YOU REALIZE WE ARE JUST MAKING THESE BECAUSE YOU SEEM TO LIKE THEM AND HAVE FUN WE DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE VIDEO GAME THIS IS NOT AN ARG
    • foggy@lemmy.worldOP
      71·
      3 months ago

      It depicts a vial of XEN CRYSTALS from Dr. ______.

      This is 100% marketing an extension of the half-life universe

      Going this all out? I wanna say it…

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.netEnglish
    192·
    3 months ago

    If this was truly a real start-up, they’d have information for investors to invest.There would be something about what they do other than just “biotech.” There would be some kind of contact information besides an email. There would be names associated with it.

    But they don’t.

    I don’t, however, believe it was actually made by Valve. Either a modder hyping some mod or just a prankster.

    If it is a real company, I’m pretty sure they’re breaking copyright using that trademarked logo.

    • foggy@lemmy.worldOP
      15·
      3 months ago

      The domain was previously owned by the people who did the half-life remake.

      My thought is that Valve poached them.

      • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
        6·
        3 months ago

        Prior to Nov 2022, the domain just had a spam page. After that, it just had this: https://web.archive.org/web/20221105002601/https://blackmesa.com/

        And it was like that until recently.

        The Black Mesa team has support from Valve, but I don’t think they’re actually employees or anything.

        Edit: yeah the more I look into this, the more certain I am that it’s an ARG.

        Wait.

        Black Mesa Technology, Inc. is a real, registered company in the state of Massachusetts: https://corp.sec.state.ma.us/CorpWeb/CorpSearch/CorpSummary.aspx?sysvalue=_HQ3ku.qlnLpl8nUgbgbwS_ZHmpGWTQOFgh1PxfQUAs-

        Current business address is 9 Alfred Cir, Bedford, MA 01730. Google Maps has that as Lexington Alarm Systems, but their site says they moved out of that building in Jan 2019, which somewhat lines up with Black Mesa turning up.

        Maybe they really are a real company? But if they are, they’re doing a real good job of making it look like they’re not. Maybe for free advertising.

        • foggy@lemmy.worldOP
          61·
          3 months ago

          I am also capable of registering a company, though. Dig further. You’ll find that they indeed secured a grant. But again, all this takes is a reasonable application for that grant as a part of a budget for a viral marketing campaign. I want to reiterate that this is absolutely within the means of valves resources.

          This is what viral marketing campaigns do.

          I WANT TO BELIEVE

  • MurrayL@lemmy.worldEnglish
    112·
    3 months ago

    Nothing to do with Half Life besides someone there being a fan:

    As many of you correctly assessed, we’re actually a real company in the Boston area. We’re working hard to assure and secure vaccine and other biological manufacturing production. As much as we would be honored to be part of any Valve game - we do not work in this sector at all. We are not secretly working on Half Life 3, Project White Sands (whatever that is/may be) or any other Valve title - we’re just nerds working to secure the global bioeconomy.

    • EndlessApollo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      3 months ago

      There definitely is some kind of ARG-type stuff going on here tho. The timer ends on the planned release date of HL2, there’s a link on the site to an email address, “[email protected]”, and they literally said they had some easter egg type stuff hidden on the site to be decoded. This is a real company, but I’m very excited to see what happens tonight

      Edited bc I missed some autocorrects

  • foggy@lemmy.worldOP
    8·
    3 months ago

    Like a kid in 2000 desperately hoping that box under the tree is a PS2, I really think that we might be about to see news of something I dare not say. But if it’s nothing, I’m going to be really disappointed. Sigh.

  • SSTF@lemmy.world
    91·
    3 months ago

    Black Mesa is working with select public and private-sector partners to evaluate and test the technology. If you are interested in partnering with us to usher in a new era of assurance and quality in biomanufacturing, please reach out.

    Oh, that’s not good.

    Lots of corporate jargon about AI mixed with biotech talk. Perhaps teasing some in-game AI related shennigans.

  • Tramort@programming.dev
    82·
    3 months ago

    We love the Half Life community. In the last couple of days we’ve received a ton of messages of support and curiosity about Black Mesa. It’s heartening to see that the internet can still be a place where people send inquisitive messages while staying respectful - thank you. Thank you as well to those who sent the thousands of fake inquiries on our website, they made us laugh. We loved seeing the creative messages.

    As many of you correctly assessed, we’re actually a real company in the Boston area. We’re working hard to assure and secure vaccine and other biological manufacturing production. As much as we would be honored to be part of any Valve game - we do not work in this sector at all. We are not secretly working on Half Life 3, Project White Sands (whatever that is/may be) or any other Valve title - we’re just nerds working to secure the global bioeconomy.

    We <3 all of you, you’ve made us laugh quite a bit this week at a time when we needed it. We might put up a couple fun challenges and send the first solvers some swag. That is Black Mesa - the Boston biotech company swag.

    Our love, The Black Mesa team.

    PS: Gabe, call us. You know where we are. PPS: KingPotatoVII please reach out, we’ve been trying to send you some swag for cracking the cipher a while back 🙂

  • Defaced@lemmy.world
    3·
    3 months ago

    I don’t want to keep feeding OP’s unhealthy arg paranoia, but I’m pretty confident this is a real company. The catch being if they really do know Gabe or he at least knows of this company and they are half life fans, it’s entirely in the realm of possibility they are working with Valve on a legit arg. Not saying valve owns that company, in fact the opposite, but I also definitely believe an arg is still a very real possibility and something valve would do. They did call out Gabe after all.

    TLDR: op is not paranoid but the company is real and working with Valve on an arg because they’re fans of the half life series but they’re still a bioengineering company IRL.

  • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
    42·
    3 months ago

    It’s definitely a marketing campaign. The logo is literally the Black Mesa logo, and it has a picture of a headcrab on a scientist. I guess the team is releasing a new campaign or something.

    • EndlessApollo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      52·
      3 months ago

      This site is actually for a real company that has the same name and logo, but yea there’s some fun stuff going on here that I wanna see figured out

      • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
        8·
        3 months ago

        the same name and logo

        That’s how you know it’s not real. Valve owns the rights to the logo, especially when combined with the name Black Mesa.

        • dustyData@lemmy.world
          21·
          3 months ago

          Yeah, who would go to the internet and infringe copyright and trademark laws? That has never happened before.

          /s

          But for real. It’s a viral campaign for something but definitely not for a video game. Look at deadlock, that’s how valve does marketing now. They don’t even need ads or webpages anymore.