Half-Life's Dark and Mysterious Lost Borderworld | Xen | Full Half-Life Lore
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- Опубликовано: 20 июн 2024
- Xen is one of the many mysterious locations within the vast multiverse of Half-Life that holds many secrets. With humanity discovering it during the 20th century, they had unknowingly begun a war with The Nihilanth, and later, would be introduced to the Combine Empire.
Just how important is Xen to the future of humanity? What benefits do the G-Man and his employers see in the borderworld and how does the story of Xen end? I explored the lore behind Xen in the Half-Life universe.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
01:14 Background and Formation of Xen
03:38 The Habitation of Xen
11:58 The New Power Hierarchy of Xen
14:45 Humanity's Discovery of Xen
17:39 The Fight for Planet Earth
22:07 Legacy
24:32 Closing Thoughts
28:02 Ending
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Standard Sources
Half-Life series playthrough research
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Half-Life: Alyx Playthrough
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Old Valve Forums
Marc Laidlaw's Twitter
AUDIO USED
Half-Life 2 OST: Lab Practicum
#Xen #Lore #HalfLife 
Игры
Did you find the hidden G-Man?
I've used Black Mesa to show Valve's Canon! If this is preferred, I'll continue to use it in the future.
If you enjoyed this, be sure to interact in anyway to appease those algorithm gods ☺
Yess please use the black mesa xen
Yes
yep
In my personal opinion, I believe it's best to use Black Mesa as Valve's canon except for Xen. Sadly, HL1/HLA shows Xen as a gross, green Alien borderworld while Black Mesa reimagies the Xen chapter as a beautiful forest borderworld.
@@standardzombie3454 Exactly. While the original Xen is like a true ALIEN world, where nothing seems to make much sense and feels unsettling, Black Mesa made it seem like something that came out of the movie Avatar and feels more welcoming
In G-man's speech at the end of HLA, it really gives the vibe that since he took over Xen it unlocked the abilities of space and time. And you can see him exploring different timelines as his body splits up and goes different directions. When Alyx asks to have the combine off earth it's as if G-Man splits off to view that scenario directly and simultaneously reject that scenario as he's already seen it. It's wild.
Yep he has seen many outcomes
I think you're correct
@ThyPeasantSlayer ye
No that's not right. 1. Gman was already teleporting around Black Mesa as he watching Freeman out of interest. 2. Gman split into different ways as he was making the point that fate is actually flexible contrary to the belief that it wasn't.
When Alyx asked Gman to get the combine off the earth, Gman split as he walks off while his initial image explained that it wasn't the interest of his employers.
So Gman had Alyx use up whats left of the vortesant energy against an advisor and has her put into holding.
Sounds a bit like Dr. Strange on steroids
Also of note. Valve themselves hates how they did Xen in the original game. So I personally see no problem in using the fan remake over the original. They spent years making an up to date looking Xen so it's well deserved by the crowbar collective.
It looks MCU capeshit tier though. Well crafted but generic.
It was one of those things where I would get complaints regardless of which version I used. I'm happy with how it turned out though ☺
I think, despite how beautiful Xen in Black Mesa is, it doesn't exactly come off as an unnatural world where the creatures aren't even home to. That being said, I don't mind it being used. Probably would say a mix of both would be the best scenario potentially
@@Freelancer837 How would we go about mixing?
@@punishedblowstein1111
How? Black Mesa Xen is incredibly diverse, and features all sorts of alien biomes leaking into the borderworld.
1000x better than the boring wasteland that was the original.
Imagine how powerful actually combine is, when all those powerul creatures run away from them, were mostly beaten last survivors, and decided that fighting entire spiecie and each other was better than building up together and fight against combine
Well there's also the mystery of Race-X whose homeworld is beyond Xen, and whose goal in targeting Earth was similar to what the Combine ended up doing, but with the implication they had long before possessed access to Xen. I personally find Xen and the sort of multiverse crossroad it is interesting.
especially since it's not the typical unimaginative Marvel/DC "oh look that Spiderman has a hat" but that races that are even on a fundamentals of physics way, alien to one another are all meeting and interacting. And of course fighting.
The Xen and Interloper chapters in Black Mesa: Definitive Edition were so well made and u can tell that a lot of love and care was put into creating these levels. It was mesmerizing to play in. Thank you, Crowbar Collective! That is how you do a remaster!
Valve: Nah, lets just port it to source.
They did a great job
*remake
Most people find XEN to be the weakest part in Half-Life, I find that to be the opposite. The new exotic place with stuff to explore made it my favourite location within Half-Life. Black Mesa just made it even better and I spent hours on end exploring every little detail Crowbar Collective had added.
It was absolutely an experience. Anything new to Half-Life is widely appreciated. Crowbar Collective did an amazing job.
Understanding how Xen actually functions and how to navigate it made it easier to stomach even before Black Mesa came out (ie you had to budget your ammo carefully), but it still had problems even with that understanding. Black Mesa made them proper chapters worthy of an endgame.
I wouldn’t go that far, but I do think the hate for it was over blown
I've never heard of 'most people" finding Xen to be the weakest part..... it is like you just made that up. Also, f8ck BM
-rep furry
I just had a thought...
How do the barnacles reproduce and how do they get stuck on the ceiling in the first place? Do they have hidden legs we can't see? Do they have a larval stage where they bury themselves into it and then change into the slurping barnacles we all know? Do they replicate by spores? Who knows?
Also, the Nhilanth was under the Combine's control, at least partially. That's why it had the machanical floating device it's combined with, the third arm that was grafted on (missing from the Black Mesa model for some reason) and the same kind of shackles that the Vortigaunts had. These two pieces of dialogue mention it (albeit vaguely):
Nhilanth: "Their slaves... we are their slaves... we are..."
All-knowing Vortigaunt: "That sharp spur of hope has not dulled to this day. For once the lesser master lay defeated, we knew the greater must also fall in time."
About the Barnacle question, They use spores to reproduce!
Source: HL:A
I assume they are a bit like real life barnacles that before they find a spot to settle they're mobile and fleshy. Then once theyre settled a hard shell forms around them. Why we never see a non-settled barnacle could be explained in a few ways, 1) that period of their life cycle is so brief the likelihood of encountering it is nil, 2) during that phase they are tiny and barely noticeable, gradually growing in size when they settle, 3) I'm wrong about everything, 4) a mixture of all i said.
@@emmastrange5557 You are unfortunately wrong, the Barnacles in Half-Life use spores to reproduce. You are however right about them being small during infancy. (Source: HL:A)
Xen was such a big change-up to the setting of shooting baddies in Black Mesa corridors that it was very refreshing towards the end of the game. Objectively speaking it wasn't the best, but being such a short section it didn't overstay its welcome and added to the overall experience to the game.
I'd love to see a video about the unused creatures of Xen
It's on the list :D
I've always viewed the G man as a psuedopod for something unfathomable and alien.
I honestly dont know why people hate on Xen, the vibes alone are impeccable and that's not nostalgia talking, I played the game for the first time last year. keep up the great half life content! You really deserve it
Thanks so much! I really enjoyed putting this one together. I did get distracted a lot because I kept flying around the borderworld checking out the stunning region.
@@Skyrionn noclip can be tantalising lol I'd probably do the same. Keep up the great videos, they are entertaining and educational!
The xen chapters are not great I suppose, but I kind of like it. The hive hand really shines during this part. It's fun to circle strafe the gonarch with the shotgun
My gamertag for most things is XenGarden or a variation of it because of my love for the original Half Life series I played as a kid. Xen was always my favourite place even though everyone hated it. Black Mesa's version of Xen is my personal favourite because visually it is much more appealing and more in line with my general aesthetic with all the blues and purples. As well as the fact that the boids got an awesome revamp. I love Half Life so much, that the first tattoo I got was the lambda symbol on my back. I also don't know any other females who are huge fans of the game like myself.
A Half-Life tattoo is dedication! ☺
8:21 SUSTENANCE :D
Wake up doctor freeman, wake up and smell the ashes...
Keep making this videos. You are keeping this big, wonderful world alive.
I played the campaign back in 1998 when i was very young. I did not really understand english but i had a friend who had an english father. We played the shit out of this game together and foremost against each other on deathmatch sessions. I remember bringing my pc many times to his home. Half-Life was seriously the shit back then so often we had other friends who joined us playing the game over lan for days including nights. Good memories.
The fact that half life alyx final hours refers to xen as a multiverse makes it much more interesting.
Everyone loves a multiverse
@@Skyrionn Definitely, it also makes the combine hunting the nihilath interesting too, a chase across the multiverse, thats some doctor who level of amazing there with some lovecraftian flavour. The more i look at the lore the more i realize that valve knows how to make stories.
Good call working with both. Looked great
Thanks 👍
And the rocket Gordon sends up to stop the resonance cascade gets used by the two progagonists of Half Life Decay. Using 3 crystals to un-resonate with Xen, but as it was about to work, the Nihilanth retaliates and pulls through a massive energy surge, destroying the 3 crystals and keeping the portals open.
And at the end of Half Life, G-man says: "The border world, Xen, is under our controll *for the time being*, thanks to you." And I've always enterpreted this to be that the Combine detected the portal surge from the Nihilanth dying and discovering Xen and shortly thereafter Earth. Not like you suggested that the Combine detected the resonance cascade.
Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman. Rise and shine...not that I wish to imply you have been sleeping on the job. No one is more deserving of a rest. And all the effort in the world would have gone to waste until...well, let's just say your hour has come again.
The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world ...So, wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes.
Your pace and voice is wonderful, you made 20 minutes feel like 5, but in the best way possible. I’ve learned a lot from this, thank you!!
Thanks so much. I think I've finally found my groove with the voiceover style now. I'm glad you enjoyed it
"Aw, you cut the Half-Life Xen!
Sellout." --Black Mesa Security Guard
Can you do one of these on the Combine? We know about Civil Protection and the Citadel but just what are the Combine and where do they come from? What of their origins and their motivation? Cheers
breengrub talks about this a lot
Don't take my word for it, but I think the g-man actually gave the xen crystal Wallace Breen GG-3883, now whether he gave it directly to him or in some other way I don't know, but probably the g-man overdid it that the spectrometer against mass to work at 105% which led to the opening of an intermedia portal with xen. There’s probably no interest directly to g-man in controlling xen, probably his employers control xen, which is why I don’t know, although employers themselves are a big mystery in the Half Life universe as well as g-man. Although I believe that Nihilanth opened the portal and moved to another universe in order to escape from Combine, and when he left, he immediately closed the interdimensional portal and thus escaped from them. In Half Life Decay in the last chapter it is the Gamma Labs machine which was used to get xen creatures without going to xen, used to reverse the cascade and seal the picot between earth and xen where much or drastically affected the interdimensional portal.
The fact that G-man told Eli just before Gordon pushes the cart into the mass "whatever the name is" also confirms that G-man was indeed the man who gave the crystal to Breen/Vance/Kleiner/Magnusson
@@mrunitforge the fact is we don't know
You know who his real employer is: it's Cave Johnson the CEO of Aperture Science.
this soundtrack and ur voice hits perfectly
Thank you ☺
I feel so dumb. For some reason I always thought the Xen creatures came with the Combine. Despite it being completely obvious and playing Half-Life 1 repeatedly, I totally missed that the portals connected to Xen brought the creatures and it was the Resonance Cascade that attracted the Combine who would show up in HL2 🤦🏻♀️ anyways these videos are amazing
Great seeing the Back Mesa footage. Love both games just as equally, but visually BM's Xen is just something else and is just beautiful to walk through.
The Combine are the real villains. They're scary, awful, cruel and evil.
100%
I would love to hear a lore of Combine domination... I just really curious what are they
I feel like not many would contest you on that
From our standpoint, yes. However it is likely if we discovered advanced space travel like the combine we would do the same things they do, taking over planets and species. Galactic domination isn't mutually exclusive, the combine really just did it first and that's why they succeeded.
12:36 *when the Nihilanth accidentally opens his front camera*
whoops
Lmao
"I showed you my third arm, please respond".
*Meanwhile in an alternate timeline*
Nihilanth: We're refugees trying to survive away from the fear of a multiversal slave empire. Let us live on Earth and we'll share with you our advanced technology.
Black Mesa: Sure, that sounds reasonable. We've got a big desert here away from the public eyes, so you can also live in secret while we learn how your organo-tech works.
god, i love this so much! the way you explain everything so well is magnificent! keep it up :)
I thought I know about half life, but your videos absolutely smash the knowledge of these universes.
I'm happy to help!
Hi! I just wanna say (if you didn't know) that there are a few kinds of Black Mesa spawnlists for gmod. There is a Prop, Npc (the npc one has expands. One is called Xen expand the other idk. But it's easy to find it) and even BMCE spawnlist.
I think I found that 😂
Was waiting for this one. Impressive work.
Thank you G-Man! There's more to come ☺
This is really well done, love your work!
Thanks so much for watching! There's more to come ☺
These videos are seriously well done.
I feel like the combine are exactly like the nihilanth; in that at the very top of the combine chain, there is a being that was enslaved by a powerful force as well and started its own enslavement
Such interesting lore thank you for the content
Thanks for the kind words!
Did the Nihilanth maybe alter the Vortigaunts to resemble themself? They have the same morphology, as do the grunts, controllers, and the gargantua, to an extent.
I enjoyed watching the combination of the original and black mesa, and liked that you chose to just show whats canon
Finally! Can’t wait to listen to this after work!
I hope you enjoy it!
When you escape extinction by the Combine: 12:18
I’m shivering rn dude, my species went extinct, fuck. I better start pull out my phone an start jacking it.
I wouldn’t know exactly but with the similarities of the Nihilanth and flying big heads and alien soldiers id think they actually came FROM the same planet as the Vortigaunts due to the similarities.
“Wake up and smell the ashes,” is such a good line.
OMG FINALLY!!! AND YOU USED BLACK MESA FOOTAGE!
It's a test. We'll see how it is received ☺
Wake up and smell the ashes
It was difficult to find 😅
worth noting that though we've never seen them on xen, its incredibly likely that the vortigaunts either found antlions on xen or brought them with them from their home world, as there are machines QUITE similar to combine thumpers on Xen.
I like to think that G-man is a time-traveler working for Combine and Black Mesa incident happens in a time loop of some sort.
Awesome video!
Too kind :D
xen is super convenient gateway between worlds with stable gravity and breathable atmosphere a perfect tool almost makes it seem like it was constructed for a purpose rather than being a natural phenomenon
Think you ment valve when you said bethesda at 27:09 :) Apart from that it was an amazing video!
I was attempting to use Bethesda as a comparison to Valve's storytelling but I worded it so badly that it didn't make sense looking back haha. Thanks for watching!
I see what you mean now! Haha! With context it totally makes sense! ❤
Great vid !
Thank you!
Keep making these videos i love them so much
Thank you! Will do!
Loved the vid 👌
More comments. Loving seeing your name
I'll keep this to watch in the morning with morning coffee.
Nice! I hope you enjoy it!
Man, this was one pretty looking episode
Thanks bud! Much appreciated ☺
When I was, I dunno, 13? first playing through Half-Life, this kind of thing was still relatively new, even if my dad got the game a few years after it initially came out, with its two expansions, on sale.
This entire game was mind-blowing. I had played Duke3D, Shadow Warrior, Quake, and way, wayyyy too much Doom. Half-Life was everything in one game. It was exploration, exposition, DISASTER, and sometimes outright horror. Creepy but really good music, and an atmosphere that didn't get matched for me, personally, until I played Unreal.
Nothing can nostalgically compare to Half-Life as far as first person narratives go for me. I can't replay it because I know it's a bit dated now and I don't want to ruin the sweet delicious nostalgia I draw on from it sometimes. :D
love your vids on half life :D
Thank you! I love putting them together
20:50 Wait, Bethesda?
I worded that part so badly. My point was lost haha
@@Skyrionn like i was in the xen world.
27:09 Bethesda games? A bit of a mishap there xD
Maximum oof :P
Lmao
Yeah, they have a great way of telling a story through environment. Valve are great for it too ☺
Also which design of the Nihilanth do you prefer. I kinda think that the original one with completely black eyes was more creepy. Though I do prefer the forward base of operations that they had in Xen
I prefer the original tbh - with having made this video in Black Mesa, I had to stick with that style for the Nihilanth for the video
Putting the lore aside, the Nihilanth reworked fight was amazing
Good stuff dood
Thanks bud! Too kind
I really enjoyed this video. Mixing Half-life and Black Mesa for this video turned out great. What did you find interesting when researching for this lore video? Thank you and enjoy your week!
Hey bud! The biggest thing for me while doing this was not really the research tbh, but just how well the remake captured Xen and made it even more stunning. I've now learned I can use Black Mesa to get nicer shots. Will use the original at points too!
Wake up and smell those ashes baybeeee
(outside the window of the vortigaunt house :))
You've got a Werner Herzog like voice. I'm hooked
I think that's a compliment :) Thank you!
Love this series.
Thank you! I appreciate the support
It looks like a lot of your background footage is shot through gmod. How did you get the Black Mesa maps in gmod? I'd love to be able to do the same, it'd be a massively useful asset to a lot of my projects.
Awesome to see you use Black Mesa for video!! It'd be awesome if all lore videos were recorded there :D but that's just my opinion, for me Black Mesa will always be what the writers pictured half life to look like, in their imaginations,but were limited by goldsrc engine capabilities
I think that is the direction I'm going to go in. Of course, using it to only show off Valve's canon.
Games like this are so well written it feels like only somone who’s witnessed it in real life could tell a tale like it. Man wouldn’t it be awesome if it wasn’t just a game? Lol
So you want to live through the combine invasion?
Lmao
Idk bro I like being alive and not a hive mind grub
Great to see you use BM footage! It fits really well with the video.
It seems to have gone pretty well. BM is stunning
i find this COMBINED style very nice
I see what you did there. You deserve a heart.
is it that time again?....wake up and smell the ashes.....
Great work man👍🙌👏 pleas more.
(I wish ther would be a german Version of youre Videos😅)
I think RUclips has the caption feature for German? I think so anyway. Thanks for the support.
Tbh you do really good with video games lore thats why i subcsribe too your channel becasued its very instresting and the vioce talking matces with the talk about the history of the games and story
Thanks bud! That is kind. There's more to come with new games too!
i think the reason why a lot of people hate xen is because of the puzzles, no not those puzzles the plug puzzles plus sometimes in interloper alongside the factory things can become REALLY REALLY annoying.
I found the G man at 22:34. I know its not what you asked the viewers to do but I found him there
How the resonnance cascade did manifest on Xen ? Did random portals randomly spawned all over the borderworld ?
Nihilanth, controllers, grunts and vortiguants have the same origin, as evidenced by their shared 3rd limb. Vorts, controllers and grunts also have similar eyes. Nihilanth has two main eyes, but also an additional three lining its brow. Nihilanth escaped the combine with some controllers, vorts and grunt tech under its control.
No. The grunts are genetically modified vortigaunts while the alien controllers are beings made from the Nihailinth dna
@@srdjanrikic978 Well, maybe controllers and grunts are vort/nihi combine tech, but nihilanth and vorts have the same origin.
@@pirincri I don't believe they have any sort of connection besides the third arm which could just represent that they have psychic abilities and it could also just be convergent evolution. The Nihialinth clearly says that it is the last of its species while the vortigaunts besides the third arm have no connection to the Nilinth
@@srdjanrikic978 Them being related by their arm is more likely than otherwise. The nihilanth could be the last of the mind-controlling rulers.
@@pirincri im pretty sure lore wise they were just imprisoned by the nihialinth when they came to xen. It could be that at one point it was like that but it was later retconed.
You should do a lore behind the core of the citadel
"A big angry ball"
Fin
hey can you try to make a lore video on gman? no one on yt has made a clear video on him yet :D
He's on my list. I don't have a lot of time to do a ton of research yet for him, but in the next month - I should have a lot more!
Wake up Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes.
Xen have a lot of hunters and it always makes me fell their prey are lacking. What do they hunt on the daily basis? It'd be interesting to see in some game or mod.
From what I understand, Xen isn’t exactly a dimension of its own, but a sort of border between universes, and that every separate species encountered on Xen each originate from a separate universe before ending up there somehow. Hell, the Vortigaunts and Nihilanth only ended up there because they were fleeing the Combine. As such, it’s likely that the flora and fauna of Xen is effectively a mixed bag of multiple separate ecosystems, so the predatory alien animals found there don’t really have their usual prey to hunt. Not sure how they got there in the first place though, unless they just accidentally noclipped there like the backrooms or something.
You know what is odd? the Nihilanth has 3 arms becasue ONE is sown on. His soldiers on the other hand all have 3 arms naturally. Maybe he is an experiment that fled the lab and made other creatures in his immage.
The G-Man brought the crystal to the black mesa team.
Yes he did
I know it's a game and all, but how did Xen wildlife actually SURVIVE on earth? Once they invade they'd be introduced to a plethora of microbes that would wreak havok on their unfamiliar immune system.
So, wake up Mr Freeman, wake up and smell the ashes
Black Mesa's Zen is just so beautiful
It really is
Resonance cascade explanation starts at 17:50 LETS GOOO
Put it in just for you haha
Hmm, Nihilanth discovered earth, planet that wasn't enslaved by the combine so he decided to attack it wich made it weaker wich made combine attack it.
It's unfortunate the Xenian and Race X factions didn't instead team up with Earth. Combine could have probably been defeated or held off with all three working together.
I don't think so, really. Combine genocided so many powerful spiecies, and controls so powerful tech, you can't really defeat them only with brute strength. There is a reason why g-man uses humans, and why only chance to fight back combine is many years after they took over years, when there is only small force of actuall combine forces on the planet, meant to controll population. I think it's very telling of how powerful combine actually is, when Xen and Race X think fighting earth and each other is much better way than facing combine.
Back in. Black Mesa, I was playing it, until I reach XEN, It’s Very Beautiful.
Stunning
Just imagine a real XEN
In real life
At last, the beautiful borderworld!
A stunning borderworld
Ah yes, one of the strongest creature loses to a nerd with HK MP5 and M203 and a Crowbar
Deutsche Qualitat
Is this interpretation of the Xen timeline correct? I thought the Vortigaunts and Controllers came to Xen at the same time from the same place. Both species have arms from their chests, so I think they evolved on the same planet
What always confuses me about Xen as a border world without its own fauna and flora: Why are Nihilanth, Vortigaunts, Controllers and Grunts so similar? They have a humanoid body plan with an additional chest-mounted arm. Yet they are all supposed to be from different dimensions? Back when I only knew Half-Life 1, I had assumed they were all from the same realm and had developed this way because of a common evolutionary ancestor (kind of how, say, all mammals on Earth have a similar basic body plan).
Iv had dreams of a place like this . Huh
Wake up and smell the ashes...
Is the whole thing about the vortigaunts canon, or is that just the most common theory? It checks out with the nihlanth coming there and finding the vorts to enslave, despite the vorts not being native, but is that canon?
I have never seen any evidence that the vortigaunts came to Xen before being enslaved by Nihilanth.
I think their world was taken over by the combine and found xen, which later was found by the nihilanth, who said "it's free real estate" (exact words) and enslaved them.