This is what happens if you fall in the slime without an HEV suit.
Like the base game, Black Mesa: Blue Shift explores the events of the Black Mesa Incident in much more horrifying and gruesome detail than its predecessor.
- The Resonance Cascade and elevator crash scene, for starters. It really illustrates how quickly everything goes to hell once the disaster begins.
- First, the lights flicker and the elevator stops and shudders for a few moments, then starts back up. As it continues down, alarms begin to blare and distant explosions are heard. The announcement system issues warnings about an "extreme energy field" and "unauthorized biological forms", as two security guards can be seen running past with weapons drawn and dread in their voices. The elevator keeps moving down, past a section of the transit system, where security guards and scientists are seen under attack by Vortigaunts and Houndeyes. As more of the aliens teleport in, one portal opens next to a loading robot, frying the robot as it crosses a set of train tracks. A few seconds later, the dead bot is hit by a cargo train, setting off a series of explosions which cause the elevator to fall, killing Patrice and seriously injuring Barney.
- When the elevator stops the first time, Patrice and Trevor nervously try to guess why, and when it starts up again, Patrice tries to stay positive. Moments later, as the Resonance Cascade begins, an electrical panel short-circuits behind Trevor's head, killing him. Patrice spends the rest of the scene begging for Trevor to be okay and pleading with Barney to do something to help him, all while becoming increasingly panicked until the elevator finally gives out and crashes. Her scream as the elevator falls is gut-wrenching.
- Shortly after regaining consciousness and leaving the crashed elevator, you come across a security guard who has a headcrab latched onto his head. You can shoot the headcrab off of him to prevent him from being zombified...revealing that his head is already deformed and covered in huge boils. A headcrab's mutating venom apparently takes effect terrifyingly quickly.
- Remember the lab with the chemical spills from the original Blue Shift? This time, the lab is completely flooded with glowing green corrosive liquid spilling from a broken pipe, and the corpses of several partially-dissolved scientists can be seen around the lab. One scientist is still alive when you enter the room, crouched on top of some lab equipment...but is then surprised by a headcrab teleporting in behind him, loses his balance, and falls into the slime. The unfortunate scientist is dissolved right down to a skeleton in seconds, while helplessly splashing around and screaming in agony the entire time. And no, you can't do anything to save him.
- Most of the first map of Duty Calls.
- It involves looking for other security guards in order to get the access codes to unlock the checkpoint leading out of the engineering labs. The checkpoint in question happens to have a scientist trapped inside. After finding fellow guard Murdoch and escorting him back to the security checkpoint, he tries to unlock the doors, but struggles to remember the code. As Murdoch tries to figure it out, a Vortigaunt teleports inside the checkpoint behind the scientist. The completely terrified scientist frantically begs for her life, but the Vortigaunt proceeds to vaporize her with an energy pulse, rips apart the frame of the checkpoint door with his bare hands, and then attacks Barney and Murdoch.
- The Vortigaunt's action to the Black Mesa scientist is a Tear Jerker, as he certainly didn't want to hurt anyone and was most likely forced to under the threat of torture or death from the Nihilanth's forces (which you can't blame him, as one of the Vorts in Black Mesa's Interloper gets beaten up by two Alien Grunts). He might even have already been under direct mind control from the Alien Controllers.
- The ambush the HECU have set up for Black Mesa staff at the start of Captive Freight is pretty unsettling. They try to lure Barney in by saying they found a dead scientist and asking Barney to check to see if he knows who the scientist was, then opening fire while he's distracted. Judging by their first appearance at the end of Duty Calls, they've been using the bodies of their latest victims as bait and throwing the older bodies down the disposal shaft. While some HECU members can be portrayed pretty sympathetically, the cold efficiency of this squad's trap makes them seem downright sociopathic.
