Half-Life's Darkest Cut Enemy | Cremator | FULL Half-Life Beta Lore
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- Опубліковано 6 чер 2024
- The Half-Life 2 Beta had so many amazing characters and concepts that were cut or adapted during development. Luckily, we are able to see a lot of what was adapted from the Half-Life 2 Leak. One of these was a fan favourite, The Cremator.
Why did The Combine create the Cremator? How important were they to their continued occupation of Planet Earth?, and how well would these have fit into the retail game? In this video, I explore the history, lore and development of The Cremator from the Half-Life 2 Beta.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
00:45 The Invasion & Xenian Infestation
02:34 Creation of The Cremator
04:37 The Roles of The Cremator
08:23 Legacy
10:53 Behind the Scenes & HLA
13:13 Closing Thoughts
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Half-Life & Portal Lore Playlist: • The Borealis | Half-Li...
Standard Sources
Game Manuals
Half-Life Series Playthrough Research
Portal Series Playthrough Research
Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
Half-Life: Alyx Playthrough
Portal/ Half-Life Fandom
Old Valve Forums
Marc Laidlaw's Twitter
Breengrub Twitter
Reddit AMA (w/ HL: Alyx Developers)
Portal 2
Aperture Desk Job
AUDIO USED
Half-Life 2: OST: Escape Array
Black Mesa OST: Catalyst
Half-Life 2 OST: Lab Practicum
Black Mesa OST: Xen
Half-Life 2 OST: Triage At Dawn
#HalfLife #Beta #Consul - Ігри
Thank you all for 100K subscribers!
Congratulations! You have reached 100k subscribers! Now wait til you get a verification and a silver play button. But seriously, I subbed to you from your half life and the upcoming TF2 lore series. And you really came a long way. Road to 200k someday..
congrats sir
wooooo! you 100% deserved it!
Let’s go
No problem my brother
It would be amazing to see the black mesa team create a half life 2 in this dark gritty form. I believe they of anyone can do it properly.
Sounds cool
Closest thing in terms of polish and quality is raising the bar redux, but I really dislike what they did with the combine soldiers’ style (they look too round and not intimidating) and the citizens are wearing goofy knitted sweaters. Other than that great mod! I prefer dark interval in terms of raw aesthetics and coolness but RTB has best gameplay
I'd love this
@@Skyrionn yup I'm subbed. Got a lot of content for me to catch up with.
I think the power of Half Life 2 as we got it is that it more subtly depicts a kind of dystopia people would "put up with". The messaging is "you're safe here" and "don't fear the fact you can't breed anyone, because it was a primitive aspect we need to rid ourselves of to evolve and these guys(combine) know when we're ready to have the training wheels off."
If anything I think because it isn't surface-deep mid 2000s edgy grimdarkdarkitydark it is even scarier and more effective.
Also think if the team at BM would do anything it would still respect the retail version 😅
The fact the cremator was so well regarded that valve considered implementing them again for alyx makes it downright perplexing that they passed up on them both times.
Likely wasn't a fun enemy to fight. Valve will scrap entire games if they don't think its fun or the playtesters don't enjoy it. So them scraping this enemy even though it fits so well for the lore is likely a gameplay reason.
@@tommysalami420Beta tester are cringe
@@airesartz7196 Cringe is freedom
@@airesartz7196they're the whole reason valve games have been as good as they are
@@tommysalami420Indeed, this enemy feels like it would essentially have been a short-range slow-moving turret, which isn’t very interesting for gameplay. A gun that sets enemies on fire also means it could more or less one-shot kill your rebel mates in the streetwar chapters, which would be no fun.
An impression I had from the finished game is that barnacles, antlions and headcrabs and such in canals, tunnels and wilderness areas were kind of an impromptu security feature for the Combine; they allowed them to exist in some areas so they wouldn't have to use resources patrolling them. It could be argued that you might not see Cremators where there wasn't an active development project of some kind.
I guess that makes sense! The Combine are smart enough to make use of the Xenian infestation
@@Skyrionn That would also explain the headcrab launchers :)
@@scooter7977 indeed at first thing ever in my life In the game I thought wtf but never knew it by this time I know so much more now who and how what the combine are I do not need go back to. 18 mind tells me that it was just the military lol nazi stuff set up After the invasion
I always thought it was their version of rats, cockroaches, and the common cold.
And that now humans were a new virus introduced into the combine organism, paralleling the human and xen takeover of combine areas, technology, and dominance.
Themes aside, the vortigaunts certainly are enemies of the combine and the combine definitely fear antlions and use headcrabs as weapons so perhaps we are seeing dogs, cockroaches, and alien infections where the roles should be changed and they don't have common origins at all
I think that the head kept in the lab is a reference or a hint that the cremators exist in different cities or different parts of the world as you said, i hope we can see them in the future
I'd agree with you there
@Detective Wolf The reason we never see them is because in HDTF Mitchell shutdown the factory that builds them in and freed the children who worked there (they then became his private military🤣).
@@shreksnow1918 bruh
@Detective Wolf Bruh is correct. Taking that dumpster fire to its logical conclusion for HL3 it should be a three way conflict where the Combine, Mitchell’s army, and the Resistance are fighting over the Borealis. President Keemstar would replace Breen as the Combine’s new puppet figurehead. He’d provide commentary for whatever is going on in the game. That’s my headcanon right there because it’s just so funny. I honestly have far more faith in HDTF2 being made than I do for HL3/Episode 3. Valve clearly doesn’t want to make it and the various fan attempts inevitably bomb out.
@@shreksnow1918 i cant tell if your being sarcastic or not, but your wrong, have faith in breadman who made entropy zero 2 setting up for entropy zero 3
I wish the cremators were still seen in game. Even in the distance through a chain link fence or something...Just doing their job. I love the cut beta content videos you're doing. I think it's really interesting
I would have loved that too. Just doing their work in the distance.
Thank you. There are so many topics to cover too!
The Crab Synths are utilized in this sort of way, seen on an assembly line in the second ride through the Citadel
@@thezambambo2184 good point! I remember those things
@@thezambambo2184 and the mortar synths
It pains me so much that they were again considered for Half Life Alyx but again got scrapped. Damn you Valve for doing this
It was such a shame. Maybe in a future instalment we could see them finally
Wow. I’ve never heard of this character. I would have loved for The Cremator to have been a part of the storyline. It would have definitely fit in with the body horror elements. Then again I barely made it through Ravenholm with my sanity in tact so I guess I should thank the devs for showing some restraint.
They feel very "Half-Life". I feel like we missed out massively without them
I'm guessing you didn't involve yourself much in half life outside of the games?
Yeah I don't like raveholm but I can also say it is one of the best chapters. I just don't like it
@@MRMOON-jk1cs My level of involvement is similar to what you see here-lurking a few forums and watching lore videos-so I’m always learning new things about HL, especially since I’m not involved in the gaming as much anymore.
I feel like the beta is a more dark version set in an alternate universe where Earth did not surrender after the 7 hour war and so the combine treated humans a lot more poorly because of it. And the beta version of Breen surrendered at a way later point after the war.
I think I'd have to agree.
Copy paste comment.
@@Based_Stuhlinger how is it copy paste?
@@Based_Stuhlinger unless someone else said the same thing. But even if someone did, its not even copy paste because I literally typed this myself
@@Based_Stuhlingeryour an anti citizen. You are going to be turned into a stalker
Raising the Bar: Redux is the most fun I've had in a Half Life 2 mod in some time. The way it revitalizes the beta story, with the inclusion of cremators, new soldier models, and original Xen life is incredible. It truly feels like a proper Beta.
Did you know that those burnt like corpses in Half Life 2, were actually meant to be from The Cremator’s “flamethrower”?
Just a fact
But I love these things
nice
That explains a lot.
In one of my stories, a faction based off of the Combine have their own Cremator type unit which is a flame soldier that basically works in a similar way, to incinerate anything that could be a threat to human life and to take care of protestors, though they were never usually seen as they would only be brought out when needed
I would like to know more about this faction
@@pilotbug6100 it’s an army of robots built by another one of my enemy factions to work for them without having to worry about recruitment costs and during their first deployment they took over a sector and like the Combine built citadels however these Citadels served not just as their maim base but also boosts the signal of the main computer to keep the soldiers online, especially if they are out of range of the main Citadel
Boris was the administrator of one of the Cremator factories in City 9. You see this in child-labor factory in ACT II. Very interesting detail indeed
is that the guy from HDTF?
@@IAhmadGT yes
@Random Birb it is
@@babufacio_____wczesniejvin2847 no, it is not. that is a fan made mod. i now banish thy to the netherrealm!
He will forever be Clonsman to me, and Mitchell: Moint Pan.
You Should check out the Combine Guard there Was a Chapter in the Beta where you had to run from him pretty Cool and Scary Since it was also another victim modify and transformed into the combine needs and is Actually another Synthetic Type Enemy Cut from the game but probably still exist in HL2
I think this is the third comment I've seen asking me to look into it. It's moving up the list!
it could be worth noting that throughout the game there are these inexplicable charred corpses you can see (i can remember a floating one in route kanal off the top of my head) which always confused me. this could imply that something like a cremator exists in the final game?
The Cremator could have worked as well as the Hazmat worker, with the Hazmat being the initial wave of an attempt at a cleanup crew employed by the Combine to remove Xenian influence and the Cremator being the second advanced wave to deal with the heavier contamination.
i think it’d be cool if the cremators got a single scene for themselves where you’re in an alleyway and see a corpse, then an immolator fires and absolutely destroys the corpse. When you turn the corner, you see a single Cremator walking away in a bright light and a door closes behind it, you never see one again after the encounter
That's how they were supposed to be used. Passive environmental decoration.
I adore these beta videos, I can't wait to see what else you got for us, keep up the amazing work! I've watched almost every single HL and Portal lore video, and looking forward to TF2 lore!
Glad you like them! There are still so many more topics to cover too!
"Mister, have you ANY IDEA, what we produce in this factory? Not weapons. Those things are extremly efficient janitors. They are called Cremators. Combine are planning to spread themselves through the rest of the world. Get rid of trash. Keep the streets clean. But in this case, WE are the trash"
-Boris, to Mitchell
I love this videos man. Such a good content and good story telling. Sooting voice with horrifying subjects forms a good contrast. Keep up the good work!
Thanks bud!
i just love how this videos actually explain thing's in a really well way, honestly in my point of view considering there was more cities in the half life universe it's best to stay the cremators are perhaps in other citys
its ming boggling to think such a badass design was denied
It has such a menacing look to it
Denied twice actually, I saw someone here saying it got considered for alyx as well
@@Some_day_i_may_find_a_name we cant have nice things
I believe that crematers weren’t added in as they probably are 2 over powered, as seen in the video I believe that there was no range limit allowing them to vaporize the players from a far. This would create some really unfun gameplay
you call that unfun gameplay? oh imagine how Mr. Friendly will be like
They were passive AI used for decoration.
Had been waiting for your video since morning
Hope it was worth the wait!
@@Skyrionn yup
Congrats on 100k! I recently found the channel and it's incredible. I've learned so much about Half-Life, Portal, Doom, etc. Games I've played countless times and thought I knew well but now realize I didn't know sh*t. Awesome stuff!
I'm happy to help. There are so many topics to cover too!
I have this guy hanging on my wall since 2008-09 or such. He was so darkly cool I just had to scan print an art piece of him and get the paper into scan plastic or whatever and still have it.
Man You're Videos are fantastic The music The way u explain And the awesome shots of The game's u talk about. U gained a sub Keep killing it man :3
Really enjoyed the video. I don't have any suggestion beyond keep doing what you're doing. Best HL content our there.
Thanks, will do!
I would never in a million years say I prefer the concepts of the beta Half Life 2 considering how amazing the HL2 we got was.
I am super curious though of what could have been, but am glad for what we got.
i always wanted to know about the cremator, thank you for the video ive recently regained intrest in half life and portal.
I always wondered what the combine died with dead bodies, maybe there the base of the cremator and that's why it needs the head added on. Or maybe a soylent green situation haha
Well, there are bodies inside the canals, like the charred ones, I think the Cremator did that.
Oh holy crap I didn't even realize this came out 5 hours ago, I've been binging all of your videos.
Perfect timing.
Love to see you talk so passionately about this game series even with the cut content! Love you my man! Keep up the amazing work!
21 years later after starting my half life journey. I’m STILL learning stuff. Cut and uncut.
I had a very great knowledge of half life. But big and small details I still pick up bridging gaps of all sizes! Thank you!
You have seen nothing yet! There's so much more to come
I'd love to see something on the combine assassins, these are great!
I've had a bunch of people suggest that. It's on the list :D
Never knew these things even existed. Thank you for this!
I feel like creamators still exist, but sent ahead to clear out the infections and such like seen in Alyx. Maybe, eventually, sent to clear out the lifeforms in Ravenholm one day. It would make sense to cull off threats before sending in civilians to occupy a new area.
Thanks fr making these
I figured the cremator "heads" were more like helmets that would be fused with the wearer, sort of like how some Combine Soldier gear is
Great work! I loved these beta videos.
Are you going to do a video on the supposed half-life 3(not epistle) that Tyler Mcvicker talked about recently?
wait, what??? elaborate
It's crossed my mind. It's more about how accurate the source is though. It sounded like an interesting story.
@@meowmeow6676 Basically it was valves last attempt at HL3 (2015) that was heavily being worked and was getting some where. Before they scraped it and moved onto HL:A
His UA-cam channel is Tyler McVicker , the title of the video is ‘Half-life 3(2015) infodump lecture ‘
If I’m also correct over the last year some HL3(not episode) was also leaked
@Ray Tyler McVicker is a lolcow. The guy has been clickbaiting HL3 ever since his channel existed. He constantly says he has inside sources but Valve confirmed this is a lie and he’s spreading misinformation. The guy doesn’t do a good job of separating wild speculation from the actual facts. He also stalks Valve employees and during the TF2 bot crisis he basically told his fanbase to harass them, which resulted in several people getting doxed. Some of his videos are good, but a good chunk of it is clickbait garbage. There’s several videos talking about the guy, and his Kiwi Farms thread covers the various things he’s done. He also got involved with Fallout Frontier being friends with the lead guy and did an interview trying to preform damage control, but it completely bombed out because he’s so incompetent (the man read every comment and I mean EVERY COMMENT. Even the ones that were very VERY obvious bait. Stuff like people asking about the Sneedclave, the “JQ quest line with the merchants” and the USS Liberty (how he didn’t see either of those from a mile away is beyond me), accidentally exposed the devs for being sickos who tried to blame Zu Skunk for their problems, Baneposting and other stuff like that. The guy also screamed one of the questions/replies because it was in all caps. You’ll die laughing watching it). If you watch his content be sure to take it with a grain of salt.
Amazing content as always.
Thanks!
Congratulations on 100k subscribers! But still far too few for this amount of work
Thanks Jonas! It's a huge milestone!
Second best cut enemy
The first is obviously the Combine Assassin...
ahhh i get why
They'll get their own video ☺
Oooo nice!
Out of everything in the beta, I'd want the Cremator to return in the next Half Life instalment. He fits the world of HL2 and even Alyx really well
I honestly feel like we were robbed of the cremators
@@Skyrionn no kidding. Imagine the flamethrower we could have had
@@Jasmine__135 I like to think it would work like the Gluon Gun except it would have a splash affect like it was showed in the video and drain a lot faster than the actualy Gluon Gun
@@MRMOON-jk1cs I’d imagine it as more of a liquid, like burning tar or something corrosive. Just feels more cruel as opposed to a traditional flamethrower
cool vid man cant wait for you to analise half life alyx combine yet 👍
It's on the list :D
Here before the 100K! 100% deserved!!! Congratulations already!!
Thank you!
Thanks dude I was just searching for this thing
Thanks for watching! There's some more beta content to come too
Beta stuff is very interesting I can't wait!
Would love to see an open world game set in the HL2 world.
Cremator is one of my favourite half life 2 beta features thanks for this
Happy to explore them!
Congrats on 100k!
Thank you!
afaik its implied the burned corpses canals and couple of other places are result cremator cleansing process so they do exist in the canon but are just relatively rare in C17 and possibly only debloyed in quarantine zones
I'd love to see more videos about beta HL2 lore
You should make a video about the Cut Combine Super Soldier or the Combine Synth Soldier
They are truly terrifying, they're almost medieval in a way and yet just sci-fi enough to be in this universe, the fact that there's not really a face, and they're so tall and blank means they could be thinking anything but really the only thing they think and see is to clean up bio matter that could be a risk and if it looks at you with that thought then there's not really much point in running, but you wouldn't know this by looking at its face.
congrats on the 100k
I really love how the Combine's perception of each race can be found in the uses they give them, The Shu-Ulathoi are great vessels for their greatest mind, but nothing more, Striders were very resistant to damage and decently agile, so they were used for combat and building purposes, humanity could be decent foot soldiers with a few augmentations, and if not, at least they could be a decent work force
5:18 Acidic plasma? That sounds like Maliwan tech! Also, it seems to function like a constant-stream tau cannon. That also makes it similar to the gluon gun in general concept.
Im pretty sure the tau cannon is a gauss gun, meaning a rail gun but with a conductive electric magnetic coil instead, which explains the charging and piercing abilities of it in hl1, as its an extremely fast projectile that gets so fast it rips people into bits
@@lotus7781 They used to call it a gauss gun, but gauss guns (which can have a rail or a coil) use EM to project a solid projectile, whereas the tau cannon and gluon gun are both particle beam weapons.
@@judsongaiden9878 ah, I see
SKYRIONN CONGRATULATIONS FOR 100K!!
Thank you Levine!
Ideas for future videos the lore behind Darkwood or Gabriel from Fable journey. It just some ideas.
The VR game Alyx is already 3 years old. Dayum i feel old 🥲🤘
Very interesting stuff. Half Life has so much deep history. Thanks and great job on getting 100k subs.
Thanks man! Currently 4 away! Thanks for the constant support!
Imagine walking in a dark alley, and then slowly behind you walks a 2ft guy breathing heavily, stomping with his boots. It's pretty terrifying, it's also cool how he's the only passive enemy, because you surely wouldn't want to piss him off.
Did you know that in black mesa east you can find rhe cremators head Eli even tells you that Alyx found it outside
id be interested in seeing a deep dive of the ant lion .. i think is what the game calls em .. been a while since I've played it .. i want to know everything about em
Oh the Antlion video is coming soon!
I still hope we can see some of them later down the line.
I think of a scene were we go inside a factory but when we leave the entire building is on fire then suddenly just out of nowhere an cremantor would appear were it start to spray fire across the area.
Will you make videos on cut HL1 enemies like the kingpin and mr friendly of panthereye after you're done covering hl2 beta stuff?
I could absolutely take a look into it. I guess cut HL1 content deserves as much love as HL2.
I love Half Life 2, would like to a remaster with all this cut content added.
In my Gmod, i’ve used the cremator in my battles and now I think about. Maybe the cremator couldv’e been useful on the battlefield? I mean their Immalators resemble a flamethrower like you said and wouldv’e been a awesome enemy to take on.
You know would be amazing if you covered lore about refugee camps and resistance bases is the topic that really interests me and maybe it'll interest others?
I could look to see if they have more lore I haven't found before. I did look at the Resistance in general at one point too!
@@Skyrionn maybe adding on to it could get some views
In HL:Alyx we see all those zones overrun with Xen stuff in City 17, but in HL2 we dont see anything alike, so they came to get rid of it for sure, as we can see clearly that the hazmat combine failed miserably to control the spread.
Could you cover the conscripts next?
They look so cool, I really hope they get in a game in the future.
Hey man, have you ever thought about making a video on the Strogg (from quake 2/quake 4)? I think they’re the perfect faction to have as a topic for a horror/evil alien race video. They’re even worse in terms of how they treat humanity/other beings compared to the Combine
I'm literally playing through the Quake series currently to learn more about them :P
@@SkyrionnExcellent 👏 👏
You know what I would love to see? Maybe a video on G-Man or maybe the Team Fortress Mercs!
They're both on the list :D
@@Skyrionn Awesome!
The dark Deus-Ex-esque nature of the early Beta versions was so much better than arriving in a train station and picking up a can to get past a door.
I think it’s possible for them to show up again but the gameplay problems caused by the flamethrower is certainly a big concern especially for VR games
Oh yeah the crem (i sometimes call it crem)is actually a class in a half life game in roblox called city 8 it had a flamethrower that can shoot fire.
In theory the head of a cremator could be similar to a combine soldier, in that that sphere could just be a helmet for their head, which probably has a circular shape due to the modifications they probably had done, similar to how the combine essentially have their heads fused to their masks.
So it's possible they were humans that became modified to be completely subservient and emotionless, like a machine, and they go about their duty with no opinion of emotion toward it.
i think it would been a good intro to hl2 in the part where you put the can in the trash
I would've loved to see these in City 10 playing Entropy: Zero. Would've been a really nice story too
You should do leetator,hilmator,purmator etc
I love what you did with this format. While the camera pans and disabled AI are amateur, you really go into it with your lectures.
“The Good Citizen doesn’t talk about the final version of Half-Life 2. The Good Citizen talks about the beta version instead.” - The Consul, allegedly
dark and gritty moment
Hit dat griddy!
Super dark and gritty
Mechanical head, no headcrab or barnacle zombification risk. Smart.
It's almost like the cremators are the black ops of the combine
Now Gordon REALLY needs that helmet
First time hearing about this character, when i saw the title i said "now that's gonna be interesting"
also, what's the song on 5:45?
Thanks for watching! I can't remember which song I used but I did list all songs used in the bottom of the description.
7:41 Just realized the cremators kinda look like characters from Madness Combat series.
It's so unfortunate we didn't get this enemy, it would have added so much more to an already great game!
So sad they didn't make the Final Cut.
I love them.
Their heads make it so they're invulnerable to headcrabs. That's my guess why they would replace that human body part.
I have a theory. Do you remember in the episodes how in the citadel you have these energy spheres? If you look at the Naileth at the end of HL1, when it opens its head you see this big energy orb thing. I think the combine used the Naileth to power the combine Citadels on the planets, thus they went extinct.
i love the concept of this enemy
Where was the creature from xen gone in half life 2, when the port never was locked down. Can you tell something about that side of half life
Babe wake up.
New Skyrion.
make a video on the beta conscripts
EDIT: Or other cut enemies such as elite civil protection, combine assasins etc.
i dont know if the elite cp is an actual enemy in the beta i saw it in a gmod addon featuring cut beta combine soliders/units
There are so many to cover too. The Conscripts are pretty fascinating
@@Skyrionn You can turn it into a mini series like a 5-10 minute video covering each major cut enemy
The hydra from the half life 2 beta would make for another good video.
Skyrionn, when are you gonna make the John Freeman video