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Anyone Else been following the countdown at blackmesa.com? (blackmesa.com)

submitted 1 month ago by foggy@lemmy.world to c/pcgaming@lemmy.world

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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.

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[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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.world 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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