Black Mesa: Blue Shift - 05 - Focal Point

Chapter 5: Focal Point

Barney Calhoun travels via teleporter to a strange alien borderworld, Xen, and embarks on a dangerous journey alone in order to find and reactivate an ancient relay device critical to helping him and his team escape Black Mesa.

GAME INFORMATION:
ModDB page: https://www.moddb.com/mods/black-mesa...

Playlist with all completed chapters:
   • Black Mesa: Blue Shift (Full Playthrough)  

CHAPTERS:
0:00 - Map 1: Xen
11:23 - Map 2: Crystal Caves
29:43 - Map 3: Site Alpha - Primary Habitat
1:04:49 - Map 4: Site Beta - Resource Extraction
1:19:07 - Map 5: Alien Fortress
1:40:50 - Map 6: The Swamp
1:53:57 - Map 7: The Relay
2:21:55 - Map 8: The Interceptor
2:47:34 - Map 9: Escape!

Notes:
Tossing any of the batteries used for the generator (such as the one at 38:11) into areas where they cannot be recovered (such as into the river at 40:02) will instantly kill Barney as it would otherwise soft-lock the game
There is armor pickup at the back of the room at 51:42
Blowing up the Xen plants at 1:02:11 will prevent Barney from accessing the ammo/health pickups on the scaffold as easily
The Chumtoad’s Lair is a secret location in Map 4 that can be accessed by clearing a tunnel of rocks as shown at 1:06:32. This location was also in the original BS game. While the player can access it freely, there won’t be much to do there unless the player has brought the Chumtoad plush found way back in Chapter 2 of the game all the way to the lair, in which case a portal device will rise up from the waters and grant the player with a bountiful supply of ammo pickups (while the rest of the Chumtoads teleport away, just like in the original game). The player can then reclaim the plush and bring it with them to the end of the chapter to the portal (nothing currently happens if you do so)
There are many ways to get the supply crate at 1:14:19. Other options include jumping onto the platform itself from the ladder or from the far side of the cliff and down onto the railings. Both are quite tricky to pull off so I elected to just spam the use key
Jumping off the Manta back onto the island at 1:16:35 will result in a game over and forced reload of the last save
The Xen sentry turrets at 1:19:55 can kill Barney if the blast hits him while on the Manta
The healing “cysts” first shown at 1:21:40 will regrow upon bursting, allowing for an unlimited health resupply
The secret cache at 1:22:31 can be accessed two different ways; firstly, by jumping the chasm using the rocks as shown at 1:23:04. This must be done before the Manta destroys the rock and exit teleporter device itself. Secondly, by jumping off the fallen spire at 1:26:44. This is considered an “illegitimate” method as the Manta destroys the exit device, which canonically means Barney couldn’t have gotten back to the main island
The second orange spire on the Artillery Island (1:26:53) was destroyed offscreen via friendly fire from the Sentry Turrets (you can hear the destruction sound effect at around 1:27:13). Typically, the player would have had to destroy it using the Sentry Turret at 1:27:23 themselves
As opposed to letting the turrets destroy the glass to get the Orange Crystal at 1:28:21, the player could have traversed the route I show at 1:31:57 instead and dropped into the room from the roof
Only a charged shot from the Xen Turret can destroy the orange spires – the primary fire will do nothing (1:30:28)
Barney can take either path at 1:35:20; there is no definite order. Alien Grunts will only appear in the second path
Swampsquids are another Bullsquid variant introduced in this chapter (1:41:46). Their weakspots are the glowing red cysts on their bodies
The Manta at 1:55:14 will continue to carpet bomb the area if it is not destroyed (1:55:14)
It is not necessary to check the monitors around the Relay site to solve the code puzzle at 1:59:04. The signs with numbers on them (such as at 1:59:35) have a clear mark as to where the nodes need to be and in what order
The Alien Controllers’ ability to pick up Barney (2:07:15) is exclusive to BMBS. They can do so during the actual fight at the Relay as well, but that did not happen in my playthrough
If the player fails the jump onto the crane platform, they can reverse the crane operation immediately after instead of waiting for it to go all the way back (2:11:53)
The player can choose to use the path on the left at 2:46:33 to get past the Controllers and Grunts (and get some extra ammo). I opted to brute force my way through the middle to show Barney’s full panic and desperation in getting out of dodge
Players can escape Xen earlier without having to kill all the Controllers like I show in the video. Simply kill all the controllers in a single wave and jump into the portal before the next wave spawns in

Additional trivia can be found in the comments section - reached the word limit here.