History NightmareFuel / HalfLife

** Early on in "Unforseen Consequences" you can find a room where the lights have gone out apart from dim red emergency lighting, and over in the corner there's a headcrab zombie seated in a chair in front of a strobing black-and-white monitor, just sitting there spasming violently as the light flickers over it. It doesn't even react if you come up behind it and beat it to death with the crowbar; it also dies if you destroy the monitor instead. It's just a small, easily-missable scene, but it's like something out of ''Film/JacobsLadder'' or ''VideoGame/SilentHill''.

** The end of the game is rather chilling. After a section of the facility collapses with Candidate #12 crawling through a portal, he arrives at dormitory building well away from the main facility that shows the G-Man stopping the Kingpin from abducting Alyx before saving her himself. The sound of several Castle Castings air raid sirens going off along with Alyx's crying is rather chilling the first time as it's very obvious [[NukeEm what happens next.]]

** It gets worse in ''Opposing Force'', because Adrian Shephard gets knocked out in the initial raid and wakes up LateToTheTragedy as his unit is already pulling out. At first it seems like you're just ALighterShadeOfBlack because you're not involved with killing any staff ([[VideoGameCrueltyPotential story-wise at least]]) -- and then your own higher-ups send in the Black Ops that shoot you on sight. Black Mesa is such an absolute clusterfuck of an operation gone horribly wrong that the U.S Government sends assassins to kill their assassins, plant a [[NukeEm tactical warhead]] and attempts just totally and utterly KillEmAll before anyone escapes ''or'' the alien invasion spreads. [[FromBadToWorse And we all know they wish it was that easy.]]

** It gets worse in ''Opposing Force'', because Adrian Shephard gets knocked out in the initial raid and wakes up LateToTheTragedy as his unit is already pulling out. At first it seems like you're just ALighterShadeOfBlack because you're not involved with killing any staff ([[VideoGameCrueltyPotential story-wise at least]]) -- and then your own higher-ups send in the Black Ops. Black Mesa is such an absolute clusterfuck of an operation gone horribly wrong that the U.S Government sends assassins to kill their assassins, plant a [[NukeEm tactical warhead]] and attempts just totally and utterly KillEmAll before anyone escapes ''or'' the alien invasion spreads. [[FromBadToWorse And we all know they wish it was that easy.]]

[[folder:Meta]]
* Someone composed a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Iu4GXUHfU0 timeline video]] that compiles the events of the main three ''Half-Life'' games into one systematic video. It's as awe-inspiring as it is disturbing.
** Someone made a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUecnaevAEo companion video]] to the above one also set inside Black Mesa listing the various communications and [[ApocalypticLog security logs]]. From the medical reports of wounded guards and soldiers fighting to survive, warnings and disaster logs of a facility falling apart on itself, the growing death toll, the scrolling list of [[TheDeadHaveNames Employee names]], and the [[OminousMultipleScreens Multiple Screens]] showing the character's views, both videos present a grim scale of the Black Mesa disaster.
*** It then goes into NothingIsScarier as both the announcements and music quiet down during most of ''Opposing Force'', where by that point Black Mesa is so far beyond saving that the government has decided to just nuke the place regardless of any human stragglers that could not evacuate. Adrian is possibly the only one by Black Mesa's final hours to have survived the explosion, only because the G-Man plucked him out of the danger zone just to put him in stasis for an unknown amount of time, whereas everyone else was simply left behind to die.
** The above fan also created a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qmWvsxHuEk timeline of events]] for the world beyond Black Mesa up to the conclusion of the Seven Hour War, depicted as a series of news bulletins and a global casualty count. By the time Breen orchestrates humanity's surrender, not even a month after the initial disaster at Black Mesa, roughly a tenth of the global population is dead from the global portal storms and Combine invasion, and [[ForegoneConclusion things are only going to get worse.]] The video's goosebump factor is only amplified by the combined usage of the ambient tracks from ''Half-Life'', ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'', ''VideoGame/{{DEFCON}}'', and the real-life electromagnetic recordings of planets.
* "Epistle 3" by Marc Laidlaw (taken by many to be a plot summary for the unreleased Episode Three) is chock full of this. The Borealis is stretched thin between dimensions thanks to the Aperture technology on board the ship, Dr. Breen's consciousness has been placed in an Advisor body that ''begs'' Gordon and Alyx to kill it, Alyx kills Mossman when she tries to beach the ship, and she and Gordon are ultimately committed to ramming the Borealis into the Combine overworld on a suicide mission. Or at least that's what ''would'' have happened had the G-Man not extracted Alyx, leaving Gordon to his demise. Thankfully the Vortigaunts save Gordon, but not before he gets a glimpse at the Combine overworld, which is described as a massive Dyson sphere, and how the Borealis "would register as less than a fizzling matchhead as it blew itself apart" on its surface. The implication being that the Combine are so powerful and so vast in their scope that they're '''''impossible''''' to defeat entirely. Worst of all is the ending makes it ambiguous as to whether the Resistance was successful in driving them off Earth.
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* ''VideoGame/TheHidden'', a ''Half-Life'' multiplayer mod. All but one of the players are part of a SWAT-ish team hunting down an knife-wielding escaped fugitive. Unfortunately, some questionable experiments have given Subject 617 superhuman speed, strength, and senses, along with the ability to cling to walls, leap down hallways, see people's auras through solid matter, and feed on human flesh. Oh, and he's ''invisible''. There's nothing like wandering alone through a derelict apartment building at night, rounding a corner to find the rest of your squad hanging from the ceiling like slaughtered cattle, before a voice directly behind you hisses "''Turn around...''" Whoever's playing as The Hidden is given in-game voice taunts purely to scare the beejesus out of the opposing team, to the extent that some players will snap and start firing wildly at the slightest hint of noise or movement...or else crawl into a corner and hide.

* G-Man. There is just something [[UncannyValley unsettling]] about him... Basically, he looks and sounds like a creature doing an unconvincing job at pretending to be human.

** What's really interesting is how G-Man's pauses make it sound like he's stuttering sometimes... but it's never a scared stutter. G-Man is never scared, and is ''always'' in control. The stutter further shows how [[UncannyValley inhuman]] he is.

** However, you could treat it as NightmareRetardant if you [[Machinima/FreemansMind pretend it's just the cover to a metal album]].

** It's the pauses. "Rise and... shine, Mr. Freeman. Rise... and-shine." *shiver*

** However, you could treat it as NightmareRetardant if you pretend it's just [[Machinima/FreemansMind the cover to a metal album]].

** Early on in "Unforseen Consequences" you can find a room where the lights have gone out apart from dim red emergency lighting, and over in the corner there's a headcrab zombie seated in a chair in front of a strobing black-and-white monitor, just sitting there spasming violently as the light flickers over it. It doesn't even react if you come up behind it and beat it to death with the crowbar. It's just a small, easily-missable scene, but it's like something out of ''Film/JacobsLadder'' or ''VideoGame/SilentHill''.

** Take a closer look at the zombies when you get the chance, particularly at the headcrab over their head. ''The former human's skull is visible through the headcrab's body''. And what's even more grotesque? The Gonome, Opposing Force's showcase of what the next stage of zombification looks like, have their skulls even more ''deformed''.

[[folder:''Lost Coast'']]
* According to the developer's commentary, the developers purposefully designed certain areas of the stages to be distinctive "arenas" by making them large, open areas. They believed this would make the player feel exposed. It does.
[[/folder]]