Proto:Half-Life 2 (Windows)/September 26th 2003 Build/Cut Enemies
This is a sub-page of Proto:Half-Life 2 (Windows)/September 26th 2003 Build.
Contents
Cremator
The Cremators are tall, cadaver-like beings with a white head, human-like arms, green cloths around them, and circular objects in the middle of their stomachs. They wield the Immolator weapon. According to a description in the book Raising the Bar, the Cremators would patrol the streets of City 17, using their Immolator to clean up the streets. Their signature weapon could also be used against citizens if need be.
However, in the prototype, the Cremators have no AI and cannot be spawned without any patches. They do have a model, some basic sounds, and 300 HP though.
The Cremator's head was reused in a prop in Eli's Lab in the final game, but Eli makes no mention of the Cremator if he talks about the head.
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Download Cremator model source
File: Hl2_Cremator_Source.zip (info)
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Cremator head prop in the final game.
Assassin
The Assassins, often called Alien Assassins, are lanky, cybernetic aliens with pale skin, wearing black outfits and cybernetic eyes extending out of their eye sockets.
Like the Cremators, the Assassins lacks any proper code, but their animations indicate that they are able to toss knives, slash with their claws, activate smoke with a button on their left hands, and toss something called "Tripwire" like a grenade. Generally, their animations suggest that the Assassins were to be fast opponents that would be able to take large jumps, similarly to Fast Zombies. Sounds indicate that they were supposed to be able to fire electrical balls at the player and play a silly taunt sound. There is also an animation called "inspect" where they were to look down, and another one called "inspectalert" where they reel back afterward, presumably after the "inspect" animation was being played.
They have no stats, so it's impossible to determine how much health they had and how much damage their attacks would've done.
In a default installation, the Assassin model uses an older format (v35), making very difficult if not impossible, to load in-game without converting it to the v37 model format.
According to Raising the Bar, the Assassin eventually became the Fast Zombie.
Alien Assassin deploying smoke with a button on his left hand.
Throwing something.
Running.
Running.
Zombie Assassin
The Zombie Assassin is an Alien Assassin that has been taken over by a Headcrab. All that exists of him is a model. The Classic Headcrabs on them looks closer to the final design than the prototype Classic Headcrab does.
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Female Assassin
The Female Assassins, unrelated to the Alien Assassins, is effectively a Combine version of the Assassins from Half-Life, right down to dual-wielding pistols (which have broken textures; this can be fixed by adding the pistol's VTF models to her texture folder). Their outfit's design resembles the final game's Combine Elite quite a bit, albeit much slimmer obviously. Interestingly, their boots resemble the Advanced Knee Replacements and Long Fall Boots that would later appear in the Portal series. The Female Assassins have unique effects on their helmets that makes red afterimages appear from their eye when they move. This is most easily seen when they are dodging attacks. Their head textures also have two Easter eggs of a monster's face and the artist's signature.
Unlike the Alien Assassins, the Female Assassins have fully working AI. They fire their pistols extremely fast, will jump to the side to occasionally dodge various means of assault, and they generally attempt to avoid the player if they get close. They have 150 HP, which combined with their fast-firing pistols and speed, makes them quite difficult to deal with.
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Close-up of her head.
Combine Elite head for comparison.
Easter egg on the Female Assassin's head texture and the artist's (Ted Backman) signature.
Female Assassin Texture Sheet and Half-Life 2: Survivor
This enemy uses separate textures for her model, but hidden inside her texture folder is a single sheet with a different look for the Female Assassin. The sheet makes the Female Assassin cleaner, lacks the camo on the vest, and makes the pants a light gray instead of a dark gray. However, this texture sheet does not fit on the Female Assassin model in the prototype and there is no model that this texture fits on.
The Japan-exclusive arcade game Half-Life 2: Survivor has a Female Combine Sniper player model that not only looks very similar to the Female Assassin, but also uses a very slightly modified version of the Female Assassin sheet found in the prototype. The concept for this character in the art book Raising the Bar also matches the Female Combine Sniper. This implies that the model used in Survivor is either the Female Assassin model meant for the prototype's newer texture sheet or a modified version of the model.
The newer sheet texture for an updated and missing Female Assassin model.
Female Assassin concept art in Raising the Bar, which matches the Female Combine Sniper in Half-Life 2: Survivor perfectly.
| Prototype | Female Combine Sniper |
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| Prototype | Female Combine Sniper |
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| Prototype | Female Combine Sniper |
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Combine Elite
The Combine Elites in the prototype is completely different to the one in the final version. Their outfit consists of a bulky, full-body cloaking suit that leaves only their masks, weapon belts, and guns unaffected. The suits themselves reflects whatever is behind the Combine (from the player's perspective) to make them blend in with it...at least it would if the shader weren't broken, making it a solid multi-colored camo blob. This can be easily fixed, however. Also, they would have used sniper rifles rather than pulse rifles. While there is a Combine Sniper in the final game, they only show up a handful of times near the end of the game and never have a model rendered until they're killed, which simply reuses the Combine Soldier model.
The Elite animations appear to be based on an earlier version of the Combine Soldier's. While most of them are similar to ones the prototype Combine Soldier uses, there is one interesting animation called "die," that shows the Combine Elites falling backwards and hitting the floor on their backs, even though the model already has ragdoll physics. In both the prototype and the final game, enemies enter a ragdoll state as soon as they get killed, so the presence of a specific die animation means that this model is either from a very early stage of development or there would have been a sequence where it has a unique death animation at some point.
The Combine Elites have extremely barebones code that seems to exist simply to make them spawn and do nothing else. According to their stats in the "skill" cfgs, they would have 100 HP; 20 more than a regular Combine Soldier does in Medium and Hard, and double one in Easy. All of this combined probably means the enemy was cut quite early, and wasn't fully removed.
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Download Combine Elite model source
File: Hl2 Combine Elite source.rar (info)
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End of the Combine Elite's dying animation.
Combine Guard
 | To do: What are the "special animations" on the e3_terminal map? |
The Combine Guards are large, hulking Synths that uses gigantic energy cannons as their main weapon (which the player can use!). They have two heads; a Human head without eyes that's buried in the Synth and has a pipe in their mouths, and a triangular head with blue lights on it that's attached to the top of the Combine Guard. The triangular head appears to be the "real" head, as the Combine Guard animations shows the triangular head looking around while the Human head does nothing.
In-game, the Combine Guards are almost invincible to everything, even though he spews yellow alien blood from the original Half-Life when shot. Their guns are extremely powerful and can kill the player in one hit. They also tend to kill any enemies near them as well.
The code for the Combine Guards mentions that the game would track separate armor pieces on the Combine Guards, each with 50 HP. These armor parts would be on the enemy's left thigh, right thigh, left shin, right shin, torso, arms, and lower torso. These would have to be destroyed in order for the battle to progress. Damaged parts would produce smoke, and destroying them would cause an explosion. The Combine Guards also enter a "Clobbered" state, during which the game would select a random bit of leg armor and destroy it. If all of the armor parts were destroyed, the Combine Guards enter a "helpless" state, allowing the player to defeat them much easier, given the message that would be printed ("NO!!!!!!!! I'M DEADZ0R!!") when they enter the Helpless state.
These enemies have special animations for the e3_Terminal map, which only exists in the WC Mappack. These involve the Guard punching through a window in a door, then the robot head peeks through the hole. Then, once that process is done, the cybernetic enemy was to beat down the door with his increased strength. It remains a mystery on why exactly they have been cut, but their signature weapon has been reused in some capacity for the Strider.
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Combine Guard Gun Texture
Of note is that while there is a Combine Guard Gun weapon in the game, it looks completely different from the one the Combine Guard uses. A texture matching the player-used one does exist in the game's files, however. There is also another texture called "CombineGun" which appears to be even earlier than the current and player version models.
| Used Combine Guard Gun texture | CombineGun |
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| Used Combine Guard Gun texture | CombineWeapon |
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| CombineGun texture | Usable Combine Guard Gun weapon model |
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Hydra
The Hydras are long blue tentacles with a sharp point at the end and visible veins inside them. Their only attacks is to impale a target with their sharp points, then move around with the target's ragdoll on them. They must be long enough in order to attack at all. Their code is quite complex; the code calculates the maximum distance the Hydras can go, how long they should be, how to avoid getting wrapped up, and to plow through objects when attacking. They have 20 health by default, making them very easy to kill if the player could face them.
The Hydras have two more models for the E3 2003 demonstration shown in the map E3_Under; Seer and Smacker. The Seer have eye-like tips, and the Smackers have oval tips. What they were meant to do is unknown, as there is no code for them.
While not normally seen in the prototype, a map developer's note in the map d3_under_01 mentions the Hydras as enemies one would have to face in the map, including a final encounter on a bridge.
As much as these enemies have the potential to be amazing and unique, these enemies were sadly wasted and removed in the final version of the game, but their textures are still in the final game's files.
Hydra's back.
Seer.
Seer's side.
Smacker.
Smacker front.
Combot
The Combots are the predecessors of the final game's City Scanners. They keep the City Scanner's basic shape, but have red faceplates and a much larger and more orange eye than the City Scanner does. Their rear has "C17" on it.
Like the City Scanners, the Combots will normally float around a map and take pictures with the flash effect like the City Scanners, though the blindness effect is still yet to be implemented at that time. Unlike the City Scanners, the Combots have weapons they can and will use, as seen in the prototype's devtest map. They will spew gas at the player if they were to get close enough, then back away a bit. Their animations also show an unused melee attack where they would take spikes out of their bodies and point them between the folds on their face flaps. How they would attack with these is unknown. The Combots is also faster and more prone to dodging than the final City Scanner is, making them more difficult to destroy comparatively.
They would also be able to talk to the player or NPCs at one point, as they have unused, feminine speech messages related to scanning people, such as telling them to stop and submit for a scan, and some responses for after said scans. However, they do not do this outside of combat, where they would be more fitting.
The final City Scanner textures and model are already in the game, suggesting the Combots was already on their way out when this prototype was compiled. According to the Episode Three coding, the Combots were to be reused in some capacity, but the weapons were to be different instead.
| Combot | City Scanner |
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| Combot | Final City Scanner |
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| Combot | Final City Scanner |
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Wasteland Scanner
The Wasteland Scanners are special types of Scanners for the scrapped Wasteland area. They look nothing like any other Scanners in the game; they are very asymmetrical orange blobs of tech with dark purple cameras that look like fusions of mechanical and organic eyes in the center of them, three tentacle-like laser shooters on their left side, and a grenade launcher on their right side.
There is another Wasteland Scanner model called "wscanner_single". The model is too old to open, but a model editor preview screenshot of the other Wasteland Scanner shows an earlier design for them. The earlier Wasteland Scanners keeps the basic shape and weapon layout, but the bodies are a muted green color and the cameras are a bulbous glass-like substance that sticks out of the Scanner among other small changes. They also have what appears to be a blinking animation, and the lasers on the left side move around.
These enemies would have the unique abilities to connect with up to two other Wasteland Scanners to increase their firepower. Models exist for the connected Wasteland Scanners, but they use an older model format and must be converted to v37 in order to be viewable. The connected versions lack textures, but their preview images show them using the older green design. This suggests that the connecting concept was cut before the new model was made. The same extra animations that wscanner_single have, such as the moving laser guns, also appear on these models.
The grenade firing sound for the Wasteland Scanner still exists in the final game's files.
Textured Model
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Back.
Side.
Grenade fired by the Wasteland Scanner.
Older Models
Single preview image with textures.
Duo preview image with textures.
Trio preview image with textures.
Single.
Older single back.
Duo.
Duo back.
Trio.
Trio back.
Missile Defense
The Missile Defenses are a robotic enemy that was to be used during a removed sequence where the player controls missiles like the Redeemer's alternate fire mode in the Unreal Tournament games. Their model exists in the game's files and they have code found in the Source source code leak.
Based on the code, the Missile Defenses would shoot down player-controlled missiles with special homing bullets. They would have to reload, likely giving the player a chance to hit them with missiles in order to destroy them. When destroyed, their top would explode and spew some parts. Its entity is still in the final game and is mostly functional, as sometimes they will shoot down rockets multiple times, one time, or not shoot at all.
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Bullsquid
The Bullsquids from the original Half-Life exists in this prototype. The Bullsquid skin is blood-red with yellow, frog-like eyes. Their underbellies are a more pink color, though. Their sounds are similar to the sounds used in Half-Life, but with added bass.
In-game, the Bullsquids act almost exactly like they would've done in the first game, shooting toxic saliva at the player from afar and swinging their tails around as a melee attack if the player gets too close to them. They will also hunt for any Headcrabs on sight like in Half-Life. The Bullsquids only appear in d2_canals_02.
The Bullsquid's projectiles have a rendering issue; the trail sprites that were meant to appear behind the projectile do not have transparency, making it look like the player is being attacked by a trail of black boxes with green and pink orbs inside them. Fortunately, there is a patch to fix this issue. It remains unknown why exactly the Bullsquids are left unused, however.
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Bugged Bullsquid projectile.
Newer Bullsquid
An unused skin for a newer Bullsquid model exists in the prototype as well. It turns out this model was meant to be used in the episodic installments of Half-Life 2, where they would behave more like a crocodile, lurking in the water and briefly attacking while out of it instead of roaming around, like they do in this prototype.
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Download New Bullsquid model source
File: Hl2 newbullsquidmodelsource.rar (info)
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| Unused texture sheet | Discovered Bullsquid model |
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| Prototype Bullsquid | Discovered Bullsquid model |
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Houndeye
The Houndeyes from Half-Life was also meant to make a reappearance. Their code suggests they would have behaved like they did in the original game. They also seem to use the same SFX as the original game.
Unfortunately, the Houndeye's model is corrupt, but the textures and their model preview images can still be viewed. The textures and preview image indicate that the HL2 Houndeyes were meant to be much skinnier and hairier (at least around the eyes) than the one in HL.
Side texture.
Eye texture.
Env texture for the eye.
Texture for the hairs found on the model preview image.
Sand Barnacle
A model for an enemy called the "Sand Barnacle" exists. Despite having a complete texture set, they use a simple brown texture in-game instead. Unlike the regular Barnacles, the Sand Barnacles are to be mounted on the sand.
They lack animations and code, making it very hard to determine how exactly they would've behaved. Based on the name, they likely would have appeared in sandy areas, such as the Coast or the cut Wasteland area.
The intended texture for the Sand Barnacle.
Antlion Grub
A model for an earlier version of the Antlion Grubs is in the game's files. This design is much fatter than the one used in Half-Life 2: Episode Two and have different heads. Animations reveal that they would be able to move around, heal while attached to something, and even attack unlike their retail counterpart! The attack animation is the same as their idle animation, though.
Of note is that the prototype Antlion Grub model was also used in early Episode Two trailers.
| Prototype | Episode 2 model |
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| Prototype | Episode 2 model |
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| Prototype | Episode 2 model |
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| Prototype | Episode 2 model | Easter Egg |
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Rollerbull
The rollerbull was a cut roller type enemy which would charge the player with its spikes. The rollerbull would bark and play taunts towards the player, before charging them with its spikes. The behavior was partially reused for the rollermine.
