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How Half-Life Creates a Hidden Multiverse [SPOILERS]


If you played Half-Life and Half-Life 2 without fully grasping the entire plot, I don't blame you. There's a lot to take in. Not the least of which is the massive multiverse in which the games take place. It's very easy to miss, but in fact both games' main antagonists come from elsewhere in this multiverse.

In the first Half-Life, the main antagonist, the Nihilanth, is actually running from the main antagonist of Half-Life 2 during the events of the game. The Nihilanth is the last of its kind, hunted to extinction by the Combine, the antagonists of Half-Life 2. The Combine are essentially inter-dimensional conquerors whom enslave entire species and drain entire planets of their resources.

Half-Life starts the series as a simple alien-themed FPS, but with the introduction of Half-Life 2 the series quickly evolves into a massive story about the inhabitants of Earth fighting back against inter-dimensional forces.

The plot in these games are fairly subtle, probably because they're shooters. However, hints throughout both games allude to the grand design of each game. You just have to know where to look.

So if you can play both games without realizing the massive multiverse in which they take place, how is it even relevant? And how do they create such a world without it being obvious?

Well the answer is fairly simple: subtlety. Maybe that's a little too vague. Play through Half-Life 2 very slowly and carefully and you'll notice a few things: one being that, throughout City 17 and the surrounding area, there are loudspeakers and posters pumping propaganda to its residents. Another is the small pieces of dialogue from the citizens of City 17. One such citizen during the beginning of the game has apparently been reassigned to permanently "off-world." Dialogue later in the game suggests that this means being transformed into one of the Combine Overwatch. Another citizen states that the Combine puts something in City 17's water that makes you forget, and he can't even remember how he got there.

These subtle but very specific hints are what makes a simple first-person shooter into the deep and expansive universe in which Half-Life and Half-Life 2 are set.
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