This is the third chapter of Half-Life 2. It details the first half of Dr. Gordon Freeman’s journey to Black Mesa East through the City 17 canal network.

In this lengthy chapter, Gordon acquires his first firearm, experiences a lot of combat with Civil Protection forces and encounters alien enemies such as Barnacles, Zombies during the end and Headcrabs for the first time.

This is the second chapter of Half-Life 2. It mostly consists of character interaction, introduction and plot exposition, setting Gordon Freeman’s goal for the next two chapters.

Freeman finds his way to Kleiner’s lab with Alyx’s help but is not thoroughly briefed on what has happened during his stasis. Clues are present throughout the game, and really, it is up to players to fill in the gaps.

Half-Life 2 begins with the G-Man taking Freeman out of stasis and inserting him into a train on his way to City 17, somewhere in Eastern Europe, about twenty years after the Black Mesa Incident.

Official sources differ on the actual length of this intermission.

A story fragment written by Marc Laidlaw for the development team puts the intermission at ten years, while Half-Life 2: Episode One’s website puts this intermission as “nearly two decades” after the end of the events of Half-Life.