Page 6: The Hemoglobin

Valve writer Marc Laidlaw.

As research and development continued, the rest of the team fleshed out the plot and gameplay. Although Newell was expecting the new game engine to dazzle audiences, he wanted to avoid building a sequel that was all about whiz-bang technology. "Our games aren't about throwing you in a room with a gun and a bunch of enemies and saying, 'Go have a game experience,'" he says. "Look at the tram ride in Half-Life--it had an almost operatic quality."

Half-Life's memorable storytelling can be traced to Laidlaw. A former legal secretary and novelist, Laidlaw worked with the team to create the game's overall narrative structure--he cross-pollinated ideas among the technologists, artists, and designers. So it's hardly surprising he's sometimes referred to as the "hemoglobin" of the team. While it would be easy describe Laidlaw as the game's writer, his role is deeper than that. "I'm a story guy but what I'm doing is in service to the gameplay," he says. "I'd be perfectly happy to work on a game that doesn't have a line of dialogue or text in it."

Gordon Freeman, the star of Half-Life 2.

Laidlaw says the Half-Life 2 team never wanted to stray far from the plot and storytelling devices that worked in Half-Life. "We still wanted to do a game about the journey of Gordon Freeman," he says, referring to the MIT-educated scientist who starred in the original game. "It's a story about a guy who doesn't speak and who finds out about himself only through what others tell him. The great thing about Half-Life is that Gordon walks around with everyone assuming he knows what to do. In fact, the player doesn't have a clue."

Viktor Antonov, Valve’s art director.

Gordon would be back for the sequel, as would the G-Man, the mysterious briefcase-carrying operative who now employs Gordon. But Black Mesa, the New Mexico research facility featured in the original, would not make a return. "The problem was that because the original game was set only in Black Mesa, we didn't have to think what was beyond its walls," Laidlaw says. For Half-Life 2, Valve wanted to create a brand-new environment that could support more-varied gameplay. "We just started coming up with a random list of environments that would be a visual challenge and fun to build," Laidlaw says. "We wanted to go from a unified lab to a much more epic and global feel."

Metal Gear Half-Life? This concept sketch for the original opening of Half-Life 2 shows a level reminiscent of the tanker sequence from Metal Gear Solid 2.

At first the team considered designing a game where Gordon would teleport to various planets around the galaxy and combat the Xen aliens from the first game. But Laidlaw says the team ultimately rejected that idea because it would be hard to create continuity between levels. Then Viktor Antonov--Valve's Bulgarian-born art director--suggested that the team think of setting the game in the suburban and outlying areas around an Eastern European-style city. The team liked the idea. Soon "City 17" was born.

In Laidlaw's first pass at the script, players would start the game by boarding the Borealis, an icebreaker bound for City 17. Once players arrived, they would discover the Combine, a new group of aliens trying to take over Earth, and Dr. Breen, an ominous Big Brother-like figure who appears on television monitors throughout the city. Half-Life 2, like the original, would be a voyage of discovery for the player. Valve would purposely not tell players how long it had been since the original game or what Gordon was doing in City 17.

Marc Laidlaw wanted family relationships to play an important role in Half-Life 2.

Once Laidlaw nailed down the plot points, he then focused on fleshing out specific characters. Birdwell's impressive in-game character models meant that there would be huge potential to create drama using richly animated characters. (Like the original, Half-Life 2 wouldn't include any cutscenes or have Gordon speak). Laidlaw, working in collaboration with designer Bill Van Buren, honed in on the idea of building familial relationships between characters such as Eli Vance, a scientist, and Alyx, his daughter. "Characters in games don't really have families, but it's this basic dramatic unit everyone understands," Laidlaw says. "I know, I know--this isn't the stuff you'd expect to see in a game derived from Quake and Doom," he admits with a chuckle.