#I hope the end of hl2 is Barney and Gordon running away together

[liquidink21]

Half-Life 4 Redux

Since writing up that big post about concepts I had for Half-Life 4 I’ve managed to get it together into a coherent story, which I’ll post here.

HλLF-LIFE 4

 Chapter 1: Brave New World

For the first time since HL1 Gordon isn’t immediately dumped there by the G-Man or Vortigaunts. He’s implied to have been part of this world for some time. The entire chapter runs contrasted with HL2’s Point Insertion; instead of a tense walk through the dystopian City 17, after leaving his train Gordon takes a leisurely work to work. Instead of downtrodden citizens surrounded by metrocops, the citizens seem fairly happy though hard at work.

By interacting with the citizens in a few situations and by watching a newsreader on the old Breencast monitors, the player can pick up what they’ve missed since HL3 (they can ignore it if they want). The Combine has been overthrown, and humanity had begun rebuilding and establishing their own societies again. They are in the city of New Odessa, capital of a state known as the Foundation, created from the old Sector 17 resistance. The player learns of an “Empire” that exists in contention with the Foundation.

Level layout is as linear as ever, but instead of cops and barricades the player it blocked by more hopeful and innocent looking things like construction work and things like that. In the distance New Odessa’s citadel can be seen in a partially dismantled state. It’s midday. The citizens have a more normal and varied clothing palette than the old Combine double-denim. In reference to a dismantled suppression field, several young children and pregnant women can be seen. Eventually the player is railroaded to Gordon’s workplace, a large governmental looking building.

 Chapter 2: Threshold

This building has mix between office complex and scientific laboratory aesthetics to it. Gordon is directed by linear level design and some characters giving directions to where Gordon needs to go. If the player wants to go off the path a little they can meet and speak to Kleiner and Magnusson. They can also catch a world map, with the Foundation in East Europe and the Empire around the Great Lakes. The level however progresses when Gordon meets with Colette Green and Gina Gross, Gordon’s lesbian scientist friends. Like in Anomalous Materials Gordon is clearly about to get up to some work that he’d know but the player isn’t privy too.

Colette and Gina show Gordon to the HEV Mark VI. This new model has been upgraded with Combine technology and takes a few visual cues from the Combine Elite model in the helmet (yes, they have fucking helmets). It has gravity guns built into its hands! After donning the suit, the women lead Gordon to a teleportation room. As the women sets up the teleport, Barney comes in and speaks to them. He warns them that there’s been a spike in aggression from the Empire, as they blame the Foundation for a series of attacks on their facilities. The women assure him they’ll be careful.

They are teleported to a large Combine structure out in the Wasteland. It resembles the Beta Air Exchange for no reason other than mythology gag. It’s late afternoon. It’s made evident that Gordon is here to help harvest Combine technology from it. As Gina sets up some machinery (a teleporter to take them back) Colette and Gordon head into the structure. Colette helps the player learn some sort of new puzzle (I don’t know what kind. I’m a writer, not a video game dev.)

Gordon is eventually left on his own while Colette and Gina flirt keep talking over radio. Before the player gets bored the structure is attacked in a cinematographically spectacular way, by Hunter-Choppers like in HL2 but they’re stamped with a logo of the Earth. Colette and Gina tell him to flee back to the teleport. They manage to get away, but before Gordon can get through the teleporter is destroyed. Fortunately, the environment around it has a nice linear looking structure that allows Gordon to flee to safety into the next level.

 Chapter 3: Breakdown

The environment over the next two levels is semi-alpine woodland, much like the Outlands in Episode 2. Gordon loses the Hunter-Choppers and finds an abandoned shack, with a few zombies and headcrabs. This is basically a little tutorial in fighting. Gordon has to throw physics objects at them, and soon finds a crowbar to help. After passing the shack, Gordon is railroaded to a structure in the distance. There are a few zombies in the way. In another building, a more intact and unabandoned structure, he meets “General” Odessa Cubbage who has been seriously wounded. He reveals that the Empire has launched a full-scale attack on the Foundation. As he climbs onto a table with a medkit, he gives Gordon his pistol and apologises for not having anything bigger.

It is sunset. Gordon goes out to fight Imperial troops directly now. Their design is reminiscent of the metrocops. At first he is harassed by their mechanical units; they still make use of manhacks. Very soon he is able to get his hands on the SMG and begin fighting in earnest. Although mostly against their soldiers and lesser robots, in the distance he can see APCs and even larger tanks in battle in out-of-bounds areas. He sees only a few Foundation troops, hauled up and having difficulty against the Imperial forces. There are also sporadic headcrabs and zombies having fun amongst the battle.

Soon Gordon meets up with the Foundation’s counterattack. Large robots that resemble Dog but more professionally built show up and begin hurling APCs off cliffs. A character, revealed to be Winston, the wounded Marine from HL2, explains to Gordon that they’re trying to push back and destroy the Imperial beachhead. Alongside the Foundation forces, Gordon moves through the battlefield. It becomes apparent both sides make use of teleportation; the Foundation making use of more Black Mesa style portals and the Empire sending troops through Aperture style portals.

They make their way to an old building the Empire has appropriated. While not the Imperial landing point, it’s being used as a rallying point so Gordon and Foundationers besiege it and clean it of Imperial troops. There are a few turrets, not of the Combine design but the Aperture design. A soldier reveals that the way to the Imperial beachhead is patrolled by many more tanks and helicopters. Fortunately, the base they just captured has an unmanned tank that was in the middle of maintenance. Gordon takes it for himself.

 Chapter 4: Imperial Entanglements

It is night. The player is treated to a nice vehicle level. The tank is quick, resilient, and its cannon makes things go boom! It’s not invulnerable like previous HL vehicle levels. It has a regenerating shield that serves as hitpoints. Gordon moves through a winding canyon up against Imperial APCs, other tanks, and at least a pair of helicopters. At the end of the canyon, the Empire springs some sort of trap that forces Gordon out of the tank. He has to continue on foot.

He’s moved some distance ahead of his fellow Foundationers, but the pressure (and player impatience) forces him to move on without them. The Imperial beachhead is an old bunker built into a mountain, already fortified. Gordon manages thanks to linear game design to sneak his way inside. The bunker has a similar architecture to the White Forest base, but influences of Imperial occupation evident. There are Aperture style turrets guarding the corridors, and their supply crates resemble weighted storage cubes. The Empire is also fielding robotic soldiers that resemble Atlas and P-Body’s earlier concept art.

Gordon wrecks shit up, but it unfortunately captured in a tractor beam that resembles an Aperture excursion funnel. He is surrounded by soldiers and is confronted by a man they refer to as and resembles the Beta concept art of the Consul. He gives a brief angry speech about Gordon ruining their plan for conquering the Foundation, and blames the Foundation for attacks on Imperial soil. He sentences Gordon to death. He mentions that many Imperial citizens view Gordon as hero against the Combine, so he opts for a quick and bodiless execution there. They open a pair of Aperture portals on two pistons either side of Gordon and smoosh him between them, expecting him to be dumped out of existence.

 Chapter 5: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Instead of killing him, the Portal smoosh dumps Gordon in Xen. Not a bad form of execution assuming the victim doesn’t have a HEV suit. Gordon however survives to wander the realm of Xen to find a way back. Xen resembles to it depiction in Blue Shift. Pinkish-grey landmasses amongst the yellow-blue sky of clouds spreading out forever, and it all takes place on a single Xen continent rather than an island. He encounters a few different biomes moving across Xen (I’m 100% sure what kinds but they should be distinct from Black Mesa’s). This level serves as the equivalent of We Don’t Go to Ravenholm or Residue Processing; it’s a break from the action as Gordon traverses out-of-context terrain.

The enemy for these levels is purely the Xen wildlife. There is no Empire here. There are also plenty of puzzles for Gordon to solve, like the traps in Ravenholm or the conveyor maze in Residue Processing. About halfway through this level Gordon encounters a wandering Vortigaunt, who offers to help Gordon back to Earth. We’re treated to a few maps reminiscent of the tour of the Antlion caves in Episode 2, what with the Vortigaunt companion and all. They arrive at a distinctly manufactured complex, resembling a mix between the Nihilanth’s old factories and human architecture. It’s revealed that this is a Foundation colony, and generally implied that the Vortigaunt works there for the Foundation. The Vort gets a teleporter up and running and says it will take Gordon “where he needs to be.” Gordon takes the teleport.

 Chapter 6: The Right Man

The teleport dumps Gordon right in the middle of a Combine facility, manned by surviving Combine soldiers. Gordon has to quickly fight his way out, heavily disrupting the facility. As escapes, he discovered himself in the middle of a wasteland. Hunter-choppers, stamped with the Imperial insignia, begin assaulting the facility but don’t notice Gordon. Gordon climbs to higher ground and is given a better look at the facility. If the player is smart, they can work out that this is a giant teleporter “plug” that drains water from Earth. Since the ocean wasn’t completely drained in HL2, it can be assumed this facility is in a large lake. It’s implied the Combine there were trying to open another portal to summon reinforcements.

Gordon is in a wasteland. It resembles the old beta concepts for the wasteland. The area is craggy and sandy and has winding canyons that maintain linear level design. It is day, with a small set of dark clouds off in the distance in the skybox. The main enemy is Xen wildlife, especially Antlions which roam the area. A hunter-chopper patrols ahead and gets sight of Gordon. Instead of trying to gun him down, it creates portals from which stronger and stronger Imperial forces try to kill him. Attempting to enter a portal lands Gordon in a barracks type room with no way to escape, forcing him back. Gordon is made to travel some distance though this chapter, emphasised by the maps generally all taking him in a relatively straight line. He follows the path of a railway set above the wasteland floor, apparently built during the Combine era. He has to brave Antlion tunnels on a few occasions too.

In the distance Gordon sees a structure. With nowhere else to go, Gordon “decides” (map design forces him towards) to check it out. As Gordon gets close, terrible explosions erupt from within. It’s identifiable as an Imperial structure at this distance. Entering through a breach in its walls, Gordon briefly sees a battle between Imperial forces and a mysterious dark figure. If the player looks closely, they can see the G-Man watching too. The figure escapes on a train. Gordon has to face off against the remaining Imperial forces and then has a boss fight of sorts with that helicopter that’s been chasing him. After shooting down the helicopter another train arrives. It’s made obvious to the player somehow that they’re meant to enter the train.

 Chapter 7: The Wrong Place

The train segment is composed of two segments. At first Gordon fights through corridors on the train against the Imperials. The second he’s on an open segment with several turrets he can man to defend himself against attempts to stop him. This entire segment should play out like that really fun train level in Crysis: Warhead (the pinnacle of non-Half-Life gaming). On the path ahead, tanks, hunter-choppers, and other armed trains try to stop Gordon.

The environment starts out as more wasteland, before moving through a tunnel for some time, during which the soldiers from the other half of the train try to get Gordon off the train. When the train emerges, it is in a forest. A different style of forest to the Outlands; it’s a midwestern style forest that’s clearly dying. There’s a bit more of the train side shooting before it comes to a stop via violent derailment. Freeman is plunged into an almost dried up river and ends up on its shore. It’s still midday, but the dark clouds now take up half of the sky.

Gordon pushes onwards, following the trail of the railway. He finds himself around a small suburban town covered in collapsing slum-like constructions, entirely infested with zombies. They all seem to be moving somewhere before seeing Gordon. As he moves past the town, he goes through a much thicker area of trees before emerging at the wall. The wall is enormous and surrounds a city. It resembles old earth architecture enhanced by Combine fortifications enhanced further still by modern human architecture. It is manned by Imperial troops and is fending off a large-scale zombie attack. Gordon slips his way inside, and once caught engages in battle with the Imperial forces. He witnesses the mysterious figure from before fighting Imperials themselves, and again the G-Man is watching them. During the battle, a walkway collapses and Gordon plummets and is knocked unconscious.

 Chapter 8: Chirality

Gordon awakens in a prison, stripped of weapons and HEV armour. Outside his cell are a few cops who seem, at best, bored. They have very different designs from the old metrocops; they resemble modern riot police instead. Before long there’s a knock at the door, and a rebel and Vortigaunt pair kill the cops. The rebel reveals herself to be Noriko from HL2, and frees Gordon. They explain he is in the Imperial capital, New Rome, and that his suit has been taken to a special testing facility. They give Gordon civilian clothes (nothing more than a pickup that does nothing), take him outside and point out the facility in the skyline. The storm has now covered the entire sky, giving the city that dark beta City 17 atmosphere. Noriko and the Vortigaunt (implied to be the same one from the Xen level) apologise that they can’t help Gordon get the suit but they’re known to the Empire and have to go hide.

Gordon, weaponless and suitless, is treated to a second “Welcome to City 17” level. The Imperial city is much more like the original Point Insertion. There are checkpoints and cops and scanners everywhere. Differing from City 17 is the fact the Empire makes an effort to keep its people happy. Propaganda is less vague and explicity comments on the hardships citizens face by scapegoating Vortigaunts and other aliens. There is a military parade showing off the big guns to the citizens, being played up as defending against further alien invasions. There are Vorti-cells torturing and siphoning trapped Vortigaunts for energy. As Gordon walks past all this, the police begin stirring as they learn that there’s an escaped prisoner. Gordon makes his way to the Imperial testing facility and sneaks in. The next sequence is a mix of stealth and puzzles to get to the HEV suit.

By the time Gordon is reacquainted with the suit, his presence has alerted the guards. Police and soldiers try to stop him, and Gordon has to flee the building and have a brief Route Canal type flight from them. He gets his weapons back from dead enemies pretty quickly as he flees. Instead of escaping the city Gordon ends up in a factory dedicated to arms manufactury. Citizens are fleeing and soldiers and cops intervening. The factory is being assaulted by the mysterious figure again. This time they notice Gordon back. They take off their mask and reveal themselves to be Alyx Vance. Her suit resembles a futuristic version of the leather suit Gordon was going to wear in the earliest drafts of HL2. It’s not sexy in the slightest; it looks like a black straitjacket to emphasise Alyx’s enslavement to the G-Man. Their reunion is cut short as more Imperials try and flush them out. The pair are separated, and Gordon is forced to flee underground.

 Chapter 9: Unconscionable Ethics

Heading deeper into the underground, Gordon accidentally finds himself in some sort of maintenance area, and continuing from there, finds himself in an Aperture Science Laboratory. It resembles the office areas from Portal 1. It isn’t long before Gordon is noticed by the vast surveillance network of the facility. A voice over a pervasive PA directs lethal military androids and all sorts of other mechanical Imperial units. Fleeing from them, Gordon makes his way to the bottom of the facility, finding a sealed off wing. Gordon finds himself in an enrichment shaft and plummets to the bottom.

The enrichment shaft not as deep as the ones in the Portal 2 complex (hinting just slightly that it’s a different Aperture facility). It still has the same design as the Portal 2 complex, though neither the sphere nor the shaft is flooded by goo. They’re infested with Antlions instead 😊. Making his way back up, Gordon encounters a strange little machine plugged into a power source. It claimed to be Cave Johnson, founder and CEO of Aperture Science, uploaded into an AI machine. His life is torture and craves death and asks to be unplugged and hurled into the abyss. Before Gordon can fulfil this wish, more Lethal Military Androids attack Gordon. Johnson is now curious and wants to find out what’s going on and asks to be plugged into Gordon’s suit. He becomes a pickup then and accompanies the player for the rest of the game.

Gordon re-enters the active Aperture complex while Johnson lists to him what sort of Aperture equipment he should pick up and various ways they could backfire and kill them. Gordon retrieves none of those as he is captured quickly and locked in a sealed chamber, like Chell is at the start of Portal 1. The Consul reappears and has some sort of gloating speech. Important note about the Consul: he’s meant to be a foil to Breen. Breen was a practically powerless figurehead for the Combine but had a pretty deep understand of what was happening what with the Combine and the G-Man and all that. The Consul, in command of the Empire, is the most powerful man on Earth, but has no understanding of anything outside of the range of his guns. Anyway, the Consul leaves Gordon’s fate to that voice on the PA, revealed to be an Aperture Science Personality Core named Octavian, ordering that he be killed in the test chambers.

Octavian briefly runs through what test chambers are available, while Johnson assures Gordon he’ll give him the hints to get through the test. Octavian mentions portal gun tests, gel gun tests, camera tests, and time-machine tests (references to Portal, Aperture Tag, F-Stop, and Thinking with Time Machine) but Gordon lacks the necessary equipment to run any of those tests. What Gordon does have are guns, so Octavian puts him on a live-fire course for military androids. There, Gordon is pitted against all the robotic units of the Empire, including a few he hasn’t seen before.

Before the player can get bored, they’re offered a way out. A pried open piece of wall, similar to a Ratman den, lets the player back into the maintenance section. It plays out like a briefer version of the chase at the end of Portal. Gordon ends up in Octavian’s chamber. Octavian is strapped into a chassis, similar but distinct to the GLaDOS one, strapped with guns and flamethrowers. A boss battle plays out, far more direct that the puzzle bosses of Portal. Octavian’s chamber is at the top of the facility, and as it falls apart from battle damage, Gordon is let loose back into the city.

 Chapter 10: Hunt Down The Vance

There are alarms going off, helicopters flying overhead, and smoke rising in the distance. It is night and the storm has cleared. Everything should look wet like it’s been raining heavily in Gordon’s absence. Gordon pursues the rising smoke, and meets up again with Noriko, who reveals Alyx is leading an uprising against the Empire. The scale of things imply that the uprising is small and lacking the popular support of Imperial citizens. It is in fact mostly composed of Vortigaunts freed from Vorti-cells. The player is told they need to find a meet Alyx again.

Fighting towards the citadel, much like the ending of HL2, Gordon goes up against the full strength of the Empire, more or less. The tone of this level should be that the real action is centred around Alyx, and that Gordon is following in her wake only facing the Imperials attempting to flank her. Gordon is aided by stray rebels and Vortigaunts, though there are few of them. At some point, while under attack by lethal military androids, Gordon would come across a computer outpost, and Cave Johnson would ask to be plugged in. Hacking into their systems, he manages to turn the Aperture robots against the Empire, at least for the time being.

Eventually Gordon reaches the citadel. Alyx is already inside by more subtle means, but Gordon is forced to fight his way in through the front gate, aided by the revolting military androids. After some sort of boss battle that I haven’t thought of ensures, and Gordon makes his way in.

 Chapter 11: Veni Vidi Vici

The Imperial Citadel is very different from the one Gordon assaulted in HL2. While the base Combine architecture is still there, the Empire has added their own architecture into it, giving it a more human feel. There are blatant offices and barracks built into it, giving it the sense that a human Empire is actually run from the Citadel rather than it being a giant factory with a figurehead’s office on top. Combat in this citadel is very vertical, like the Lost Coast cliff but with manufactured walkways. There are also a lot of Aperture Science technologies being used that make it feel like Portal 2.

In a few breaks from combat Gordon can see a few snippets of how the Empire’s citadel runs. It still operates as an enormous factory, with hunter-choppers and tanks being churned out of production lines. There are Combine soldiers taken prisoner being led to production lines to be converted into synths (okay, I didn’t mention this before since I was focusing on story rather than individual enemies but the Empire fields synths. Not the old Combine kind, but new human-based synths we see being made here.) Cave Johnson suggests he get plugged in to hack into the system but panics and asks to be taken out; the Empire has learned of his computerised presence and has improved their firewalls.

Eventually Gordon is captured, yet again. He is taken before a large chamber of figures revealed to be the Senate of the Empire, led by the Consul. While the Consul wears his smart black suit, the senators are all in anachronistic robes. There’s a flamboyantly over-the-top dressed woman who is apparently the “Empress” serving as a head-of-state to the Consul’s head-of-government. With one look at the senate the player should cease seeing the Empire as a serious geopolitical entity and realise that it’s just the power-fantasy for a bunch of freaks with superiority-complexes. The Consul puts on a brief show trial for Gordon, but before the player gets bored Imperial troops arrive to evacuate the senate.

Alyx crashes into the senate chamber and frees Gordon. Once the guards are dealt with, the pair are finally reunited properly. Alyx reveals she has been constantly fighting for a long time. She hasn’t had a proper rest beyond sporadic food, drink, and lavatory breaks since the G-Man whisked her away. Apparently, Earth’s success against the Combine has inspired other slave worlds to begin fighting against the universal union. She warns that the Combine hasn’t forgotten about Earth, and if the Empire tries to go ahead with its plan of interdimensional conquest (I haven’t mentioned that in this document, but yes, it should be made clear through the game the Empire dreams of becoming a universe crossing empire like the Combine, but human-centric) then the Combine will be back within seconds.

 Chapter 12: Critical Point

Alyx takes Gordon in an elevator down to the depths of the Citadel. There, at the very bottom, the Empire has been gathering its forces. A vast hanger off all sorts of combat vehicles, mech-suits, and robotic units (they’ve gotten them back under control now) all ready to be deployed. Alyx has been in the Empire for a week (it should really be obvious by now she was one behind the attacks the Empire blamed on the Foundation) and has learned they intend to start their conquest imminently. She hopes that her rampage has given them pause in launching it but wishes to dismantle their launching point anyway. The pair are captured again one last time. Cave Johnson spots the machinery they intend to open a portal with and identifies it as the same kind used by Aperture Science in the Perpetual Testing Initiative.

The Consul gloats that they shall be witness to the beginning of Earth’s expansion into the cosmos. Alyx pleas with him not to proceed and explains the Combine situation. The Consul assures her that they’ve planned well in advance, and that their target destination is not in the Combine’s sphere of influence (possibly imply he’s targeting Race-X? I don’t know). Cave Johnson mentions the Combine are familiar with the Perpetual Testing Initiative Device and would be able to track it.

As predicted, as soon as a portal is opened the Imperial armada is ripped to shreds. The Combine (their insignia’s clearly visible) deploy the largest synth seen in the series yet; a set of what can only be described as tentacles crossed with centipedes with drills on the ends. It rampages in the hangar knocks Alyx and Gordon free. As synths pour through the portal and engage the Empire (the player can start shooting if they like), Alyx says they must shut down the portal. Johnson points out that the PTI device has been ruined in the synth attack; they’ll have to close it using the Combine’s equipment on the other side. They charge against the synths and make their way into the Combine Overworld.

This is the same place glimpsed through the Portal at the end of HL2. They are standing inside another citadel’s hangar, where the full body of the centipede-tentacle synth is being deployed. There is a console where Cave Johnson can be plugged in. Given the alien operating system, it takes him several moments to get any control of the system. It takes about as much time as, say, a boss fight with the giant synth. As it dies, Alyx spots more flying synths of gargantuan nature heading towards them. Cave says that he’ll close the portal as soon as they cross it. He assures Gordon he’s okay to stay in the Overworld; that living inside the Combine’s circuitry hiding from their anti-virus programs would either give him the death he asked for when he met Gordon or give him a life of excitement worth living. Gordon and Alyx return through the portal.

The hangar appears lifeless, until a wounded and furious Consul appears, blaming Gordon for everything has happened, accusing him of consorting with the Combine. He climbs into a surviving mechsuit, and the final boss fight begins (Yes, a fucking mech suit. Blame Wolfenstein; I’m a slut for it). A mechsuit is inherently less impressive than a giant centipede octopus, so this fight has to be tricker and more satisfying that one (How? I don’t know. I’m writer, not a game dev).

Once defeated, the Consul tries to self-destruct and take Gordon and Alyx with him. As the explosion goes off, time stops. The ending of HL2 happens in reverse. It is Gordon that’s frozen (emphasised by hands held rigid in the air or something), while Alyx keeps moving. The G-Man shows up and congratulates Alyx on her latest success, blah blah, and they disappear as he keeps rambling. Gordon is held in front of a frozen explosion for a few more seconds before purple Vortigaunts begin appearing and rescue Gordon. Fade to black, and credits roll.

#half life