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Private Notes
The time is 8:47 AM -- Dr. Gordon Freeman is late for work. The 27-year-old MIT graduate rides the tram to the Sector C Test Labs and passes Barney Calhoun, seen bashing on a locked door. As he nears the Anomalous Materials Laboratory, Gordon can see nuclear missiles ready for transport to launch sites, robots nearly crashing into the tram, and the intricate workings of the Black Mesa Research Facility revealing themselves as being fragile, and more often than not, broken. The public announcement system announces the most recent news, making ironic comments about healthcare measures on radiation and urinalysis tests, as large pools of radioactive waste pass beneath him. At a Loader crossing, the tram is stopped, and on the left, a mysterious man in a suit is waiting in another stopped tram. Eventually, Freeman's tram reaches its destination and, after stepping out onto the catwalk, his day begins.
Arriving at the Anomalous Materials Laboratory, Gordon is informed by a security guard of several messages for him that were lost due to a system crash, and is told to get into his HEV Suit and head down to the lab, where he finds himself face to face with the people conducting his test; they inform him that they have a unique and large sample of a classified origin and that they will be deviating from normal procedure to accommodate for this. Once in the test chamber, he goes to the control panel and presses the button to start the rotors on the Anti-Mass Spectrometer. Rising up from the delivery system, the sample arrives and Gordon proceeds to push the cart into the Spectrometer's beam, upon contact with the sample a Resonance Cascade event occurs, causing Alien organisms to teleport to the surrounding Facilities and sending him to a strange alien world where he passes out.
Gordon regains his consciousness inside the destroyed Test Chamber, looking for a way out he notices the whole facility around him has received massive structural damage, most of the personnel is dead, and aliens begin to teleport into the facility. After being told that all phones are out, Gordon is requested by one of his colleagues to try to make it to the surface in order to acquire help. Starting his journey, Gordon finds a Crowbar to help him get past obstacles, and since the Tram System is too damaged to work, to find a way out he must cross the Sector B Coolant Reserve Facility, now overrun with alien creatures, occasionally witnessing the mysterious suited man from earlier watching him from out-of-reach places, always walking off before Gordon can get to him.
Gordon reaches the administration center at Sector D, where several Scientists and Security Guards are barricaded into the office complex, hiding from the alien creatures. Avoiding the facility's Ceiling Turrets and the invading Vortigaunts he hears from the personnel that the military have arrived to rescue the people trapped but that he should still head for the surface.
Reaching the High Security Storage Facility at Sector D, Gordon learns that the way out is through the Silo D door. Passing through the storage area and avoiding the Sentry Turrets, Gordon witnesses the soldiers killing the scientists on sight. When he eventually reaches the surface, Gordon finds the facility under total control of the HECU and in the middle of an artillery bombardment. Taking cover, he is forced back into the underground complex, finding his way into the silo door's control room where a scientist informs him that, if anyone can end this catastrophe, it is the science team in the Sector F Lambda Complex, located at the opposite end of the facility, but to get there, Gordon must find the old, decommissioned rail system beyond the Silo complex.
With access to the Silo D, Gordon mounts the old tram system to get to the Rocket Test Labs, a largely sealed-off area of Black Mesa dating back to its earlier days as a missile complex, now being used as a dumping ground for toxic waste from the rest of the facility, where the HECU soldiers have yet to get a good foothold due to the overwhelming amount of aliens and toxic waste in the area. Arriving at the Rocket Test Silo, Gordon is warned of the Tentacles, a large alien creature blocking his way, and is instructed to fire the rocket engine to kill it before it keeps growing. But to fire the rocket he must first turn on the oxygen and fuel pumps as well as the power generator, after which Gordon is able to kill it by using the rocket engine to incinerate it. This uncovers a way out through the meters-long dirt tunnel dug by the Tentacles, leading Gordon closer to Sector E's Materials Transport.
Trying to reach the surface once more, Gordon's progress is thwarted by a Gargantua in the Sector E Materials Transport. He then learns from a dying security guard that if he restores the generator, he can ride the tram to the surface. Freeman enters the Houndeye infested subterranean areas and activates the generator, restoring power to sector E; after activating more switches, he destroys the Gargantua patrolling the area by turning on the transformers supplying the rail system with power. It is also possible to kill the Gargantua using an excessive amount of explosives. Jumping onto a tram, he is able to continue his way by smashing through the concrete barricade blocking the access to the rail system.
As Gordon rides the tram into the Materials Transport section of Black Mesa, he learns from a security guard that he must ride to the High Altitude Launch Center to launch a satellite, which the Lambda Team can use to reverse the effects of the Resonance Cascade. Freeman also discovers the HECU's true hatred for him, as well as their larger reinforcements: sandbag bunkers with rapid-fire sniper rifles, mounted machine gun turrets (manual and automated), and even mounted rocket launchers. After going round in circles for a while, Gordon goes up several elevators and at last reaches the surface again near the launch site; he sends the rocket up into orbit and goes back underground.
Continuing towards the surface, Gordon encounters a terrifying new aquatic Xen creature, the Ichthyosaur, and acquires a deadly new weapon to fight it. After an underwater battle with an Ichthyosaur, he manages to escape and get back on his way. After battling with the Black Ops, another military crew trying to eliminate even the HECU, Freeman is captured by two HECU soldiers. Instead of taking him in for questioning, out of spite, they remove all of his weapons and drop him in a trash compactor.
After escaping from the trash compactor and getting back to the surface, Gordon stumbles towards a mostly abandoned part of the facility, meant for processing and disposing of waste and hazardous materials. Dodging and jumping through antiquated compaction machines, large vats of waste, and slipping through furnaces, as well as riding on gravity-defying conveyor belts, Freeman leaves this part of the facility.
Gordon eventually winds up in a secret part of the facility where he discovers that scientists had been "collecting" specimens from Xen since long before the incident occurred. Inside, Freeman continues to rearm himself to rejoin the battle against the HECU. He also meets the alien military units, the Alien Grunts; and finds one of the most powerful weapons in the facility, the Tau Cannon. Soon, he heads outside to search for the Lambda Complex.
Gordon again reaches the surface, which is now a war zone. The Vortigaunts, along with Alien Grunts and Gargantuas, have begun making determined attacks against the Marines, and the tide of the battle is beginning to turn in favor of the aliens; the Marines call in reinforcements, but it is not enough. Gordon must scale cliffs and navigate the bombed out buildings while avoiding both sides. Many skirmishes are seen between the HECU and the Xen forces. Finally, Gordon reaches relative safety underground.
The HECU determines that they are fighting a battle they cannot win against the Xen aliens. With this, as well as having continually failed to neutralize Freeman, they abandon their mission and begin to evacuate the facility, calling in air strikes and heavy artillery to cover their retreat. Gordon enters an underground storage garage to avoid the bombardments, and eventually fights his way through scores of aliens and several groups of the decimated HECU forces before reaching the Lambda Complex.
After much struggle, Gordon finally reaches the Lambda Complex, which he discovers to be the place where Black Mesa developed the teleportation technology that allowed scientists to travel to Xen in the first place. The handful of surviving personnel, who have held themselves up in a small stronghold, inform Gordon that the satellite he launched earlier was not able to reverse the effects of the Resonance Cascade because an immensely powerful being on the other side is keeping the rift between the worlds open, and Gordon must go to Xen to kill it and prevent the aliens from taking over completely. Before being teleported to Xen, Gordon gains access to an arsenal, health and HEV-charge caches, and is finally given the Long Jump Module. After an attempted interception by Alien Controllers, the scientists open a portal and Gordon jumps in.
Once in the border world of Xen, Gordon encounters many of the aliens that had been teleported into Black Mesa in their natural habitats, as well as the remains of some HEV-wearing researchers who came before him. In order to progress, he needs to re-activate a portal inside one of the floating islands to venture more of Xen's perimeters.
Freeman is made to face one of the Nihilanth's most powerful minions; the Gonarch, found in its lair, located in another floating island. Gordon is able to kill it and use the portal created after its death to continue.
Gordon's journey across Xen continues, but his supplies are running short, spent on destroying the Gonarch. He is teleported to an Alien Grunt cloning facility, where the army of Xen is created. There, Gordon finds a group of docile Vortigaunts working, before exiting the facility and getting ready to enter one last teleporter.
In a vast cave, Gordon finally confronts the powerful and mysterious being that is holding the portal open, the Nihilanth. Gordon destroys its healing system, allowing him to destroy its vulnerable brain. As the creature dies, it floats toward the ceiling, emanating portals, and finally exploding in a giant green blast that overpowers Gordon's senses.
When Gordon comes to his senses, he finds himself in front of the G-Man. Both are transported to various locales around Xen, while the G-Man praises Gordon's actions in the border world, to later explain that his "employers" have agreed that Gordon has "limitless potential," and have authorized him to offer Freeman a job. The G-Man and Gordon are teleported a last time to a tram car, flying through space at immense speed. By stepping into a portal, and knowing that his only other choice is a battle he has no chance of winning, Gordon accepts the G-Man's offer. Finding himself floating in nothingness, he hears the G-Man's voice one last time; "Wisely done, Mr. Freeman, I will see you up ahead..."
As the game begins, Shephard is part of the clean-up operation. After his transport aircraft is taken down by an Alien Aircraft and he is cut off from the rest of his unit, the "clean-up" mission is abandoned and Shephard joins forces with the scattered survivors seeking escape. Before the first chapter of Half-Life: Opposing Force, a short introduction is shown. As Adrian Shephard and his fellow HECU comrades are approaching the LZ (Landing Zone 117) at the Black Mesa Research Facility, his plane (codenamed Goose 7) is shot down by Alien Aircrafts, along with several other V-22 Ospreys (the first one is codenamed Goose 3). The rest of the opening sequence consists of Shephard continually losing and regaining consciousness, seeing a conflict between the Xen aliens and the Marines who survived the crash.
After the crash of his V-22 Osprey, Adrian Shephard regains consciousness completely in an infirmary, not too far off from the crash site. He leaves the infirmary, learning that the other Marines who had survived the crash had been killed by the aliens. He makes his way towards the extraction point, where he is told via radio that the military forces are pulling out of the facility.
As the battle begins to turn into the Xen aliens' favor, Shephard and the remaining HECU troops begin to evacuate Black Mesa. Adrian Shephard attempts to reach the HECU's extraction point to escape Black Mesa. He has first eye contact with the mysterious Race X that seems to be collecting humans for study in their world. Shephard reaches the extraction point but is deliberately left behind due to the G-Man's actions.
Adrian Shephard continues his journey through Black Mesa in search of both his comrades and an alternative escape route after being abandoned at the extraction point. After battling Vortigaunts and traveling through a zombie-infested blast furnace, Shephard meets several other Marines from his company who have also been left behind. He joins forces with them as they try to escape from the facility.
After battling through an office complex filled with Vortigaunts, Adrian Shephard and other HECU soldiers' attempt to find and use an old transit system to escape to the Lambda Core. The Black Ops are first introduced in this chapter as well. Shephard comes across them in a hangar where they are loading a rock from Xen into the back of a truck. Adrian then learns that the Black Ops soldiers have been sent to kill the remaining HECU Marines and cover up the Black Mesa incident. Shephard meets up with several other surviving marines and fights the Black Ops, eventually reaching an underground railway system that leads to the Lambda Complex.
Arriving at the Lambda complex, Adrian Shephard sees Gordon Freeman being teleported to Xen. Shephard is also forced to travel through Xen to find a way out of the Lambda complex.
In it, Adrian Shephard finds himself in underwater laboratories where several Ichthyosaurs are being held. After making his way through the labs and freeing a scientist who provides him with information on the area, Shephard is again forced to teleport to Xen and back again to reach a new part of Black Mesa.
Adrian Shephard is traveling between various biosphere chambers and laboratories featuring massive terrariums used to house Xen fauna being studied by the scientists deep within the Sector E Biodome Complex. Eventually, he reaches an older industrial area and picks up a radio transmission from a group of Marines fighting some kind of massive creature.
Details Adrian Shephard's battle with the monstrous Pit Worm blocking his progress in Waste Processing Area 3. Working his way through the surrounding area (littered with the corpses of the Marines who sent the distress signal in the previous chapter), Shephard manages to dump toxic waste on the Pit Worm, killing it and allowing him to access the next area.
Details the fierce battle raging between the Race X creatures, the Black Ops contingent, including several snipers, and the remnants of the HECU in the last hours of the Black Mesa Incident. Adrian Shephard makes his way through the underground canals and sewers of Black Mesa, fighting through a Voltigore nest, and arrives at the hydroelectric dam featured in the first game. Here, a Gargantua has been trapped on top of the dam and several Marines are attempting to kill it. Shephard uses explosives to destroy the creature and leaves the area through the dam's exposed water pipes.
Details the fierce battle raging between the Race X creatures, the Black Ops contingent, including several snipers, and the remnants of the HECU in the last hours of the Black Mesa Incident. Adrian Shephard makes his way through the underground canals and sewers of Black Mesa, fighting through a Voltigore nest, and arrives at the hydroelectric dam featured in the first game. Here, a Gargantua has been trapped on top of the dam and several Marines are attempting to kill it. Shephard uses explosives to destroy the creature and leaves the area through the dam's exposed water pipes.
After making his way through warehouses filled with Race X creatures and Black Ops fighting, Adrian Shephard arrives at an old industrial area of Black Mesa deep underground where the enormous Gene Worm is attempting to come through a portal from the Race X homeworld. Shephard uses mounted laser weapons to blind and kill it; in its death throes, an enormous teleportation portal spreads outwards and envelops him.
Shephard regains consciousness inside a V-22 Osprey, confronted by the mysterious G-Man. As the G-Man talks to Shephard a white flash occurs in the distance, indicating that Black Mesa has been destroyed by the nuclear warhead. The G-Man then informs Shephard that he will be detained "in a place where you can do no possible harm, and where no harm can come to you." He explains this is done since Shephard reminds him of himself but is still a dangerous witness. The G-Man walks into a portal, Shephard is detained and the end credits roll.
As the game begins, Barney Calhoun rides the tram from the Area 8 Topside Dormitories on the surface, into the underground sector of the Black Mesa Research Facility. Along the way many new details about Black Mesa are revealed; Calhoun passes a laundromat and several fast food outlets, suggesting that the facility is very self-sufficient and probably houses many of its workers. While Calhoun is locked outside the door to Area 3 Security Facilities, he is passed by Gordon Freeman riding in another tram heading towards Sector C in a scene that mirrors one in the original game, in which Gordon Freeman sees a guard locked out of a door on the inside of a tunnel.
As a seemingly normal day at work starts, Barney Calhoun visits security headquarters, including a shooting range and a surveillance room where it is possible to see Gordon Freeman again on camera heading towards the HEV Storage Area. Calhoun is then sent to help some scientists with an elevator; along the way, he witnesses many incidents foreshadowing the resonance cascade, such as a pair of scientists vainly trying to fix a supercomputer. He also sees the G-Man passing by in a tram. After repairing the elevator, the resonance cascade occurs; the elevator is jammed, the cable snaps and sends Calhoun and two scientists plummeting down the shaft as chaos breaks out around them. As the elevator collides with the bottom of the elevator shaft, Calhoun falls unconscious.
Barney Calhoun regains consciousness at the bottom of the elevator shaft to the sight of a houndeye eating the body of a fellow security guard. The two scientists in the elevator are dead, and so Calhoun sets off through the industrial waste areas of Black Mesa to try to find help. Along the way he gains an insight into the scope of the disaster and sees a pair of marines dumping corpses into a sewer opening, thus discovering that the military is trying to cover up the disaster rather than evacuate surviving personnel.
Barney Calhoun reaches the surface and encounters the HECU. He manages to fight through them and reach Dr. Rosenberg. He and a team of fellow scientists were trying to escape until the marines caught them. Calhoun rescues some scientists who have been locked in railway cars in Black Mesa's classification yards. One of the scientists, Dr. Rosenberg (who is also a character in Decay), advises Calhoun that the entire facility is surrounded by Hazardous Environment Combat Unit Marines intent upon killing all base personnel to cover-up Black Mesa's research into extradimensional exploration. The only way to escape, Rosenberg explains, is to use an old prototype of the Lambda Complex teleporter; if it works, they can reach an obscure entrance to Black Mesa which (hopefully) has been overlooked by the Marines.
Barney Calhoun and Rosenberg reach an older part of the Black Mesa Research Facility where a disused teleporter system is being reassembled by scientists. To make the teleporter completely operational, Calhoun is forced to travel to Xen and activate a device to allow teleportation to happen. Notable in the older part of the facility is older-looking models of health and HEV chargers and the use of hand scanners instead of retina scanners for identification. The remainder of the game takes place in an abandoned, walled-up sector of the base originally built for research of the first teleporter device. Calhoun, Rosenberg, and two other scientists (Walter Bennet and Simmons) try to restart the prototype teleporter. Calhoun is briefly teleported to a ruined human research camp on Xen to operate a triangulation device.
After discovering the teleporter had used its entire supply of batteries to transport Calhoun to Xen, Calhoun is again forced to go down to a power facility level and find the batteries and recharge them. Calhoun fights through a team of HECU marines and aliens before he reaches the power generators.
Finally nearing escape, Calhoun helps operate the simpler parts of the teleporter to get all the scientists through. Once the scientists escape, he faces some HECU resistance before finally teleporting to the other scientists.
In this final chapter, the other scientists have teleported to a safe location outside Black Mesa with some cars laying about. Barney Calhoun also arrives and sees Simmons and Rosenberg trying to fix an SUV and Bennet breaking open a gate with a crowbar, but some kind of discharge has affected him. Calhoun is glowing green and is teleported to several locations, such as a Xen platform and a storage room in Black Mesa where he witnesses Gordon Freeman being carried off by a group of HECU soldiers to a trash compactor before transporting back to the scientists (a reference to the chapter Apprehension of Half-Life). Calhoun finally ends up back at the yard with the scientists, no longer glowing. They have fixed the SUV, and Rosenberg expresses his relief, explaining to Calhoun he is lucky not to have been caught in an infinite loop. Walter pulls the gate open, and the game ends.
In the first chapter Gina Cross and Colette Green deliver the test sample to Freeman and activate the Anti-Mass Spectrometer, shortly before the "incident” (Resonance Cascade) occurs.
Gina Cross and Colette Green must escort Dr. Rosenberg through the Hazard Course area (Training Facility, Sector A) to the surface in order to call for military assistance.
Cross, Green, and Rosenberg reach the surface with the objective of accessing the Satellite Communications Center. However, they find the front door to the Comm Centre locked, forcing Cross and Green to circle around through nearby warehouses to get to the unlocked back entrance. Once inside, they manually align the satellite dish and Rosenberg successfully contacts the military while Cross and Green head back down to Sector C.
Cross and Green return to Anomalous Materials and link back up with Dr. Keller. Dr. Keller decides that the best course of action is to re-engage the dampening fields, which he felt would end the Resonance Cascade. To do this, Cross and Green travel through the facility and successfully reset the secondary and primary dampening locks. However, the dampening fields fail soon after. Keller discovers that the failure was caused by intentional interference from the other side of the rifts and realizes that not all the aliens might be there by accident.
Keller hatches a plan to create a resonance reversal using the prototype displacement beacon in the Gamma Labs. However, he needs a satellite in orbit before he can go through with the plan. Personnel in the High Altitude Launch Center are ready to launch the satellite, but due to a military air traffic lockdown that is in effect they can not. To remove the lockdown, an all-clear code is needed. Keller, Green, and Cross use the transit system to get to the nearby Level 3 Dormitories. There, they begin searching for a security guard with the codes. Their task is made more difficult by the fact that HECU soldiers are also present, and are busy eliminating science and security personnel. Eventually, the security guard is found. Armed with the codes, Cross, Green, and Keller travel to the Black Mesa Air-Traffic Control facility on the surface.
Cross and Green, after several fights with HECU soldiers and after successfully fighting off a V-22 Osprey, manage to secure the Black Mesa Air Control building. They proceed to enter the all-clear codes and lift the military air-traffic lockdown. They then return to Keller and head back underground to find a way to the Gamma Labs.
The next task for Cross and Green is to manually raise the prototype displacement beacon in the Gamma Labs to the surface, so it can be activated. Keller reaches the main lab area, but cannot raise the beacon from where he is because of an obstruction. After accessing the labs via the drainage canals, Cross and Green travel through the lower levels of the labs, encountering and battling HECU soldiers and Xen creatures as they go. They reach the beacon, clear the obstruction blocking the beacon from ascending, and successfully raise the beacon.
Cross and Green return to Keller in the lab control area, where he gives them the task of activating the beam matrix system, which provides the power required for the prototype displacement beacon. To do this, they first take an elevator down to the Alien Quarantine Labs, which have become overrun by Xen creatures. After navigating through the labs, they reach the beam matrix and attempt to activate it while simultaneously defending it from Vortigaunts and Grunts, who are rapidly teleporting in. The beam matrix is activated, and Cross and Green return to Keller, who is making the final preparations for the resonance reversal.
Cross and Green are forced to defend the displacement beacon against a variety of attacking Xen creatures, including a Manta Ray. In the midst of the battle both characters are caught in what is explained as a "harmonic reflux" by Dr. Keller. It is during this sequence that the voice of Dr. Rosenberg can be heard warning that he "can't keep the portal open much longer," alluding to Calhoun's coinciding trip in Xen during Blue Shift. Dr. Cross and Dr. Green then return safely and Dr. Keller congratulates them on their success. The resonance reversal presumably had the effect of severely weakening the resonance cascade. It still remains unclear whether the doctors managed to survive the nuclear explosion that occurs at the end of Opposing Force.
Nearly twenty years after the Black Mesa Incident, the G-Man wakes Gordon Freeman from stasis and inserts him (seemingly without any goals) into a train arriving in City 17, a city located somewhere in Eastern Europe under the control of the Combine Empire.
Alyx, the daughter of Eli Vance, a former Black Mesa employee now leading the Resistance against the Combine, takes Gordon to Dr. Kleiner's lab. There he is given an H.E.V. Suit and instructed to be teleported to Black Mesa East with Alyx, where he will be able to work alongside other scientists.
With the Crowbar, Gordon is able to disarm two Civil Protection officers who had cornered a couple of Citizens, obtaining in this way his first firearm, the USP Match. Being armed allows Gordon to defeat all Civil Protection Units dispatched to the area before reaching Station 12, one of the many stations set up by the Underground Railroad, a network helping refugees escape City 17.
Aboard the Airboat, Gordon fights off numerous Civil Protection units and a Hunter-Chopper in the river, canals and industrial areas around and outside City 17. Along the way, the boat is upgraded with a pulse gun by a Vortigaunt. After shooting down the Hunter-Chopper in a fight, Gordon Freeman finally reaches his destination, an abandoned hydroelectric power plant on the other side of the dam where Black Mesa East is located.
Arriving to the Black Mesa East late in the evening Gordon meets Dr. Judith Mossman for the first time, and is reunited with Resistance Leader and former Black Mesa Scientist Eli Vance and Alyx. Gordon is also introduced to the Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator, also known as the 'Gravity Gun', a physics manipulator that quickly becomes indispensable, and after that, Gordon meets Dog, Alyx's robotic "pet." Like A Red Letter Day, this chapter is full of insight and dialogue about the current state of the world, the people in it, and the aftermath of the Black Mesa Incident. While Gordon is playing with Dog in the scrapyard, Alyx spots Combine Scanners sweeping the area, shortly before an all out aerial raid on Black Mesa East. While attempting to rejoin the others, Gordon and Dog are separated from Alyx by a collapsed ceiling, and Gordon is forced to escape down a tunnel to Ravenholm, a place that Alyx didn't want to talk about earlier, showing obvious discomfort at the thought.
Gordon journeys through the tunnel to the ghost town of Ravenholm. Originally a hidden village that lived free from the rule of the Combine, it was discovered by the Combine and attacked by hundreds of Headcrab Shells, thus transforming almost the entire population into deadly Zombies. Freeman kills Zombies and avoids bizarre deathtraps, meeting the man who set them, Father Grigori, who gives Gordon a shotgun. Freeman and Grigori make their way to an old mine which has a path that leads back to City 17, but Grigori stays behind to fight Zombies, and he continues to do so until the crypt behind him bursts open, leaving more zombies to come out from it. He continues to shoot the Zombies for a while until he runs through a blazing fire into the crypt. Gordon navigates the mines ahead, then walks down a railroad avoiding Combine snipers to reach Shorepoint Base.
Freeman is informed that Eli Vance has been taken to Nova Prospekt and sets out on a journey along Highway 17 located in The Coast to rescue him. Gordon encounters Combine Soldiers for the first time as well as a new type of Xen alien, the Antlions that made enormous colonies in the beach areas. Colonel Odessa Cubbage is also met in this level, giving Gordon the RPG. As Gordon navigates through the Highway 17, he sees abandoned outposts taken over by Combine before arriving to the Bridge Point. Gordon deactivates Force Fields in order to progress across a train bridge.
Continuing on to Nova Prospekt, Gordon exits a Zombie-infested tunnel, fends off a Combine raid on Lighthouse Point, and passes through the last part of the coast without the Scout Car, namely Antlion-infested beach. He encounters the first Antlion Guard of the game and is then trained in usage of the Antlion Guard's pheropods by a Vortigaunt working with the Resistance. He then continues to the final part of the coast, where he battles many Nova Prospekt guards on his way into the prison. Along the way, Gordon must disable Restrictors so that the Antlions can follow him. In this chapter, Antlions become the Gordon's allies, since he has the Bugbait pheropod.
Gordon gains access to Nova Prospekt, a Combine base, and a former prison, breaching its defenses with the help of an army of Antlions, with the goal of finding and rescuing the captured Resistance leader, Eli Vance. This is also the last chapter where Antlions are encountered, because Gordon soon leaves Antlion Territory. Gordon is introduced to Combine Turrets here as well.
Gordon meets up with Alyx Vance in the Nova Prospekt train depot. They discover that Dr. Mossman was actually a Combine spy working on Breen's side. Together, they search the prison for Eli Vance and Judith Mossman, all the while fighting off security forces. They split up several times, but finally they reunite to track down Mossman. She teleports herself and Eli out of the facility, getting to the Citadel, forcing Alyx and Gordon to take the risk in using the same teleporter to get back to Kleiner's lab.
Upon arriving in Kleiner's Lab after teleporting away from the Depot, Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance discover they have been stuck in a teleport "loop" for approximately one week. They find that the teleport caused the destruction of Nova Prospekt, and the blow they struck there was taken as a sign to begin The Uprising. The two factions have been locked in combat for a week and all of City 17 is a warzone. Freeman goes on to aid in the battle, while Alyx remains in Kleiner's Lab to help him escape the city. Gordon is able to form small squads of citizens to help fight their way through the city towards Barney's location. Near the end of the chapter, Alyx finds that the bridge to Barney's location is destroyed. She climbs up a building to see how to look for another way to help Gordon but is captured by Combine soldiers and taken to the Citadel.
Gordon teams up with Barney and together they lead a battle at the Overwatch Nexus, finally fighting at the foot of the Citadel. This section involves heavy urban combat, aided by resistance members, against Striders, Gunships, and Elite Combine Soldiers.
Gordon infiltrates the Combine Citadel, upon entering a security gate he is disarmed of all his weapons with the exception of the Gravity Gun, which is mysteriously super-powered by the combine technology. It is now capable of lifting heavier items from a greater distance, including Combine Soldiers and Elites, vaporizing their weapons. Equipped with this, Gordon proceeds upwards fighting through the citadel, making his way to the office of Dr. Wallace Breen.
Gordon reaches the administrator's office for the climactic confrontation with Wallace Breen and the leaders of the Resistance. Mossman eventually regrets that she helped Breen, and betrays him by releasing Freeman, Alyx, and Eli from the pods. Breen attempts to kill them by using the supercharged Gravity Gun and escapes with it. Alyx and Gordon finds him arguing with an Advisor and escapes before they are able to get to him, leaving the Gravity Gun on the floor. They open the windows and find the Dark Energy Reactor at the very top of the Citadel. Alyx lets Gordon down to the Reactor where Breen starts ascending and opens the Combine Overworld portal. Gordon destroys the reactor, causing it to fail and begin to go critical. The reactor explodes, apparently killing Breen and nearly taking Alyx and Gordon with it. As the reactor detonates, however, the G-Man freezes time and addresses Gordon. He is put back into stasis by the G-Man.
Gordon wakes up outside the Citadel, buried under a pile of rubble. Dog digs Gordon out and he is reunited with Alyx, who embraces him. She contacts her father Eli and Dr. Kleiner through a portable monitor, to inform them that Gordon is safe (Eli earlier told Alyx that Gordon wouldn't be found, implying his knowledge of the G-Man and his stasis). Kleiner tells Alyx that the Citadel Core is at risk of exploding at any moment. Kleiner states that the explosion could be large enough to level the whole of City 17, and that the only possible way to survive would be to re-enter the Citadel and slow the core's progression toward meltdown. Eli interrupts, showing distress at placing his daughter in further danger, but reluctantly agrees when he sees no other option. Alyx and Gordon re-enter the Citadel to try to reactivate the stabilization mechanism for the core in order to avert disaster.
This chapter consists of Gordon Freeman entering the core to help slow down the meltdown. Afterwards, they make their way to one of the still running Razor Trains and begin their journey to escape the city.
Alyx is trapped under a pod with a restrained Stalker viciously attempting to break loose, relying on Gordon to set her free. After escaping from the train, the duo fights through the rubble of dark, deserted, underground parking garages and tunnels, searching for a way to head up to the surface of the city. In the process, they block off Antlion burrows, and battle various zombies in a pitch black environment, including zombified Combine soldiers, which were never seen during Half-Life 2. These zombified soldiers, referred to as "Zombines" by Alyx, are a prominent sign that the Combine is losing control of City 17.
Eventually, the duo manages to find the exit of an underground train station and Gordon and Alyx come up to the surface, observing the citadel from afar, and the destruction already visited on City 17. Dr. Kleiner appears on the screens that Breen used to pass out propaganda, mentioning that the Suppression Field, which had previously prevented human reproduction, is down. As the duo moves on, they engage in several fights with Combine soldiers, Antlions, and zombies. Alyx and Gordon finally meet up with Barney Calhoun and a group of other survivors who are preparing to move on a train station in order to escape City 17. With the Combine still following, Gordon and Alyx split up from the group and move through a derelict hospital to draw the remaining Combine forces away from the refugees. Inside the hospital, Combine forces and zombies of all kinds are fighting throughout the collapsing structure, and hastily constructed defences to slow Alyx and Gordon down.
Upon reuniting with Barney at the train station, Alyx and Gordon work to move several groups of citizens to the trains while facing increasing Combine opposition. After battling Combine soldiers and a Strider, the duo reprogram another train and board the caboose. As the train carries Alyx and Gordon away, the Citadel is visible in the background with the reactor core once again about to explode. Several pods are ejected from the Citadel as it detonates. On two occasions, as pods pass overhead, Gordon and Alyx are hit with psychic blasts. The force of the shockwave from the exploding Citadel causes metal chunks and wreckage to fly toward the train Alyx and Gordon are on as it sends its final transmission, and the screen fades to an ominous white as the Citadel explodes, destroying City 17, and causing a shockwave that overtakes the train. The last thing that the player hears is the twisting of metal and Alyx whispering Gordon's name. The screen then fades to the credits.
The opening chapter picks up where Episode One left off. The Citadel Core gave out as Alyx and Gordon were leaving City 17, and the resulting shock wave has derailed the train in which they were traveling on. Gordon and Alyx survive the crash, and Alyx retrieves the Gravity Gun in order to free Gordon from the wreck. The ruins of City 17 are visible, with a Superportal forming above the collapsed Citadel. A portal storm occurs, appearing to emanate from the Citadel ruins, destroying the damaged rail bridge and opening a path into a mine shaft for Alyx and Gordon to follow.
Gordon arrives at a small Resistance outpost within the mines manned by Griggs and Sheckley. The Vortigaunt has brought Alyx to the outpost and is awaiting the arrival of his kin in order to heal her wounds. Griggs and Sheckley introduce Gordon to the Antlion Detector, and with the aid of reprogrammed Hopper Mines and Sentry Guns they are barely able to hold off several Antlion attacks until the Vortigaunts arrive. The Vortigaunts assist in dispatching the next wave of Antlions, and proceed to tend to Alyx. The Vortigaunts require the Antlion larval extract to save Alyx, so Gordon and his Vortigaunt companion travel deeper into the mine to retrieve it.
Upon reaching the surface, a large group of Combine forces is seen traveling north, towards White Forest, with Advisors in tow. Gordon must fight off the Antlion Guardian along with an Antlion Guard and several of their smaller kin before reaching the last Resistance outpost of the Victory Mine. Gordon is required to descend into the mining settlement in order to reach a working car for the journey to White Forest. The settlement is infested with Headcrabs and Zombies, and Alyx assists by covering Gordon's progress with a sniper rifle powered by the vortigaunt. Gordon finally reaches the far side of the settlement, where the muscle car awaits. He jumps the car over a broken bridge, back to the side Alyx and the Vortigaunt are waiting on. The Vortigaunt takes his leave of Alyx and Gordon, informing them that his kin are hunting shu'ulathoi still in their escape pods.
Having acquired transportation, Gordon and Alyx proceed at top speed to White Forest. They discover a radio tower and Alyx decides to try and contact White Forest to warn of the impending attack. While establishing power to the transmitter, Hunters arrive and ambush them. It is the first time Hunters are fought directly, and are defeated. White Forest base is contacted, but Advisors appear to be blocking the transmission.
While Alyx and the rebels work on the car, Gordon disables the Combine Autogun of the The Junk Yard blocking the road. The rebel technician installs a radar detector that picks up Resistance caches. They travel through the zombie-infested countryside and retrieve supplies from several hidden caches.
Arriving at White Forest, Alyx and Gordon reunite with Isaac Kleiner, and Eli Vance. Alyx finally delivers the transmission packet acquired in Episode One to Eli and Dr. Kleiner. They also meet Arne Magnusson in person, another former Black Mesa scientist who is an egotistical, verbose, authoritarian, and who holds a grudge against Gordon. Gordon and Alyx learn that the White Forest team is preparing a special rocket which they plan to use, in conjunction with the satellite array launched during the events of Half-Life and Alyx's data packet, to close the Combine superportal. A Combine attack penetrates the base, and Gordon must defeat Hunters and soldiers, and close the silo doors that are allowing access to the facility.
The rocket is then successfully launched, and Gordon, Eli, and Alyx head outside to watch the super portal close. The superportal is closed, preventing the Combine from calling in reinforcements from their homeworld. Alyx reveals that she found and fixed up an old helicopter that they can use to fly to the Borealis. As Gordon and Alyx prepare to depart to search for Dr. Judith Mossman, Advisors attack the helicopter hangar. They telekinetically pin Alyx and Gordon to the wall, and seize Eli. Eli warns them both that the Borealis must be destroyed, and then tells Alyx he loves her and not to look, as the Advisors kill him, having potentially drained all information about the Resistance and the Borealis from his brain. Dog arrives and fights off the Advisors, saving Gordon and Alyx. Both Gordon and Alyx fall to the floor, and Alyx runs to her father's side and holds onto his lifeless body, her crying is all that can be heard as the screen fades to black and the credits roll.
Russell manages to rescue Alyx by destroying the transport taking her to be interrogated and they meet up at his lab where he reveals Eli will most likely be taken on a train to Nova Prospekt and that she will need to intercept the train by going through the Quarantine Zone. He gifts her with special gloves that will allow her to pick up objects from afar, dubbed “the Russells”, as well as a pistol. Alyx then boards a hacked train that will take her through the zombie-infested Quarantine Zone.
The train is stopped just outside the Zone due to the Combine shutting down the area, forcing Alyx to make her way on foot and fight through the various forms of Xen wildlife that have overtaken the buildings. Along the way she encounters a brain-damaged Vortigaunt named Gary, who cryptically warns her that her father is fated to die and that she will not be able to prevent it on her own. He also informs her that the Combine have many of his kin trapped and that she needs to rescue them and that she will need to follow “the Northern Star.”
Alyx continues through the Quarantine Zone, where she acquires a flashlight and fights off various headcrabs hiding in the dark tunnels. After fighting off some Combine soldiers she arrives at the junction where she can intercept her father's train, but discovers the controls are broken. She then uses a nearby switch to stop the train by leading it to a dead-end, derailing it. Inside she finds her father, who she nearly loses when he falls into a pit, only to be rescued by Gary, who had followed Alyx. Eli explains that he and Russell discovered images of a building containing what appears to be a Combine superweapon, contained in a massive ship called “The Vault” floating above the Quarantine Zone. He sends Alyx to disable the Vault while Gary reminds her to follow the “Northern Star” and escorts Eli back to safety.
Alyx makes her way through the subway tunnels again while trying to get to the so-called “Northern Star.” Along the way she encounters several more zombies and headcrabs, along with Combine forces who are now hot on her tail. She sees the Vault for the first time, outside a window. Eventually she discovers the “Northern Star” is actually a hotel called The Northern Star which contains a substation for the Vault. She makes her way inside.
Traveling through the headcrab-infested building, Alyx soon encounters a new enemy: an electrified headcrab-like creature that has the ability to climb into corpses and reanimate them in order to attack her. According to her description, Russell dubs the creature “lightning dog”. She manages to fight off the creature and reaches the top of the hotel, where she discovers the Combine is using trapped Vortigaunts at each substation to power the Vault. She frees the Vortigaunt trapped there, who pledges to help her by freeing his brothers at the other power stations. Alyx then starts making her way to a nearby Vodka distillery where she can access a tunnel that will take her directly to the Vault.
Alyx makes her way to the distillery, fighting through the streets of City 17 through increasing Combine forces, who employ manhacks to track her down.
After facing off with more Combine forces, Alyx heads inside the distillery where she encounters another human named Larry, who warns her to look out for a blind zombie dubbed “Jeff” that is extremely sensitive to sound and will attempt to destroy her without hesitation. Alyx manages to trap Jeff in a trash compactor before opening the path to the tunnel.
Alyx fights her way through the Antlion-infested tunnels, where she also finds an old zoo infested with more Xen wildlife. She finds evidence that the Combine is unable to control the more alien-infested areas of the City. Eli then reports that the Vault may not actually contain a superweapon but in fact something that the Combine is trying to keep imprisoned. Alyx decides to continue on, reasoning that perhaps whatever it is inside the Vault could be used to the Resistance's advantage.
Alyx makes her way through Antlion-infested tunnels and emerges just as the Vortigaunts destroy the last power station keeping the Vault afloat. However, the Vault is prevented from crashing down by the intervention of a tractor beam from a backup generator. While looking for a way to shut down the tractor beam, Alyx overhears a conversation between an Advisor and a Combine scientist who claims the Vault is a prison for someone who survived the Black Mesa Incident and subsequently disappeared. Alyx, Eli, and Russell conclude this must be Gordon Freeman, and that it is now imperative that they rescue him from the Vault. Alyx fights through more Antlions and Combine forces through several abandoned buildings as she heads to the Vault's dock.
After fighting through more forces, Alyx makes it to the Vault's dock, where she attempts to shut down the tractor beam. However, this results in the Vault crashing down to the ground, destroying numerous buildings. Alyx survives, and fights through more surviving Combine forces and zombies before confronting a Strider, which with extreme difficulty, she manages to destroy. She then starts to enter the Vault, just as Eli realizes something is wrong and tries to warn her before communication is cut off and she loses all her weapons.
Inside the Vault, Alyx finds the remains of the building the Combine trapped within the Vault in order to capture their prisoner: however the building appears to defy reality itself, with numerous rooms being oriented differently and the objects within them defying the laws of gravity. The G-Man offers his services to Alyx in return for her releasing him, but when Alyx asks that he remove the Combine from Earth he turns her down. He then shows her a vision of the future: her father's death at the hands of an Advisor in the hangar at White Forest in five years' time. He then rewinds time to just before Eli's death and gives Alyx the chance to save her father. Alyx uses her gloves to destroy the Advisor and free Eli. However, the G-Man explains she has proven herself a worthy successor to Gordon Freeman, whom the G-Man is disappointed with for failing to follow through on his directions. Despite Alyx's pleas to let her go, he places her into stasis.
