The Combine's Horrific Prison | Nova Prospekt | Full Half-Life Lore

Nova Prospekt is one of The Combine's most guarded and feared locations across the wasteland. After Gordon Freeman returned for stasis, his actions led to the fall of this prison which then ignited the spark to begin The Uprising.

What horrors occur within Nova Prospekt? Why would The Combine chose an old prison to become one of their strongholds and how important was Nova Prospekt to The Combine's occupation of Planet Earth? In this episode, I explore the horrific Nova Prospekt in the Half-Life universe.

Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
01:21 Before the Invasion
03:21 The Combine Occupation and Adaptation
07:14 The Horrors and Technology of Nova Prospekt
13:20 Xenian Influence
16:06 The Fall of Nova Prospekt
21:09 Legacy
22:48 Development of Nova Prospekt
25:53 Closing Thoughts
27:05 Ending

Join the Discord Server!

BECOME A PATRON!

Twitter

Instagram

Standard Sources
Half-Life series playthrough research
Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
Half-Life: Alyx Playthrough
Portal/ Half-Life Fandom
Old Valve Forums

AUDIO USED
Half-Life 2 OST: Lab Practicum

#NovaProspekt #Lore #HalfLife

[Skyrionn]

Thanks for watching! Be sure to like, share and subscribe!

Should the next Half-Life be another VR exclusive?

[atariboy]

The way you describe the all your Half-Life lore videos is almost like watching a History Channel Documentary on Black Mesa and the 7 Hour War Events. Keep up the good work.

[male]

You should do "The Lore Behind: The Quarentine Zone" or the units that patrol it.

[luckylarry]

Valve knew they would eventually need to put the player back into some remote, concrete installation with lots of ventilation shafts, automated security sytems and security checkpoints, and various hazards he would have to navigate through. At the very root of it, this would also have to be a place where the _soldiers_, an iconic enemy from the base game, would seemingly be in control and use their advantage against the player, who up until this point, should be sufficiently adapted and equipped, to tackle such a challenge.
From my personal experience, I'd say that they exceeded all expectations and executed everything absolutely masterfully. From the previous chapter, where the player is forced to breach the installation firts in order to even beginning with his mission, fighting off humanoid enemies, that are well armed and well organized, even rocking in their own unique uniforms, to the eventual gunships, which arrive as a measure of last resort to neutralize the player's attempts to enter the prison, it is very clearly signalled to the player, that this will be the fight of his life.
What happens later, is a sequence of very well thought out and executed mini chapters, with the second Antlion Guard boss-fight and learning how to disable security system.
But it's not until the first security checkpoint with automated sentry turrets, which Gordon is able to place down, that the chapter truly shows what is yet to come. Eli is still far from the player's reach and by the time Gordon arrives to sector D8, the actual main event begins! I love the holdout segment and played through it dozenz upon dozens of times, and to this day it is easily my most favorite combat segment out of all HL games.

[newcastleman]

Nova was amazing and creepy at the same time. If the prison walls could talk. Great work as always.

[basedmoonman]

Seeing Gordon in 3rd person will never not be weird.

[falloutgamer]

When i think of nova prospekt that one side hallway always comes to mind thats right after you turn off that big fan. I like how there are four combine soldiers there, two are firing behind the corner where you cant see and two are hiding in front of you. Then the other two retreat into your view and a huge swarm of like 30 antlions slaughters all of them in 10 seconds. It does a good job of portraying how dire the situation was for the prison guards in nova prospekt

[mintysurfer]

I really thought it was cool how nova prospect was foreshadowed at in the very first scene of the game, right before you meet Barney. In smod tactical, I like it even more as it utilizes invisibility cloaks on the combine, and equips them with pulse rifles that are instead laser rifles. The music is really iconic too

[Syrhunter]

As someone under exposed to HL lore Nova Prospekt sounds really interesting, and involved with the world from your description
I'll probably be in for the 3rd Nova Prospekt video :j

[C-F]

I think it's difficult to tell whether there's something worse than being turned into a stalker, as we don't know much about their nature, specifically, whether any consciousness remains, because if not, it's functionally the same fate as simply dying but having your body be kept working artificially. Either way the one fate worse than that is probably being the original writer for HL:A and have the whole team be like "yeah no it's not half-lifey enough, scrap all that".

If' I'm allowed to give a bit of criticism on this otherwise very well made video, I feel like it's this slight bit blown out, with details like "they had *special terminals* to control the force fields", as if it's noteworthy that the force fields can be shut down, as opposed to walls, or what feels like a solid minute explaining the what trains are.

The first half of the video is almost as if you're trying to sell the idea of Nova Prospect to the Combine XD

[mark]

I am pretty impressed at the time making all of the shots, edit them and telling the whole story! Nice work!

[Mandrax]

One of the best storylines of any FPS game I've ever played, I wish we had a Half Life 3. I also wish I still had a PC so I could play Black Mesa and Half Life: Alyx. 😢

[Shige]

nice video als always, plz never get rid of this song.
Also the reason why the combine want to know how local teleportation works is because this knowledge is the key to find out how traveling through time works, like when Gordon and Alyx were send to the future by accident or what happened to the Borealis. This is the only reason the Gman interferes

[cyberdemon]

I love listening to these videos before sleep, the way you narrate to the story is fantastic, super immersive!! 10/10 keep it up

[lolzjake]

You are the best YouTuber, for Half life, this is better than switching TV channels where you want to eat

[dustypaint]

Sandtraps has always remind me of HL1's Surface Tension, both have the following similarities;

1)Both chapters are surface/outdoor levels, then become indoor/underground missions with close quarter combat in the next chapter. (lambda core)
2)Walking around a cliff.
3)Fighting air assets with a rocket launcher.
4)Trying to find your way into a mysterious complex, which was mentioned several chapters before, and the game builds its story during your fight your way into unknown.
5)Both chapters have following chapters which include teleportation.
6)Both teleportation parts put the player into last stand situation, he must survive long enough to escape the overwhelming enemies.
7) There is no coming back once the teleportation completes, both places get destroyed forever. The teleportation fields are prepared by an another character.
8)Both are relatively long but fun chapters.

[stunytsuR]

I think what made this part great in this game was the fact it was at night, the dark vibes were awesome

[g--stef]

Excellent video, man! You covered Nova Prospekt and its implications quite well, it really is an eerie place with nefarious purpose. I have to agree with you as well- I'm not sure there's a fate worse than being a Stalker save maybe being turned into a grub.
Speaking of, a video on Epistle 3 would be quite interesting! It's a LOT to unpack for such a short story, to say nothing of how it perfectly wraps up Half-life- and how it now appears to have been retconned.

[sobble_p]

i love the lore in valve's games so much. your commentary and cinematic editing make it 100x more cool

[toshirom]

The some kind duality of half-life 2 plot, I mean at first glance player think that is saving the humanity or at least creating some kind of rebellion, but after deep thinking each action against combine costs tons of humans life. Genius lore and Nova prospekt is this very moment in game where consequences are really catastrophic for common citizens, Combine is pure genius creation.