Five years after the Black Mesa Incident, Adrian Shephard finds himself once again fighting for his very life and this time he’s no longer outfitted in his gas mask and camo. Much like teaming up with the scientists at Black Mesa to survive, he’s joined the resistance to preserve what little remains of the world they once knew. The firms starts as Shepard flees from a large force of Combine Soldiers. According to him, nobody knows from whence the Combine came, and that, to the combine, humans are "nothing but a race bent on self-destruction." Shephard makes his way through a Ravenholm steel manufacturing facility, encountering another resistance fighter (male). The resistance fighter attempts to broadcast a warning about the upcoming invasion through a small, high-tech communication device