Just another day on the force.
Entropy : Zero - Uprising
is a spin-off of Entropy : Zero developed by the modders Employee8 and Filipad. The mod is being released episodically, with the first episode released on April 9, 2023.
It depicts the events of the City 17 Uprising from the point of view of Victor-60, a Civil Protection officer just walking his beat on the day the Nova Prospekt teleporter explodes. As the Uprising begins and control of the city starts slipping from the Combine's grasp, he and his allied CP officers find themselves called to carry out increasingly dangerous missions.
The second episode, set just one day before Gordon Freeman's reappearance in City 17, is in active development as a mod for Entropy : Zero 2.
Entropy : Zero - Uprising contains examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending: One ending for the first episode involves Victor betraying Civil Protection for the Resistance, exacting revenge on his wife's killer, and unambiguously surviving past the finale. The post-credits scene takes a time-skip to Half-Life 2: Episode One's events, showing him deciding to remain in City 17 as the rebels escape, despite being offered to go alongside them and how imminent the Citadel's, and thus the city's, destruction is, apparently due to his grief over his wife's death taking too much of a toll on his conscience.
- Boring, but Practical: Battling the Uprising, the Metrocops are tasked with mundane but important tasks like running messages, disrupting supply lines and slowing Rebel recruitment.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Rogue Metrocops have lenses that glow orange as opposed to the standard blue.
- Cutting Off the Branches: The second episode will continue off from the ending where Victor doesn't defect from Civil Protection.
- Deadly Euphemism: As usual, the Combine forces use medical and judicial terms to describe their tactics, such as an allied Metrocop calling out that he is running out of "judgements" after throwing a grenade.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The better of the two endings for the first episode entails Victor betraying Civil Protection, joining the Resistance, and successfully convincing Bec to defect with him. Getting it is no walk in the park, as you have to refuse to drink the memory-erasing water each time you're prompted, and doing so causes Overwatch to deduct from your maximum armor as punishment; disobey their orders to drink the water at every single opportunity, and you'll be left with a mere 25 max armor.
- Elites Are More Glamorous: This mod shows the flipside, following shabby troops pushed into frontline service by necessity. While certain Overwatch Elite agents are going after extremely important fugitives with all the backing the Combine can provide, Civil Protection units find themselves on their own, with barely a Strider or Overwatch squad for backup. Even their HUD reminds them of their low status, deducting credit points from their accounts for exhibiting unwanted behavior.
- Foregone Conclusion: The Combine will lose the war for City 17.
- Heel–Face Turn:
- Or Face–Heel Turn, depending on your point of view. The first episode ends with your squad fighting a large group of Metrocops turned rebel. It is not made clear if these Metrocops were undercover rebel agents the whole time or have only turned with the balance of power shifting towards the Rebels.
- The first episode can alternatively end with Victor betraying Civil Protection and joining the Resistance, which becomes an option if you refuse to drink the memory-erasing water enough times. If this occurs, the final battle pits you against several squads of Combine soldiers and synth units instead of rebels and traitorous Metrocops.
- Home by Christmas: During the early days of the Uprising, the Metrocops can be heard discussing how the rebellion will be put down in a few days, tops.
- Inciting Incident: Things are not going well for the Combine, but in the first few days they seem to be holding the line and even gaining ground. Then you fail to reach a railroad junction in time, making the Combine unable to stop a shipment of supplies and heavy weapons from reaching the city, which is implied to be one of the factors allowing the Rebels to hold out long enough for a certain power-armored man to reappear and turn the tide, eventually leading to the destruction of the Citadel.
- Look Behind You: The first episode ends with you trying to scout ahead using a Combine CCTV station. More and more cameras are going off, until at last some words flash onto the screen telling you to look behind you. Some rogue Metrocops have snuck up on you and proceed to unceremoniously shoot you.
- Mauve Shirt: Bec and Bloody Cop, a Metrocop with one lens of his mask lit up and one in a blood-spattered uniform respectively, are two recurring characters who (unlike the regular Metrocops you're fighting alongside with) keep surviving despite the odds.
- Shout-Out: While your squad is moving through some canals, one of the officers talks about how last time he was here, his squad was nearly wiped out by necrotics (i.e. headcrab zombies). You then come across a car, and if you don't give it a wide berth, the alarm will go off, drawing in a huge horde of zombies.
- Too Dumb to Live: When you come to a Civil Protection outpost nestled among apartment blocks and about to be swamped by headcrab zombies, your buddy has to tell the Metrocops manning the post to stop shelling their own damn surroundings with more headcrabs.
- You Have Failed Me: Some Metrocops are fearing that the Combine will put the blame for the Uprising's success on them. They end up becoming increasingly desperate and daring during the Uprising, hoping that it will be enough for the Combine to notice and reward them with admission into the Overwatch.
