Writing Done Right! Half-Life
How the art of story telling revolutionized the entire gaming industry
Writing Done Right will be the name of an on-going series of articles that highlights the incredible story-telling prowess across a wide variety of media. I’ve done this in previous articles, but never had a name to tie them, and this came to mind and it stuck with me.
This week, we will be looking at arguably the biggest leap forward for the entire gaming industry: Half-Life.
When video games first hit the market, they were primarily geared towards children. From arcades, to platformers, to racing, and eventually first person shooters, players wanted fun, exciting experiences to test their ability to reach goals in these simulated situations. Perhaps the intrigue captivated many because of the ability to interact with this new form of media, with the click of buttons controlling a character or object. Story and setting paid mostly a backseat during the 80s and 90s.
This was especially true with the first person shooter genre. Following Wolfenstein 3d, Doom quickly became the premier game of its genre. It was fun, full of explosive action, and enthralled millions worldwide. However, Doom had a very basic (and silly) premise - a soldier goes on a rampage after demons killed his pet rabbit.
FPS games that followed lacked a compelling story, such as Quake or Unreal Tournament. However, in 1998, a humble studio called Valve, through a lot of vigorous trials, released the incredible story action shooter game we all came to know and love called Half-Life - gaming was no longer just for kids!
Welcome to Black Mesa
Half-Life starts the player in it’s most iconic opening sequence: the Black Mesa Transit System. Unlike FPS games of that era, where you immediately dive into the action with a gun in hand, Half-Life instead grounds the player in a more realistic atmosphere. This transit ride lets the player see through the eyes of Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist who is employed by this highly secretive research facility. The player then gets to roam around the Black Mesa facility and see all the technical marvels they have to offer. The setting feels alive, with security guards grant and escort Gordon access to certain areas, or stand in the way restricting him from entering places he shouldn’t. Scientists are either typing on keyboards, drafting equations on whiteboards, or trying to fix equipment. With all the NPCs performing their jobs, for the first time in video games, the world feels real.
The game then sets a foreboding tensions as the facility experiences a plethora of technical problems, building tension before the first great disaster Gordon Freeman inevitably causes: the resonance cascade.
Resonance Cascade
Half-Life demonstrated one of the most unique forms of cataclysms in all of media. We’ve probably been exposed to a million identical alien invasion stories, with War of the Worlds and Independence day, but Half-Life’s unique take makes it all the more special. After Gordon pushes the golden crystal into the machine, a worldwide portal storm causes aliens pop into existence seemingly at random. Not just one single alien race invaded the earth, seeking to conquer it, but a plethora of wild alien flora and fauna came with it. The parasitic headcrabs that zombify humans, the concussive three-legged dogs called houndeyes, or the tough, acid chucking bullsquid - all these off-world animals are just seeking to survive. Even the sentient aliens are unique in their own right, with vortigaunts and their use of bioelectricity used as a weapon, or the grunts who utilize gauntlets that shoot piercing hornets. They even command flying stingrays that can either cause devastation or summon portals. The creative team behind Half-Life had a plethora of unique ideas!
Enthralling Mysteries and Heightened Stakes
The visual story telling goes far beyond the initial tram ride, and little to no dialogue is required to paint the picture for the players. You see more wonderous examples of this as the player is teased by the elusive G-Man who follows Gordon throughout his journey, how the player sees more of Black Mesa and the types of experiments they’ve been conducting, the involvement of the military and how they are desperately trying to conceal this incident, and the player eventually visits the alien world of Xen. Upon the first playthrough, the player starts to wonder: What really is Black Mesa? Why is it so massive, and who is this strange man in the blue suit? How long have we known about this mystical dimension?
You even see the story progress through the scripted events. Even with the presence of the military, they are struggling more and more to contain the alien invasion at Black Mesa. At first, they occupy a great amount of space, seeming to have things under control against the vortigaunts and the alien animals. Then, the ape-like grunts appear along with their floating ‘controllers’, which causes a massive shift in the battle over the course of levels, even forcing a retreat. This builds a lot of tension for the player as he journeys to the lambda labs, and makes him realize he’s the only one who can put an end to this invasion.
Diverse Genres
Half-Life also does a masterful job melding a myriad of genres and elements into its story. At first, as you are equipped with a measly (yet iconic) crowbar, you have to fight your way through alien parasitic creatures and their zombie cousins as the entire facility around you falls to ruin. The alarms, death, and destruction, along with the confusion of the survivors and the spoken regret of the scientists, build a tension derided by horror. You then get into the action as you get your first gun and start shooting back as aliens teleport all around you, before the adrenaline kicks up a notch as you no longer just fight against these invaders, you are now fighting against your own countrymen dressed in camo trying to silence you. The sci-fi elements are highlighted as you explore the labs of Black Mesa and encounter experimental weaponry, and are revealed to the tests they’ve conducted on the Xen fauna and teleportation before you’re sent to the “border world.“ It all then concludes on a mind-twisting mystery that generations later are still struggling to piece together (even after the sequel.)
Half-Life has a lot to offer. It’s visual style and sounds are iconic and memorable decades after its release. The gameplay and innovations of its time were as revolutionary as the creative creature concepts. Most importantly, Valve stamped their legacy with the story of Gordon Freeman, a domino that lead to the revolutionary story-telling experience in gaming today.
Can we ever see a new zeitgeist shift in media like we’ve seen with Half-Life?