Humanity was ruined regardless. He 100% did what he did to afford humanity some level of comfort rather than complete annihilation. He received a little more comfort than most, but I'm sure his job is extremely stressful regardless. Then you have shit like Breen grub which has to be taken as canon is some capacity even if never officially released. Breen made a quick decision which came with upsides and downsides. Everyone was fucked no matter what.

>>734136109
Maybe he had somewhat good intentions, but his actions in the game say otherwise, I'd say.

>>734136301
I wonder how many elements will the next game take from the canceled project. Most probably will be different to keep the surprise but some things might return. Maybe the grub will

>>734136472
Yeah, even if Breen grub doesn't return, it definitely exists in the original timeline. I think Epistle 3 can easily be seen as canon that way. HL Alyx opened the floodgates to manipulating time lines, so anything is possible.

>>734136605
since the combine will only be one part of the next game, and gman employers, who are multi-universal, will be involved, maybe they will have one part of the game with you switching universes and world. with one inspired by the original game, another inspired by the BETA world... Could be fun short segments as nods to these.
We know Valve is trying to do some really impressive tech for that game as it's part of it's identity to try to revolutionize things.

It's really weird and off putting to me when people try to take the lore of half life dead serious when that just simply wasn't the case when the games came out.
Hell at the time most people weren't mad about it being a "cliffhanger" in episode 2.
They were mad about the Half Life X Portal gameplay being indefinitely shelved.

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>>734136109
How do you think they're gonna solve the issue with fighting advisors?
They've presented an enemy that can just completely disable the player and there's nothing in your kit that might hurt it. They caught Freeman twice and both times it was pure luck he came out alive.

So the player needs to have something that protects him from the instant disarm telekinesis, and some kind of weapon that can punch through the defenses - possibly something energy based(proper tau cannon return??) or related to the vorts since one of them mentions they're hunting them.
What do you think those things are gonna be? Surely they wouldn't make it so advisors are just a lame unbeatable stage hazard, right?

>>734137469
My bet is on Vortigaunts. They clearly have their own motives/desires at the end of all this and seemingly have an idea of how the future plays out. They let Eli die despite them having immense respect for him. Perhaps they were aware of Gmans meddling and knew he would be saved. The Vortigaunts will probably ass pull something for Gordon to utilize in the next game.

>>734137469
They won't be numerous, the combine cannot call for backup anymore, and they are not commons.
For all we know, there could only be one remaining, and it probably is very panicked considering events clearly did not happened as they should have.

I wonder if the next game will be only with Gordon or if it will switch characters between him and Alyx working as Gman's new agent.

Is the VRless mode for the VR game worth it?

>>734138052
It's still pretty alright since it's designed as a game but it's definitely not AS good as a flat screen game rather than a VR one.

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>>734136109
He was trying to save humanity. If you were giving the choice to subject your people to extinction or slavery you would pick the latter every single time.
>Ego
Ego here is irrelevant, ego is only relevant when you decide to pick between something that bolsters your own pride or something that benefits the whole. If one of the alternatives is complete annihilation then the alternative is always the correct choice, ego plays no part in it.

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>Tell me, Dr. Freeman, if you can: you have destroyed so much — what is it exactly that you have created? Can you name even one thing?... I thought not.
Meanwhile Breen brags about creating a shitty world nobody wanted.

>>734138739
>creating a shitty world nobody wanted.
As opposed to not creating anything and letting everyone die?

>>734138824
This falls apart as soon as he was presented with an option to actually get the combine to fuck off but still chose to stay in power.

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I wish they could bring back the metrocop captains. but the next game probably will be much bigger in scope for such lowly enemies unless there's a reason for you to encounter them instead of soldiers. (which could only be if you infiltrate another city)

so WHO is the mystery combine lady

>>734140537
Mystery hags owe me sex.

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Interestingly, the regular combine soldiers almost made the cut in Alyx, but weren't in the regular game.
I wonder, did valve decided to retcon them, were the soldiers organization different at the time of Alyx, or were they just different type of soldiers Gordon didn't get to see?

>>734137905
>one remaining
Don't think so, there were clearly numerous flying away from the citadel before it exploded, and that's not accounting whatever number of them escaped in the timeframe between Breen dying and the core collapse, it was supposed to be at least a week iirc. There are also full blown convoys with them, as seen after emerging from the antlion mines. There could also be more of them in other cities, we don't exactly know if the Citadel is the only one on Earth or if there are more combine constructs like that, even if smaller and/or without the ability to open up a portal and call for backup.
Besides, even the Vort states there are multiple advisors. They may not be common, but they're numerous enough to be a massive problem, and it takes just one to completely disable the resistance's trump card. Hell, even Dog probably wouldn't be a match against one if it wasn't distracted, they could just make it float and that's that.
I'm just curious about the way we're gonna fight them, even if it's just gonna be once or twice.

>>734141602
One of the soldiers in that game had a vort on his emblem, so I like to believe they are a special force made to fight against Xen creatures first and not humans like the one we see in 2.
The only exception to this are the weak ones, who may be an in-between state between metrocops and soldiers, and it was retired by the time of HL2.
though maybe the next game will mix things up again

>>734136109
I'd say both. Ego was definitely a factor, but I think he also believed he was doing the right thing, which he honestly was for the most part. A chance to fight back is infinitely preferable to total immediate annihilation, though his motivation was more about joining the combine than fighting back.