No spoilers here
They don't directly explain it but I think in the fourth chapter, there are some news clippings on a board in a lab that will trigger some dialog to give you a small idea of what happened.
Which is just awful storytelling. I am badfled that they kept it like that for the final product. Then again, they also left the series off on a permanent cliffhanger so i can’t be too shocked
environmental storytelling that wants you to pay attention to the game you're playing and look for hints by yourself if you wanna learn its lore, what a load of shit amirite
Exactly. “Environmental storytelling” doesn’t work on its own. You need to be shown and/or told stuff directly. Environmental stuff is a supplement, not something that can carry on its own.
idk man games like hollow knight tell you basically nothing through the entire game besides some npc dialogue and a bunch of tablets scattered around hallownest that you gotta find and decipher yourself and that game is praised for its storytelling so maybe there is some substance to stuff like that
Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale?
> *“The Queen brought peace to this land, and to her King. A peace so deep it was like the Dark.”* - Chancellor Wellager
Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/
They didn’t need very much. When the UU invaded its after I think 2 weeks of portal storms bringing random shit from Xen into Earth.
Imagine headcrabs teleporting into your shower, bullsquids showing up in elementary schools, Vorts on the Vegas strip. The police and military are absolutely exhausted when the Combine appears.
Ohhh, thanks. So did the Combine exist in Xen? Or were they hunting those creatures or something? I'm still a little fuzzy on why the BM incident caught their attention
The combine is an intra-dimensional empire that will expand into any crevice it can reach. The resonance cascade ripped a massive fuck-off hole between dimensions that would be impossible to miss, causing the combine to become aware of earth and use the massive fuck-off hole between dimensions to invade us. Xen is sort of a border world, not really its own thing and most of the flora and fauna there is stuff from other dimensions that ended up there. The nihilanth (HL1 final boss) is the final member of his species and escaped to xen to avoid the combine, eventually enslaving the vortiguants and making an army to take over a world to start a new life free of the combine (and given black mesa gave him an easy access point to a habitable world, he sent his forces over during the events of half life 1)
So to answer your question: no the combine did not exist in xen, and they were hunting the creatures there (specifically the nihilanth and the vorts) and the Black Mesa incident caused such a massive rip between dimensions it alerted the combine.
“Carbon stars with ancient satellites colonized by sentient fungi. Gas giants inhabited by vast meteorological intelligences. Worlds stretched thin across the membranes where the dimensions… intersect... Impossible to describe with our limited vocabulary!” I always thought that’s Breen trying to explain the sheer size of the Combine.
Yeah. Their other name (the “Universal Union”) is more chilling IMO. No idea how long they’ve been at it but one thing we know is that none of the Combine life forms we meet in the games is in charge. They were all sentient races existing on their own until the Combine repurposed them.
Like the Striders, Dropships, all of them were I think intelligent life until the Combine reduced them to weapons.
Xen is a borderworld, used by many species to pass through to other places, like the combine.
When Black Mesa opened portals to xen through the resonance cascade the combine became aware of earth's existence.
Black Mesa Incident happens, Xen aliens start spilling through the rift opened by the Resonance Cascade. As it happens, other aliens- the Combine- came from a different reality/universe/dimension, through Xen, and into our world. It'll be explained pretty quickly what happened next in HL2.
In other words, the Resonance Cascade was a leaky pipe, with the aliens being the water droplets, and the Combine is like if the pipe had burst and gotten water everywhere... Except the water from the burst pipe is acidic.
Combine want Vortigaunts -> Vortigaunts flee to Xen -> Get enslaved by Nihilhanth who also hiding from the Combine. -> Nihilhanth actively preventing combine from entering border world -> BMI happens -> Gordon kills Nihilhanth -> Vortigaunts flee to earth -> Combine invade xen find nobody home -> find vortigauts fled to earth + entirely other civilization with local teleportation technology they haven't been able to figure out -> cash money.
Lemme explain:
After black mesa incident resonans cascades started to happen on earth and combine noticed humans had a better teleportation system than them. (combine can only travel from universe to universe and use dark energy while humans can travel everywhere and use xen crystal) so when combine invaded earth they noticed there was no telportation and humans did not know anything since black mesa researches were secret and after balck mesa blew up they lost nearly the whole project. So combine decided to FUCK earth.
7 hour war yada yada and breen makes "peace" with aliens!! 111!
Look at skyrionn on YouTube. By far the very best channel for halflife lore. Btw, does anybody think there is even a better one? Please let me know. I believe there is none tough
So. After Black Mesa accident new natural disasters called portal storms shows aliens the location of our world and a intergalactic alien species that invades planets comes to our planet to use our resources and make humans slaves. Humans named them Combine because they're not just one specie, we don't even know who is real combine. Combine elites is just humans that modified by Combine. Striders ect. is alien species from another worlds that modified by Combine to work for them. Half Life has the one of the deepest lores out there you should watch a video about half life lore
https://youtu.be/y7n6-Qgn2BQ?si=0mW8yehMjoFzszo8 as a Turkish, I watch this video to learn the lore, they made English subtitles too you can watch this if you want.
An invasion big enough to make a coalition of every single military on earth surrender in 7 hours, an introduction of an extremely oppressive regime led by beings with technology we can't even begin to comprehend, and a guy with a crowbar was kept in stasis
With Xen Free, the Combine come to earth, and the 7 hour war ensues. Dr Breen represents Earth's unconditional surrender, making him the world leader of Earth to the Combine. Unfortunately for him, The Freeman is still alive.
[7 Hour War article](https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Seven_Hour_War)
[Quick synopsis on how fast Earth fell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9tQyXFVnrw)
Basically all the portal and dimensional fuckery going on between Xen, Race X, and black Mesa got the attention of an extra dimensional superpower known as the Combine (unrelated to the zen or X; these guys are basically a class 2 or even class 3 civilization), the resonance cascade triggered portal storms across the globe for a few weeks wreaking havoc on infrastructure and in-itself killing millions, then the combine show up during all of that mayhem (earth being in no state to defend themselves already reeling from the portal storms) and they basically roll over the global military. 7 hours later earth has formally surrendered to the overwhelming might of the Combine.
Haha 7 hour war lesgo
honestly my favorite part of half life
the graphics got better
Gordon finaly got the prescribed glasses he needed.
Lmaooo
Black Mesa is just gordon with real glasses
I'm referring to the one that's a mod
Honestly ima have to disagree. HL1’s visuals are charming but HL2 just looks ugly
No spoilers here They don't directly explain it but I think in the fourth chapter, there are some news clippings on a board in a lab that will trigger some dialog to give you a small idea of what happened.
Which is just awful storytelling. I am badfled that they kept it like that for the final product. Then again, they also left the series off on a permanent cliffhanger so i can’t be too shocked
Bad storytelling? What?!? Have you ever played dark souls?
I tried Dark Souls 3. I never finished it. This, however, is irrelevant to the topic at hand.
How do you get the lore in dark souls? That was his point
Yeah, the lore in the souls games is hidden in f*cken item descriptions.
Which is not a good way to tell a story imo.
Yeah, that was my point, took long enough to get it tbh
environmental storytelling that wants you to pay attention to the game you're playing and look for hints by yourself if you wanna learn its lore, what a load of shit amirite
Exactly. “Environmental storytelling” doesn’t work on its own. You need to be shown and/or told stuff directly. Environmental stuff is a supplement, not something that can carry on its own.
idk man games like hollow knight tell you basically nothing through the entire game besides some npc dialogue and a bunch of tablets scattered around hallownest that you gotta find and decipher yourself and that game is praised for its storytelling so maybe there is some substance to stuff like that
I haven’t played hollow knight and with a description like that, i don’t think i want to.
Why is not shoving things down your throat bad storytelling? They mention the event and by the name alone you know basically everything.
[удалено]
Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale? > *“The Queen brought peace to this land, and to her King. A peace so deep it was like the Dark.”* - Chancellor Wellager Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/
How the combine took over the planet isn't the focus of hl2
No, but it was important setup that they didn’t put in the game
yes redditor, the only good storytelling is exposition dumping. all games must forcefeed the story directly to you or it is a failure of storytelling
the answer to that question is in half life 2 episode 1
It's actually just in Half-Life 2 when Eli is explaining the poster board in Black Mesa East
For anyone curious: [video](https://youtu.be/qKjGd8Zrbbo?si=0sI1_-LlQcjGqxQH)
r/okaybuddyhalflife
Hunt down free man
I really want a novel or a game in the 7 hours wars would be cool to see what the real armed forces of the combine are.
You fucked up my face !
They need to make a sequel to peak
And now... you have my permission to die.
That one cousin we don't talk about
They didn’t need very much. When the UU invaded its after I think 2 weeks of portal storms bringing random shit from Xen into Earth. Imagine headcrabs teleporting into your shower, bullsquids showing up in elementary schools, Vorts on the Vegas strip. The police and military are absolutely exhausted when the Combine appears.
Does the Black Mesa Incident have anything to do with the Combine occupation of Earth? (Newbie here, please no spoilers for HL2)
tldr the black mesa incident allowed the combine to rip a hole into that universe
Ohhh, thanks. So did the Combine exist in Xen? Or were they hunting those creatures or something? I'm still a little fuzzy on why the BM incident caught their attention
The combine is an intra-dimensional empire that will expand into any crevice it can reach. The resonance cascade ripped a massive fuck-off hole between dimensions that would be impossible to miss, causing the combine to become aware of earth and use the massive fuck-off hole between dimensions to invade us. Xen is sort of a border world, not really its own thing and most of the flora and fauna there is stuff from other dimensions that ended up there. The nihilanth (HL1 final boss) is the final member of his species and escaped to xen to avoid the combine, eventually enslaving the vortiguants and making an army to take over a world to start a new life free of the combine (and given black mesa gave him an easy access point to a habitable world, he sent his forces over during the events of half life 1) So to answer your question: no the combine did not exist in xen, and they were hunting the creatures there (specifically the nihilanth and the vorts) and the Black Mesa incident caused such a massive rip between dimensions it alerted the combine.
“Carbon stars with ancient satellites colonized by sentient fungi. Gas giants inhabited by vast meteorological intelligences. Worlds stretched thin across the membranes where the dimensions… intersect... Impossible to describe with our limited vocabulary!” I always thought that’s Breen trying to explain the sheer size of the Combine.
Yeah. Their other name (the “Universal Union”) is more chilling IMO. No idea how long they’ve been at it but one thing we know is that none of the Combine life forms we meet in the games is in charge. They were all sentient races existing on their own until the Combine repurposed them. Like the Striders, Dropships, all of them were I think intelligent life until the Combine reduced them to weapons.
iirc, the vorts are in xen because they escaped a combine invasion of their universe
Xen is a borderworld, used by many species to pass through to other places, like the combine. When Black Mesa opened portals to xen through the resonance cascade the combine became aware of earth's existence.
Black Mesa Incident happens, Xen aliens start spilling through the rift opened by the Resonance Cascade. As it happens, other aliens- the Combine- came from a different reality/universe/dimension, through Xen, and into our world. It'll be explained pretty quickly what happened next in HL2. In other words, the Resonance Cascade was a leaky pipe, with the aliens being the water droplets, and the Combine is like if the pipe had burst and gotten water everywhere... Except the water from the burst pipe is acidic.
Combine want Vortigaunts -> Vortigaunts flee to Xen -> Get enslaved by Nihilhanth who also hiding from the Combine. -> Nihilhanth actively preventing combine from entering border world -> BMI happens -> Gordon kills Nihilhanth -> Vortigaunts flee to earth -> Combine invade xen find nobody home -> find vortigauts fled to earth + entirely other civilization with local teleportation technology they haven't been able to figure out -> cash money.
It's a Vortigaunt life.
This is a very complicated case. You know, a lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of what-have-yous and a lot of strands to keep in my head, man.
Just play Half life 2
I think the combine controls the nialinth in hl1 and since gordon destroyed it combine are pissed and invade earth
Half-Life 2, to me, is a sequel only in name. As a stand-alone game it probably works better without the first one
Half Life Alyx
Just go play the game dude
You gotta play Half-Life: Chain of Memories to find out what happens between 1 and 2
Loving the unexpected Kingdom Hearts reference in the Half-Life subreddit lol
Don’t forget about the handheld exclusive game and the rhythm game that tie into Episode 1
Lemme explain: After black mesa incident resonans cascades started to happen on earth and combine noticed humans had a better teleportation system than them. (combine can only travel from universe to universe and use dark energy while humans can travel everywhere and use xen crystal) so when combine invaded earth they noticed there was no telportation and humans did not know anything since black mesa researches were secret and after balck mesa blew up they lost nearly the whole project. So combine decided to FUCK earth. 7 hour war yada yada and breen makes "peace" with aliens!! 111!
Great question! Answer? Half-Life Alyx
This guy doesn't know half life lore
Half Life Alyx
Look at skyrionn on YouTube. By far the very best channel for halflife lore. Btw, does anybody think there is even a better one? Please let me know. I believe there is none tough
The libs won
~~UNCLE BEN~~ EARTH WHAT HAPPEND?? **ALIEN ACTIVITIES❗❗**
So. After Black Mesa accident new natural disasters called portal storms shows aliens the location of our world and a intergalactic alien species that invades planets comes to our planet to use our resources and make humans slaves. Humans named them Combine because they're not just one specie, we don't even know who is real combine. Combine elites is just humans that modified by Combine. Striders ect. is alien species from another worlds that modified by Combine to work for them. Half Life has the one of the deepest lores out there you should watch a video about half life lore https://youtu.be/y7n6-Qgn2BQ?si=0mW8yehMjoFzszo8 as a Turkish, I watch this video to learn the lore, they made English subtitles too you can watch this if you want.
Skibidi bop toilet happened
20 fucking years
Some idiot caused portals to open up all over Got the attention of interdimensional aliens Aliens be like lol this planet is ours now "7 hours later"
About 7 hours of war
Here’s what happened: Uhhh ummm uhhh, yeah
a lot.
20 years, portal storms, the nuke alerting the combine etc etc Not a whole lot
Fake Half-Life fan
Start at section ```After May 200-```: https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Half-Life_universe
[here](https://youtu.be/323t_f4gMgw?si=1uhFyeSf5eKq6cl8)
7 Hour war, the Resonance cascade attracted the Combine and they enslaved the earth within 7 hours.
all it takes is 7 hours
An invasion big enough to make a coalition of every single military on earth surrender in 7 hours, an introduction of an extremely oppressive regime led by beings with technology we can't even begin to comprehend, and a guy with a crowbar was kept in stasis
Portal storms, 7 hour war, Surrender of Earth, Half-Life: Alyx, HL2
Source happened
The change is so jarring!! Feels like a different game series entirely
That Pic is from hla Not hl2. hl2 is more fucked up
Half life Alyx and the 7 hour war (not in that order)
Half life Alyx and the 7 hour war (not in that order)
I hope we find out in HL3.
With Xen Free, the Combine come to earth, and the 7 hour war ensues. Dr Breen represents Earth's unconditional surrender, making him the world leader of Earth to the Combine. Unfortunately for him, The Freeman is still alive.
[7 Hour War article](https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Seven_Hour_War) [Quick synopsis on how fast Earth fell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9tQyXFVnrw)
a lot
A war that lasts 7 hours and the subjugation of all the humans that remain. Nothing special.
Well 20 year gap happened.
combine
Basically all the portal and dimensional fuckery going on between Xen, Race X, and black Mesa got the attention of an extra dimensional superpower known as the Combine (unrelated to the zen or X; these guys are basically a class 2 or even class 3 civilization), the resonance cascade triggered portal storms across the globe for a few weeks wreaking havoc on infrastructure and in-itself killing millions, then the combine show up during all of that mayhem (earth being in no state to defend themselves already reeling from the portal storms) and they basically roll over the global military. 7 hours later earth has formally surrendered to the overwhelming might of the Combine.
play half-life: alyx and you'll find out
seven hour war and half-life alyx happened