Half Life Plot

06/01/15
Black Mesa is a Research Facility in New Mexico that the first Half Life game is set in. ‘Black Mesa’ is also the name of one of the Source engine re-imagining of the original Half-life, released by Valve in 1998.

As the player you control Gordon Freeman, a scientist working at the Black Mesa Research Facility. He is tasked to place a sample of a strange material into an electromagnetic instrument, using the Hazardous Environment Suit Mark IV to do so safely. However, the sample material causes a "resonance cascade", devastating the facility and creating an inter-dimensional rift to an alien dimension called Xen, bringing its alien creatures to Earth. Freeman survives, finds other survivors, and makes his way to the surface with the protection of his hazard suit to get help. Upon reaching the surface, however, he finds that the facility is being cleansed of any living thing - human or alien - by armed forces. From other scientists, Freeman finds the only way to stop the alien invasion is to cross over to Xen and destroy the entity holding the portal open. On Xen, Freeman eliminates the alien "leader", the Nihilanth, and is then confronted by the G-Man, who offers Freeman employment before putting him into stasis. Back in Black Mesa, a second alien race begins an invasion, but is stopped when a Marine corporal, Adrian Shephard, collapses its portal in the facility. The G-Man then destroys Black Mesa with a nuclear warhead, and detains Shephard in stasis.

Now in the 'new game' that I am creating environment concept for. Gordon Freeman, in his final call to action, is returning to where it all began and walking back into the sprawling nexus that is Black Mesa. The 30 years since the resonance cascade have not be kind to the scientific complex. How have the Combine modified and taken over the ruined or destroyed facility? What has G­Man’s bomb left standing? My task is to Create 1 environment painting that encapsulates a consistent part of Black Mesa and show how it has been overrun, distressed or destroyed.