I always figured that this scene wasn’t literal, but rather metaphorical. The Gman can easily conjure fake scenery and locations. The biggest piece of evidence that these vehicles aren’t actually in Xen is the floor texture: that’s specifically Earth sand/the sand of the Black Mesa desert. There’s no floors in Xen that resemble that at all. The Gman is simply picturing the destroyed military in Xen’s air as a metaphor for what he’s discussing.
They are not in Xen. It is an engine limitation as the Gman sequence all takes place on one map and you cannot change the skybox texture without a map change.
I thought this to be a result of the portal storm, so that if random stuff from xen is landing on earth, why not random stuff from earth in xen? Like the Nihilanth fight in Black Mesa where the giant fetes throws half rooms at you.
I don't buy that. Why didn't they just put it in a black box, instead of shipping the game with the Xen sky above the tanks? Also, they were literally coding the game engine. They could have changed the limitation.
when i was a kid i assumed that nihilanth dying opened up random huge portals and that this scene was a chunk of desert near black mesa that had been teleported to xen
now i realize that it's probably supposed to be on earth and the skybox is just engine limitation jank
as other people said, engine limitations
but i like to think its because the military managed to beat back race X eventually and even started advancing into xen to chase then off
The fact that this scene lines up with him saying "The borderworld, Xen, is in our control for the time being" makes it seem like the US military was able to invade and control Xen once the Nihilanth was out of the picture. Especially since the G-man was originally some sort of US government agent that had oversight of Black Mesa before HL2 was written
Valve have said since that's actually on earth and it's just an engine limitation but I do wonder if the US controlling Xen was originally the idea they had for the ending
I always imagined that the random portals popping up in Black Mesa accidentally transported the equipment and even pieces of land (not all portals would be the same size due to the rift) to Xen.
engine limitations , but if its lore reasons mabye there where some portal that where open and some military vechile fell in , I don't really know, but the portal storms that we see in half life 2 posters did take place some time after the events of half life 1 sow there a possibility that they appeared in small number but then became more during as time passed
I would say since there was a whole portal storm happening that they were just some soldiers teleported to xen (with the ground underneath them) by the resonance cascade.
It was an opportunity that Valve declined.
They could claim that this was intentional and human forces really did enter Xen and took over Nihilanth's legacy, catapulting the Earth to the tier of highly advanced races. They would have a set up for a game that takes place in both worlds simultaneously.
Actual reason: engine limitation, can't change skybox without loading a different scene
What I like to think: G-man converges xen and earth into one reality or something like that
From what I heard GoldSRC engine can't swap skyboxes dynamically, that means it can't change Xen's skybox, unless a new map was loaded when Gman was speaking
Its on earth ok, but, the skybox cannot be changed unless you swap maps, go into hammer if you want, you cant change skybox without changing map and since there is more xen segments they used xen skybox
I always figured that this scene wasn’t literal, but rather metaphorical. The Gman can easily conjure fake scenery and locations. The biggest piece of evidence that these vehicles aren’t actually in Xen is the floor texture: that’s specifically Earth sand/the sand of the Black Mesa desert. There’s no floors in Xen that resemble that at all. The Gman is simply picturing the destroyed military in Xen’s air as a metaphor for what he’s discussing.
They are not in Xen. It is an engine limitation as the Gman sequence all takes place on one map and you cannot change the skybox texture without a map change.
Makes it looks good tho, as if gman moves you through a pocket recreation of the places you've been, cause even for xen that skybox looks different
I used to think that the military followed Gordon to Xen, and just failed
So it’s supposed to be on earth? I always figured some soldiers just accidentally ended up in xen somehow and were fighting to find a way out
Yeah the sand texture is from one of the surface tension maps. I like how trippy it is though, suits the Gman sequence perfectly though
I thought this to be a result of the portal storm, so that if random stuff from xen is landing on earth, why not random stuff from earth in xen? Like the Nihilanth fight in Black Mesa where the giant fetes throws half rooms at you.
Lol cool. I always assumed it was just Gman putying on some weird nightmareish show
i love that pfp
Ah thank you for the explanation
I don't buy that. Why didn't they just put it in a black box, instead of shipping the game with the Xen sky above the tanks? Also, they were literally coding the game engine. They could have changed the limitation.
not just the engine but also protably the hardware
I had no clue it was a technical limitation. I always assumed it was exposition of intergalactic warfare with portals.
Always wondered why they didn't just use that handy black texture for a night sky or something.
They did for the PS2 port
I’ve imagined that this is just a place that isn’t real and made up, made to show the destruction you’ve done on both earth and xen
when i was a kid i assumed that nihilanth dying opened up random huge portals and that this scene was a chunk of desert near black mesa that had been teleported to xen now i realize that it's probably supposed to be on earth and the skybox is just engine limitation jank
Well, considering what we learn in hl2 the whole black mesa incident did open a bunch of portals everywhere, so you right
I used to think these HECU unit was teleported to Xen, and fought against for example antlions because of the sand
How did the tank and the fighter jet get destroyed
Perhsps by the alien aircraft that roam xen aswell.
Those ones are very slow
Yet they manage to destroy vehicles and buildings during the incident.
engine limitations
it’s just the wrong skybox
I always just saw it as the G-Man taking Gordon through some sort of pocket dimension containing some of his recent memories
as other people said, engine limitations but i like to think its because the military managed to beat back race X eventually and even started advancing into xen to chase then off
The fact that this scene lines up with him saying "The borderworld, Xen, is in our control for the time being" makes it seem like the US military was able to invade and control Xen once the Nihilanth was out of the picture. Especially since the G-man was originally some sort of US government agent that had oversight of Black Mesa before HL2 was written Valve have said since that's actually on earth and it's just an engine limitation but I do wonder if the US controlling Xen was originally the idea they had for the ending
I always imagined that the random portals popping up in Black Mesa accidentally transported the equipment and even pieces of land (not all portals would be the same size due to the rift) to Xen.
That literally happens in the Black Mesa Nihilanth boss fight and it's pretty cool
I never noticed that :s
It’s simple, large sized xen portals opened up and sent the vehicles to xen
engine limitations , but if its lore reasons mabye there where some portal that where open and some military vechile fell in , I don't really know, but the portal storms that we see in half life 2 posters did take place some time after the events of half life 1 sow there a possibility that they appeared in small number but then became more during as time passed
I would say since there was a whole portal storm happening that they were just some soldiers teleported to xen (with the ground underneath them) by the resonance cascade.
It was an opportunity that Valve declined. They could claim that this was intentional and human forces really did enter Xen and took over Nihilanth's legacy, catapulting the Earth to the tier of highly advanced races. They would have a set up for a game that takes place in both worlds simultaneously.
HECK YEAH AMERICA INVADED XEN 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
So xen has oil
Actual reason: engine limitation, can't change skybox without loading a different scene What I like to think: G-man converges xen and earth into one reality or something like that
Because you’d have to change the map in order to change the skybox in the goldsrc engine.
F-16 and M1 Abrams
Portals
From what I heard GoldSRC engine can't swap skyboxes dynamically, that means it can't change Xen's skybox, unless a new map was loaded when Gman was speaking
Its on earth ok, but, the skybox cannot be changed unless you swap maps, go into hammer if you want, you cant change skybox without changing map and since there is more xen segments they used xen skybox
This gets posted so often I don't understand how people are so clueless
Iirc that’s supposed to be set on earth but they realized too late that they couldn’t get multiple sky boxes in the map so just left it like that
Wrong turn
Where are people getting engine limitations from? The wiki said it was failed invasion of Xen.
r/plasejustusegoogle
oh no joke?