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Hope. It’s dangerous. Sometimes even delusional. But if there’s anything Half-Life‘s story can teach us, there’s always hope, even in the face of certain doom. And that maybe the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. If you haven’t kept up with the narrative so far, you will need the Half-Life story explained to you if you want to know why a tentacled bull-chicken-squid alien wants to kill you.
Despite Half-Life‘s legendary popularity, its story can be a sci-fi enigma, with too much of the proceedings being buried in the background. So sit back and relax while you wait for Valve to finally release a game with “3” in its name and allow us to jog your memory down those foreboding lab corridors with a crowbar in hand.
Half-Life’s Story Kicked Off With An Experiment Gone Wrong
Gordon Freeman’s saga in the Half-Life mythos began with a curious experiment at Black Mesa, a secret American research corporation. Black Mesa’s priority at the time was unearthing the mysteries of artifacts and materials from an alien borderworld called Xen.
Its purest sample was the rare GG-3883 Xen crystal, which is implied to have been provided by the cryptic G-Man, whose allegiances and true identity have always been murky. Black Mesa scientists thus wanted to see if the provided Xen crystal could help them hasten expeditions to the Xen borderworld. G-Man also might have intended for the unknown Xen crystal to cause an accident.
Lo and behold, the Xen crystal was unstable and caused the so-called Resonance Cascade. After Gordon Freeman placed it under the Mass Spectrometer device in Black Mesa’s underground lab, the crystal opened a portal to the Xen borderworld where its horrors could spill through. This ushered in hordes of frightened and hostile aliens who immediately attacked every human in sight.
At the heart of this chaos was Gordon Freeman. And thanks to his rigorous hazard course training (and because he’s the main character you control), he managed to survive and fight his way to the surface.
Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire
It’s too bad the surface of the Black Mesa facility was no better than its alien-ravaged underground. The US Government had to chime in with their Hazardous Environment Combat Unit (HECU) Marine Corps branch. Its goal was to eliminate all the threats; it just so happens that Black Mesa became part of the threat list since it was supposed to be a top-secret corporation.
The whole existence of alien worlds and Black Mesa’s experiments were now under the scrutiny of public eyes. The Resonance Cascade practically blew off its cover as the Resonance Cascade surged all across Earth, opening Portal Storms and introducing Xen aliens into the planet’s ecosystems and populations.
Gordon Freeman then had to fight both the HECU and the Xen aliens in a crossfire while carrying out Black Mesa’s plan to seal the main Xen rift.
Into the Xen Garden
Black Mesa’s plan to shut down the main Xen rift eventually led Freeman to the Xen borderworld itself. Apparently, a powerful alien presence was holding the rift open, making it impossible for the HECU to fend off the Xenians, whose numbers had swelled into an invasion force.
Freeman then had to traverse the intricate and exotic alien borderworld to find the being holding the rift open. This mission led Freeman face to face with the leader of the Xen, the Nihilanth, who wanted to invade and colonize Earth to flee the more powerful and oppressive Combine alien race.
After Gordon defeats the Nihilanth, what remained of Black Mesa was finally able to control the Xen portals and stop the invasion. But while killing the Nihilanth closed the portals, it also opened doors to more questions.
The G-Man Cometh
Immediately after killing the Nihilanth (who serves as the game’s final boss), G-Man confronts Gordon Freeman after watching him from a distance. Despite the formal corporate appearance, G-Man is obviously not human, given his extradimensional and metaphysical capabilities.
G-Man even implied that his cryptic and possibly extradimensional “Employers” manipulated the whole Black Mesa incident. Furthermore, Gordon Freeman impressed G-Man’s “Employers” with his limitless potential. Hence, G-Man offered Gordon a gainful employment opportunity.
He didn’t clearly state the terms and implications of this employment, but the Half-Life story thus far heavily implied that Freeman would be a pawn to G-Man’s “Employers,” whatever their plans. As the player who has agency over Freeman’s choices, you can actually reject G-Man’s offer, but that choice would kill him.
The canon choice is Gordon accepting the offer and being put into stasis until the “Employers,” and G-Man have use for him once more. That brought us to Half-Life 2. And hopefully, the events of Half-Life 2 would, in turn, bring us to Half-Life 3 so that we might finally find a conclusion for the full Half-Life story—hopefully.
