Black Mesa desert

The Black Mesa desert is an area featured within an outside the Black Mesa Research Facility, featured between Sector G's Hydro-Electric Dam and the Topside Motorpool, and first seen in the Half-Life chapter Surface Tension''.

Desert
The proper desert part includes several sandy areas with Land Mines, cacti and rocks, several small HECU camps, some Xen creatures such as Headcrabs, Houndeyes, and a Tentacle, as well as terrestrial birds such as hawks and quails, according to the sound file names. There Gordon Freeman is chased by the AH-64 Apache that started attacking him at the dam.

Canyon
After a small sewer section, Freeman reaches a steep cliff in front of a large mesa valley with a river, and sees an F-16 passing by. On the cliff are several HECU soldiers and a Sentry Gun. After reaching the other side of the cliff, the Apache reappears, and Freeman finally defeats it when first finding the RPG in small cave, at the climax of the chapter.

This canyon is seen again in the Opposing Force introduction, from the Osprey that passes by it.

Behind the scenes

 * Early Half-Life screenshots indicate that the skybox for the daytime exteriors featured different mesas, with more brown stains, while the retail skybox has more pink mesas. Parts of that old skybox can still be found in one of the ads seen in Sector C and other locations.


 * Along the cliff are located two large pipes that are supposed to extend to the root of the cliff below, but stop before, due to the game limitations of that time. In Half-Life: Source, they have been extended to the bottom and finally the river below, for more realism.


 * The cliff area is mirrored in Half-Life 2, when ascending the Nova Prospekt cliff. Here the Headcrab waiting for Freeman at the entrance of the second pipe has been replaced by a Fast Zombie.


 * The cliff area was again mirrored in Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, in the ascension of the cliff leading to the monastery and the battle against the Hunter-Chopper at the end of the game.

List of appearances

 * Half-Life
 * Half-Life: Opposing Force
 * Half-Life: Decay