Combine Soldier (Evolution)

The Combine Soldier is a transhuman enemy fought in Half-Life 2 and its episodes. Being the successor to Half-Life's Human Grunt, it is one of the earliest enemies conceived for the game and subsequently has one of the longest revision histories.

Concepts

There is a large amount of art of the Combine Soldier, much of it is radically different from any versions we see in-game.

Early Suit Designs

A few early concepts show different ideas for the Combine Soldier's design. For example, the "flames" soldiers reuse the head from some metrocop concept art.

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Early Color Schemes

These are from a later point, when the general design of the Combine Soldier was decided on. Some of the concepts here experiment with a different head, along with coloration and smaller body details.

It's worth noting that in Half-Life 2 Survivor, the Combine medic models make some use of the alternate head designs.

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Alternate head

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Version 1: 2000

This single screenshot of two Combine Soldiers located in the map c1a3a_port is the earliest known in-game screenshot of Combine Soldiers. This image was found in one of Lars Linden's presentations by c.marti on 18th November 2020. This version of the Soldier bears somewhat of a similar appearance to the Pre-2002 version, but having an overall browner coloration to it, as well as a unique armband that seems to have the number 5 on it. There seems to be magazine pouches on the waist of the model similar to those of the Combine Elite, hinting that this model may have derived from the Elite or vice versa. Like some early Metropolice art, his helmet opens up in the middle, having hair stick out.

Screenshots

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  Original image used in the presentation.

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  Alternate clearer Black & White version.

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  Colored restoration of the Black & White image.

Version 2: Pre-2002

This version of the Combine Soldier still features the visibly red eyes from Version 1, and has a red arm-patch also seen later on Version 3. It has a visible finger on its hand which appears to come from an early Counter-Strike: Source playermodel. The glove, in turn, is adapted from the Gasmask Citizen. The helmet appears white in its e3_hydra screenshot. Interestingly, this version of the combine soldier has a different helmet to all future versions, with this helmet containing circular earpieces on either side of the head instead of the headset seen in later versions. The textures were released in 2020, minus the mouth filter, which is yet to be released.

Screenshots

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  comparison with the head texture (mirrored) and the hydra screenshot

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  From E3 2002 trailer

Textures

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  arm.vtf

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  bits.vtf

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  chest.vtf

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  hand (no alpha)

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  head.vtf

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  leg.vtf

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  Lleg.vtf

Version 3: 2002

In 2016, this version of the Combine Soldier had its textures leaked. Unlike the earlier versions, this one has a navy blue helmet, and yellow eyes. The Soldier_Stripped from the Leak appears to be from this version. The pants textures from this version are identical, and the boot textures are still fairly similar. Unlike the prior version, the glove textures are recycled directly from the Gasmask Citizen.

Screenshots

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Textures

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  Left leg texture (Soldier_Stripped)

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  Right leg texture (Soldier_Stripped)

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  Boot texture (Soldier_Stripped)

Version 4: Leak

The first (and last) early combine soldier we have the full model of. The helmet color has been changed to black, the emblem has changed to a blue-and-brown 314, and the eyes are now a darker, reddish brown. The boots have been reUVed and retextured.

Screenshots

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Textures

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  (Alpha channel removed)

Version 5: Early 2004

Far further along, this version of the Combine Soldier is nearly the final, but with some differences. The armor plates are the same color as the rest of the suit, and when comparing this to the final version, it has noticeably less shading.

Trivia

• Stangely, it is used instead of the final texture for the Zombine and GMod player version of the Combine Soldier.

Screenshots

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Textures

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  Original sheet

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  Zombine sheet

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  GMod Combine Soldier player sheet

Version 6: Retail

This is the finalized version of the Combine Soldier in Half-Life 2, varying primarily in shading and plate color from Version 5. No official screenshots are known to exist of this, as the Combine Soldier changed to Version 6 fairly late in development.

Textures

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Version 7: Episode 2 Retail

This is final known version of the Combine Soldier in the Half-Life series. The the only difference between version 6 and version 7 is that version 8 has a dirt overlay in the texture sheet, to fit the outland theme of Episode 2. Apart from that, much is the same, even the shading is the same.

Textures

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Miscellaneous: 2005 Aftermath

Referred to by the community as the "Skullbreaker" design, this early soldier texture was used while Episode 1 was still undergoing development under the name of "Half-Life 2: Aftermath". It also makes an appearance in the background artwork of Half-Life 2 Deathmatch.

Screenshots

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  Front View

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  In the Citadel holding an SMG

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  Fighting an Antlion guard

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  Ditto

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  Mounting a turret and attacked by Alyx

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  Visible in the background on the right

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  Ditto, higher quality but cropped

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  Visible in Half-Life 2 Deathmatch's menu artwork

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  Ditto, cropped and corrected aspect ratio

Texture Sheet Comparison

We have 5 revisions in total.

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Boot Comparison

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Sounds

The voice of the Combine Soldier also went through several iterations during the game's development.

/test/ folder

Long theorized to be the earliest set of voice lines for the Combine Soldier, these use original voice acting with a simpler, more muffled vocoder. Their pain and death sounds appear to be processed Human Grunt sounds. Interestingly, they are split into the subfolders "far" and "near", with the only difference between them being their volume. This may be an early example of Valve experimenting with direction based sound.

2003 Leak

These are the set of sounds used for the Combine Soldier in the 2003 leak. They appear to be Human Grunt sounds ran through a vocoder similar to the one used on the old Metropolice lines.

The Human Grunt for comparison:

Hydra demo

Within the Combine Soldier sound folder in the leak are a set of lines that appear to be voiced by John Patrick Lowrie, the voice of the Citizen in the final game. They can be identified by the prefix "cs_". These lines are the earliest example of the Combine Soldier using coded terminology, referring to "Morts" and "Scratchers" (Presumably Zombies and Antlions) among others. Although they lack any sort of processing and are unused, the line "cs_holditthere" was to be used in the E3 2002 Hydra demo, with a simple high-pass filter applied over it.

Retail

Aside from their pain and death sounds, which are from the 2003 leak's set, the retail Combine Soldier's voice acting is entirely re-recorded. Presumably voiced by Kelly Bailey, their vocoder and terminology is also different from any previous iteration (Most notably, they now name and answer directly to the Overwatch).