Half-Life 2: Before The Combine Arrived
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- In this video, we take a look at some places from Half-Life 2 but before the Combine's arrival. Basically, life was good.
Thanks to @noclick for the video idea.
Map Collection:
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World Record Event:
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Music Used:
Rp Downtown
Highway 17
Prospero
You can listen to these on my music channel or on online music services. Links below.
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#halflife2 #garrysmod #opposingthebar
![Half-Life 2 Mapping Scenario 2001-2050 [REMASTERED]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n4O5wLRy5V8/mqdefault.jpg)
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Seeing non-apocalyptic textures in hl2’s engine is cathartic.
The same feeling as seeing the same thing in fallout
Source is the engine half life was made in
@@baconator8804 yes I know I’ve been working and making maps with the source engine/gold src for over a decade now
@@Ayahuasca98 Yes but did you know source is the engine half life was made in
@@Mikhail-Tkachenkohe literally just said that he did
I'm not sure what a "Half-life 2" is ... But I am familiar with City 17 from the Legendary game known as "Hunt down the Freeman" which "Half-Life 2" seems to have taken a lot of inspiration from.
I too felt like Valve ripped off HDTF honestly while making this video.
@@RadiationHazardYT Bro Valve ripped off an entire level from HDTF for the opening scene of their "game", shameful.
This makes me inexplicably angry
At least they didn't steal the legendary line "You fucked up my face."
If they ever did that, they should be sued immediately.
Im fucking dumb
The "before combine" maps are nice but there's one major flaw:
They are too uniform and perfect. "Too clean and too well lit" is another way to describe it.
When you look around a modern city, even a fairly "clean" one, you are still likely to find rusty fences, pieces of garbage or dry leaves here and there and many lights turned off, some even not working.
There's a distinct lack of cars here as well.
truee but like i dont think itd be possible to make them like realistic in a sense because you dont exactly know how it was before i just like looking at these as an idea of how it couldve looked
Probably because optimization and the mapmaker thinks that players can add cars and objects by themselves
@@dauzlee2827 are you thinking about this like its a gmod map orrr
@@mayflowwywell, I recognize the used maps as gmod RP maps, and many of them are strung together and new areas have been added, so the map maker would need to use fewer objects for optimization, but if these were smaller maps with no spacial additions, it would make more sense to contain more realistic aspects. But for the most part, these are RP maps that aren't supposed to be cluttered
@@mayflowwy map like this are either too large or the map are intended for multiplayer which obviously cause lags if the map are full of object to render. Plus having a large map without or little prop gives the player freedom to put whatever they want
Imagine you finally defeat opresion of communisum, only to fall back into even worse oppression from aliens
lmao, that's what happened to the real world Russia, except instead of "opresion" from aliens, it was oppression from capitalism.
And fascism*
@@raisingthejay i mean Eastern Europe (the place where HL2 is set)
@@wondermenel2811 russia is part of eastern europe.
@@purplefear1339 yeah, but HL2 cant be set in russia, as russia does not have that kind of streets and buildings
this feels like what a citizen may remember life before the combine as rather than how it actually was, things are still a little *too* clean and idealic
Yeah. People always look at the past with rose-tinted glasses
IF they can remember...
@AverageRoaster They put something in it to make you forget...
I don’t even know how I got here
These maps remind me a lot of those pre-distater maps for Half-Life 1 that show Black Mesa if the Resonance Cascade never happened, I especially like the Highway 17 map. The water makes the place feel more lively.
The clear blue sky is what makes it for me.
Waiting for someone to make a pre-war version of the Citadel chapters
Took me a second lmao
how to cause a map leak 101
Just the sky with the pre war city skybox, easy
mmm yes sky level
Showing a prewar image of the citadel would kinda be cool, kinda like showing the combine build it in the overworld
The water in the canals should have also been much higher really, but otherwise these look nice. It reminds me of the Fallout 4 opening a little. How you explore a small space in the pre-war world and then return to that bombed out neighbourhood 210 years later.
A wild urby appears. Seeing maps like these are really neat and what the world without a cascade would look like. That's what i liked about the opening of F4 was letting us see the Pre-War US before the bombs.
hell, even the beginning of Half-Life 1 does the same thing, albeit on a smaller sale, since you have to traverse back through the anomalous materials lab but now it's been destroyed and almost everyone has been killed.
The lighting in the new maps is just okay, so seeing the original maps side by side really made me realize how excellently crafted HL2 was. the oppressive feel of City 17 and the creepy atmosphere of Ravenholm are captured amazingly with the use of good lighting
yeah that's what i said in my comment as well. the game wouldn't hold up so well if it weren't for the masterful use of lights highlighting the materials around it
The idea of pre-half life 2 maps in Gmod is very good, is like seeing a game that you played but in the past.
Glad you liked the maps! :) I've got a few more areas of Sector 17 that I will be making de-Combined
Awesome job on the maps! And looking forward to Sector 17!
omg cant wait for those
Would be nice to see those "pre-war" locations with regular pedestrian NPCs walking about.
a funny "backwards HL2" one where it's at the extreme early end of the seven hour war.
at first it is business as usual, the player starts around the location of the would-be citadel (but there's no trace, obviously) and the city surrounding. there is also a visit to kliener's lab, which is a normal power station. pedestrians, cars, trains. basically just sofia, bulgaria circa 2003 simulator.
as you head to nova prospekt , the coast and the lighthouse hill there is the black mesa incident going around on the news, in conversation and etc, but many dismiss it as just rumours. you get to drive in a non-modified midsized sedan rather than the scout car. there is also other traffic on the roads, including some foresighted refugees
from ravenholm to water hazard things are getting bad, aliens start appearing, the bulgarian emergency services and military are trying to mobilize, citizens are either packing up or fortifying their houses. you ride thru the canals on an ordinary speedboat whenever the way isnt blocked
and finally from route kanal to point insertion there is the war going down,. a revisit to the power station where they are struggling to keep it online, and finally you reach the train station where refugees are cramming on in the hope of fleeing to the countryside. you are among them, and thats where the game ends
@@canon-de-75 Liked the idea, however there's a few plotholes with your suggestion, i'd recommend watching the video: "The Aftermath of the Black Mesa Incident: Definitive Edition" to change it a bit if you so desire.
For example, the way you described the events unfolding makes it look like the Seven Hour war is just beginning, instead of being at the extreme early *end* of it.
just get Background NPCs
Everything I've seen from real life Slavic areas would suggest that the Half-Life 2 would actually be really realistic minus the combine stuff everywhere. Things would still be slightly run down, out of repair, dark and cold. That's just normal there.
Every place can look like that under the right weather and atmosphere my friend
Just look at an average rainy day in UK I'd rather stay here with babushka any day over that post apocalyptic nightmare!
Look at Detroit, Michigan. It's the same vibe.
Yeah, and for what its worth, it does seem like the combine do take care of infrastructure when it suits them. They have vortigaunts sweeping the streets. The shitty cracking concrete floors, broken shit and badly maintained infrastructure isn't because of the combine, that's just how it is in old soviet countries.
I think the combine was a perfect representation of a communistic government in any slavic nation.
you know what? That's it!
* un-Combines your City17 *
These maps give me a happy and clean vibe, it’s sad the combine took that away.
(hope you and your family are doing well by the way!)
Half life is always interesting... There isn't like fictional theroies or NPC's that doesn't make it look or anything as realistic, None of the less that the textures are sick, The plot is very well made for a game made in the 1997-2004, even though that the cut NPC's maps is also really interesting then some retail versions, Already is well made
agree with your comment, but it's "nonetheless", not "none of the less". it's a weird word, but it's easy to memorise
i have no idea what this means
@@dabmasterarsYou Should Have Worded That Differently So You Could Use Nonetheless In That Sentence.
@@dabmasterarswho cares really, correcting grammar on youtube come on now.
@@i_drinkliquid you just shouldn't write anything at all in general
The city without combine feels just... confortable, great, happy and place you would want to live
ALSO RAVENHOLM MAKES GOD DAMN SENSE FOR ME AND NOT LIKE INCONPREHENSABLE MAZE
probably not that great since the combine take over the earth right after the black mesa incident happens but i agree, feels nice to see scenery like that in a game with a incredible game engine like the source engine
I live in Russia, and I have a few poorly-made shacks at a summer house, and they've been standing for over 20 years without any maintenance whatsoever despite being made of wood. Sure, they're certainly not looking like new, but they're still there. Buildings can generally last a long time as long as whoever built them didn't make a big error.
Ты що Российской
@@itdobelikedattho8112чё Куала-Лумпур высрал
если они стоят 20 лет, то вряд ли они некачественные)
@@reyboy4944 от времени покосились и были сделаны так себе. Вообще удивительно что они ещё стоят.
it depends on when it was built, a 70s building probably has a lot more stability than a unmaintained 300 yearold house or 2010s mcmansion
The thing that hits me about these maps as a person who lives in Bulgaria is that the c17 map is just like a normal Bulgarian city that you would see in the summer times. (Also great vid Rad!)
Accept without the combine😂
This is a good reason why I liked Black Mesa so much, it was so cool seeing the 90s desert science facility vibe all fleshed out
This mod reminds me of when I played Gmod and loaded up the coast maps to turn all the abandoned houses into real, lived-in ones. Adding furniture like desks, beds and such, and even putting pots on the stove. That was a lot of fun, like a Half-Life House Flipper!
As for the mod itself, it's pretty great, but I think a lot of the trees are out of place. They replaced the foliage trees with pines and firs and such, but it doesn't seem right. I don't think I've ever been to a city with so many of these types of trees everywhere. The traffic lights also seem to follow the American structure, i.e. placing them across the street instead of on the street you're on. At least that's how it's done in Germany, no clue about Eastern Europe. I also feel that making the maps so bright and sunny makes them look LESS like Eastern Europe, honestly :D Even here, skies are very often cloudy and gray.
Also, I believe the mod doesn't necessarily have to be "What these maps looked like BEFORE the Combine", but rather an alternate universe that shows how they would have looked if the Combine never arrived.
if the combine never arrived there would be some slight development, maybe a postmodernist building there couple new stores here, slightly newer cars. i like to think its a apocalyptic world but a different one, the same apocalypse responsible for every empty eerie gmod map, also realistically there would be light rail but HL2 was made by american developers and we never see it over here (suburban sprawl and car company lobbying), firs and pine are common in some cities but sophia is way too far south and not acidic enough in the soil to be mainly conifer
I love your videos man keep up the good work
dude, in last sentence you just said one thing with different words
german peter griffi
I love pre-war maps ! It's amazing. So cool to imagine what life looks like, before the combine arrived on earth.
Imagine pre war maps on Half Life Alyx
i would love to see the pre war hotel
@@qmacaulay69 Yeah
Man i've always wanted something like this for Half-Life, being able to full explore all of Black Mesa in an alternate reality where things took another course.
5:38 is so beautiful. But if I saw it in real life, I wouldn't have batted an eye. It's weird how that works.
I remember playing a Ravenholm version before the outbreak but wasn't aware there were all maps before the combine arrival. That's so cool man.
I had no idea how much of the city 17 chapter was dried up beach areas or water ways. I always just thought it was low tide beaches, it’s also amazing how natural it looks with water, like they had designed it to be filled with water. Thx for the vid, this was a good one :)
Yeah, I love this feeling. Watching the same places in different timelines. I can do this for hours. I've spent a lot of time wandering through Black Mesa Pre-Disaster maps.
I really want a pre-war version where the citadel used to be built in.
OH MY GOD ITS GORDON FREEMAN!
i'd probably be just central sofia
The mapmaker accidentally removed a lot of the 'eastern european city' while getting rid of the combine stuff lmao
I absolutely adore this kind of thing. Pre-disaster/pre-game glimpses into a game's world are some of my favorite things in any game. And HL2 might be one of the games I _most_ wanted to see before everything went to hell. Often when I played HL2 I would stop and stare at certain spots, just trying to imagine what it all was like before the Combine. These scratch that itch after so long, because just as you said, it _really_ gives an impression of just how _bad_ Earth under the Combine was.
And this might be a bit of a hot take, but I think that was an aspect HL2 didn't do as well. It was a game that absolutely _wanted_ us to feel that way by looking at our surroundings, but I feel that on their own, the visual decay of the world was a bit too subtle in places, and in places where it wasn't (like the water level) it was so omnipresent that it was too easy to take that sort of visual for granted.
These maps, on the other hand, provide that extra bit of context necessary to _fully_ appreciate HL2's dystopian world. The train station is a perfect example of this. Things are changed that you normally wouldn't _notice_ were Combine until it was gone, such as those harsh blue lights. That's kind of what I mean by in HL2 it was easy to take such scenery for granted since it was so prevalent it eventually just becomes white noise.
The pre-Combine maps do have a nice, peaceful feel to them. Though they also have a "calm before the storm" feeling as well, which can be from us being used to the post-Combine maps. We know what's going to come, yet people living there beforehand were oblivious to it all.
I sure hope the same never happens to OneShot Niko
Love the idea of an un-game where you can just walk through half life 1 or 2 chronologically pre-disaster (1 would just be everything pre-xen obviously) and just take in the atmosphere, add back in NPCs just going about normal life
Maybe combined, at the end of pre-disaster half life 1 Gordon wins some tickets at a Black Mesa office party for an Eastern European vacation
Honestly, seeing it without all the danger, combine, zombies, and such...
It feels safe, peaceful, and ordinary. I like that.
Great video ^^
7:44 You don't know Eastern-Europe very well, do you? Nobody has money other than the government to move things! Everything stays as it is for decades, you hear me!
Since it's places that supposedly take place in Europe it makes sense that some buildings would stay the exact same, believee me
ever since i was a kid and started learning the hl2 lore i always loved seeing and wondering how pre war half life world would look
This is why i kept out from HL franchise for long time. I'm very emotional person. I always want to cry (and two times i cried) about the world of HL and Portal, because this world is very hopeless: this world can't have a future, there's no more resources, flora & fauna killed, history forgotten... They should live in peaceful world, but then... GLaDOS and G-Man terminated everything...
Half-LIfe's timeline is largely ambiguous. It's not known when either games are set. The only clue is from the Half-Life 1 manual, which states Gordon was to begin the experiment that would cause the Resonance Cascade on May 16, 200X (the year is censored), so this could be anywhere between 2000 to 2009. Half-Life 2 is said to take place "about" 2 decades later, though an exact number of years isn't given. It could be exactly 20, or perhaps a number that rounds to 20 to the nearest tenth. It is probably set somewhere around the early to mid 2020s.
my biggest problem with the Half Life series in general is that everything is too ambiguous. The connections between HL 1&2 are so wage that we don't really how does the combine related to Xen or G-man.
I recall the date was 199X.
@@Zack_Wester I think you're mistaken... combineoverwiki.net/images/7/7a/Gordon_letter_PS2.jpg
I desperately want a 7 Hour War game or something very shortly after Half-Life 1 that shows the evolution of the Combine draining and destroying Earth to the state in Half-Life 2. These maps are great at showing what life would look like for City 17 and beyond had the Resonance Cascade never happened. I was going to make a video on these but you beat me to it lol.
Man, seeing City 17 before the Combine is...really beautiful in its own way. Even with HL2/Gmod textures making things still look a bit run down, it's a far more warm, welcoming sight than the City 17 we know. Makes me want to plan a trip to Bulgaria now, lol
Great video as always my man!
I never thought of that
Amazing, I hope there are more videos like this
Was this made by a player?
To be honest, there are no such games in Taiwan, and they rarely display independent creativity.
Thank you for the donation! Yes these maps were made by different players/modders.
5:02 Funny how the mapper didn't fix this road.
The Ravenholm map makes me sad. It seems like it would be a decent town to live in..
I think the idea of buildings and other locations staying the same for 20 years just shows the viewer the stagnation that the Combine create.
00:01 Befor the Combine, Freeman was happy :(
The world of twitter was gone: no combine
A lot like towns in the North of England, during and post industrial boom era.
During: bustling, clean tidy
After: neglected, run down, zombies. (Drugs)
Taking away the whole combine technology and it's effects on the Earth, seeing unaffected buildings and land before the combine took over is really beautiful. Love your videos.
Amazing work recreathing this, placing of trees looks very good and the sky feels like real life.
Hearing your voice so calm after the last two streams is so strange. Shows how smoking the smaples can change a person
what
The disappearance of the crane at the docks makes no sense
If you ever do this sort of video again I recommend using Garry's mod reskinned since it cleans up all the textures on the models and makes them less dirty and grimey.
I can't find the name of the mod please help
Wouldn’t the world still look lived in as opposed to everything looking brand new prior to the combine’s arrival?
@@TheDezedez doesn’t look brand new.
@@gordonfeetman445 feetman please tell me
Don't underestimate eastern europe's ability to stay literally exactly the same for decades at a time
Like when you do these types of videos. Feels like it's filling the HL universes history.
the Combine sure brought a lot of explosive barrels.
These feel like a "first sweep" if you will. Especially how the road is still collapsed just past the crane. I think if someone took the time to do another sweep, this could become a bit more "believable" rather than the somewhat uncanny that many Gmod maps are known to feel like.
"im nocliksphillip" -radhaz 2023
Very nice maps. I've always thought how coast would looked like with normal water level.
I gotta say I love how you actually compared the maps to the originals. By showing the custom map, then the original, and then back to the custom one you really helped strengthen the comparison in my mind a lot better than just showing custom map, then original, then moving on. It saves on skipping back and forth in the video to compare. Good work man!
The Half life 2 beta is bright and pretty
One could even say that about the lighting in the beta, as well.
seeing the combine filled world change to normal is uncanny like if it was all a dream that felt so real.
I think these maps can be summed up with: "But if you close you're eyes ♫"
The citadel before it’s collapsing:
And actually what did white forest look like?
Now this is amazing! City 17 without Combine material looks really cool; if it was real, i would want to live there
Well talking about an old shacks staying for 20 years. We can assume that after combine invasion nothing new was built by humans. Only combine structures and all the stuff they needed specifically
these maps are so eerie
halflife is the only futuristic eco-friendly game i see in ever my life.
This is like, a dream come true. Damn!
7:31 If you would like to think of it as England the illusion is still there
To the point you make about how it seemed like all things stayed the same between 2001 and 2021, I think that is intentional, in that, if an alien government invaded and took over the world in 2001, i would imagine there would not be much in the way of human construction or maintenance happening for the next 20 years. And in fact, that's what the environments of Half-Life 2 say to me: all human civilization halted and became subject to the Combine. Most of those environments are then dilapidated and crumbling versions of what existed there 20 years ago... which was also probably not in great condition given the setting of City 17 and the surrounding areas. So I don't see anything wrong with presenting the environment from before the time skip, considering that it is literally an account of what things would have looked like at that time, sans Combine.
My only complaint is that certain City 17 maps look too clean. Certain parts of the city, like the Dr. Kleiner's lab & canals would still be a dingy & dirty.
Ravenholm looked like a TF2 map with half life 2 textures
Make City 17 peaceful again.
4:27 damn...
that's a sweet ride
Seeing Ravenholm before the Combine AND during the day was quite shocking (even though it should be expected)
goddamn, eastern european countries still look like a depressed armpit even if the buildings haven't been ravaged by artillery
Another great video from our favorite hl content creator. The 50k sub milestone is pretty close, isn't it? Is there gonna be a special vid or sorts once you hit it?
It is yeah. But im not sure if Ill do a special video tho.
@@RadiationHazardYT gotcha
This feels like those antique items restoration videos! Very stunning!
Now I would like to see all of the Black Mesa maps from Half-Life, Opposing Force, Blue Shift and Decay before the Resonance Cascade.
City 17 before: Looks Beautiful ☺️🥰
City 17 Now:😢😭💀👽👺👹😈🤧
The highway 17 maps look really fun to play on honestly
On google, Half-Life 2 is suppose to take place in 2023. So probably theses maps takes place in 2003. As what google said.
Hl2 takes place in 2020, half life 1 happened on 2000
@@guyjuprod Yeah, Probably That, But on google I Don't know if it's true.
Comparison shots can be gotten by the getpos and setpos console command. That's how 3kliksphilip gets such an accurate side by side view
This is assuming of course the remade maps still follow the same coordinates
Not gonna lie. I have looked for those commands all over the place. Thanks so much. I'll try them next time I do a video like this.
"rather than remembering the past, i was recalling the future" - i love this analogy, it's really well articulated and solidifies the perspective we have in these maps 👍
I love the highway 17 theme you made
Thanks man, I had always tried to imagine it; now I see it...
the combine
the combine
the combine
the city
@@Real_Gordon_Freeman city 17
@@johnson-ez4td t
Damn, those maps looking like Fine-Life 2
Well, looking at these maps, the versions of them, you see that a lot of things have really changed about them, but it kind of gives you the idea that... everything changes, sometimes you come to the same place and you see something new that wasn't there these... let's say 10 years ago.
To give an example, I recently came to my home village, where I was brought up for 12 years and in 4 years... so much has changed there, so many new buildings, so many new faces, but the home village is the same, after all, when I look at it... I feel lucky to see how everything is developing... oh... I wrote a bit too much... heh ;P
i cant believe the combine turned all the coniferous trees into deciduous trees!
Bright and Pretty
What a kind man
@@T43C1T We go to Ravenholm quite often nowadays :)
In some maps, the original hl2 sky fits better, while this pure blue sky makes it look kinda like a gta san andreas map
I always was appealed at the fact at what would hl2 look before the combine
Great video 👍
The textures are way too clean for their own good. The author must have never been to Eastern Europe before, because if he was, then he would know that everything looks gritty and run down to begin with, even without a literal intergalactic empire takeover
I always had a thought in my head of what this would look like so it’s quite cool to see someone did it
I hope your kid is doing well.
7:34
My grandpa built a house that lasted more then 30 years casually
I think in some cases the landscape would be different. Especially in highway 17, for example, the ramp down at 5:48 in my opinion would not be there pre-draining-of-the-ocean because you would not need to go down there when it is covered in water. It really is weird to see see HL² without the combine. The bridge without the fog is especially strange.
I love the detail that the lighting is warmer in the pre-war maps. That alone makes them more comfortable