Mama Robotnik
Member
At the moment I'm doing media gathering for another research megathread (not Half-Life/Valve related unfortunately), but stumbled upon something quite by chance, that made me stop in awe.
Jack Monaham AKA Gausswerks is a talented concept artist/game designer. In his earlier days, he tried to create a "Valve Portfolio" for submission to the house of Half-Life. He wasn't successful, but rediscovered the images years later and uploaded them.
I think some of them are superb, and help me imagine the wider events of the Half-Life universe - both in terms of the plight of humanity and the scale of the Combine's horror.
I did a search and hadn't seen these posted, so forgive me if you've seen them before.
Firstly - an image showing City 16, informed by the idea that each Citadel was custom-made for a specific purpose. City 17 existed for human processing, whereas 16 is speculated to be for mass weapons creation and delivery.
Next, the scale of the "Universal Union" is made less implicit. Valve did a wonderful job in instilling terror based on hints and subtleties - but its interesting to see the wider elements of the Empire visualised:
The scale of the "Citadel Factory" is chilling, and the cold metal of the Xen Citadel juxtaposes the organic - now lifeless - surroundings. Just how many worlds are going through what Earth is?
Finally, the artist offers human stories that could be told in the Half-Life 2 era. A posthuman Combine soldier somehow holding onto his humanity, and joining the humans:
The idea is expanded on in the next series of images called "Stalkerbot" - A male or female character attends a Food Riot with their loved ones (and Alyx Vance)
The Combine unleash riot-shield armed Overwatch to suppress the mob:
The playable character is taken to the Citadel, and used as the organic component to a Robocop-esque supermachine called "Stalkerbot":
Thus, Stalkerbot defies his Combine programming and fights for the rebels. One thing that I like in the images, is the hint that "Stalkerbot"'s freedom may not necessarily be an accident. Consider its name, and the appearance of the Stalkers above - could they have created the machine as an attempt to rebel against their Combine masters in the only way they could, by using their own tech against them?
There's more at the site, if you are interested I'd suggest having a look.
I know its fanart - and it can be condescended as "mod-fodder" (as the artist even does) - but I think they're great. After looking through them, they really helped me further imagine the scale of stories that remain untold in the Half-Life universe.
Jack Monaham AKA Gausswerks is a talented concept artist/game designer. In his earlier days, he tried to create a "Valve Portfolio" for submission to the house of Half-Life. He wasn't successful, but rediscovered the images years later and uploaded them.
I think some of them are superb, and help me imagine the wider events of the Half-Life universe - both in terms of the plight of humanity and the scale of the Combine's horror.
I did a search and hadn't seen these posted, so forgive me if you've seen them before.
Firstly - an image showing City 16, informed by the idea that each Citadel was custom-made for a specific purpose. City 17 existed for human processing, whereas 16 is speculated to be for mass weapons creation and delivery.
Next, the scale of the "Universal Union" is made less implicit. Valve did a wonderful job in instilling terror based on hints and subtleties - but its interesting to see the wider elements of the Empire visualised:
The scale of the "Citadel Factory" is chilling, and the cold metal of the Xen Citadel juxtaposes the organic - now lifeless - surroundings. Just how many worlds are going through what Earth is?
Finally, the artist offers human stories that could be told in the Half-Life 2 era. A posthuman Combine soldier somehow holding onto his humanity, and joining the humans:
The idea is expanded on in the next series of images called "Stalkerbot" - A male or female character attends a Food Riot with their loved ones (and Alyx Vance)
The Combine unleash riot-shield armed Overwatch to suppress the mob:
The playable character is taken to the Citadel, and used as the organic component to a Robocop-esque supermachine called "Stalkerbot":
Thus, Stalkerbot defies his Combine programming and fights for the rebels. One thing that I like in the images, is the hint that "Stalkerbot"'s freedom may not necessarily be an accident. Consider its name, and the appearance of the Stalkers above - could they have created the machine as an attempt to rebel against their Combine masters in the only way they could, by using their own tech against them?
There's more at the site, if you are interested I'd suggest having a look.
I know its fanart - and it can be condescended as "mod-fodder" (as the artist even does) - but I think they're great. After looking through them, they really helped me further imagine the scale of stories that remain untold in the Half-Life universe.