Half-Life: The Lore Behind Striders
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- Striders are extremely terrifying to look at, and deadlier than they look. I went to a post-Combine Earth to find out what I could about them.
I started Skyrionn to go back and look at easter eggs and the little details in classic video games. From that, I’ve moved on to looking at timelines and lore in video games.
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Half-Life 2 OST - Lab Practicum
#HalfLife #Striders #Lore
Striders were actually alien creatures that the Combine captured, assimilated, and heavy modified with their technology. The Combine developed the ability to synthetically create these creatures, as they ran their original population extinct.
I think the same thing. I mean, who is born with two guns in the body? xD
they look even more uglier skinned/without armor
@@gabrielchavez6066 I was born with quite a gun on my body. And all I think about now is: double the gun, double the fun 8)
I always wondered if the strider was modified so it's penis became the gun, so when it shoots its actually blasting the enemy with high velocity semen
@@bobograndman How do I delete someone else's comment
Living alien creature: exists
Combine: let's turn it into a car!
basically
Thats why they're name is combine,they combine stuff.
I thought was gonna turn stuff into convertibles
Dababy
@@NekzLvL its Convertible lol!
I dissected one in gmod and discovered some interesting things, first of all, the machine gun 'nose' socket is actually in what used to be it's mouth with the roof of the mouth removed and the ammunition packed up into what was once the nasal cavity.
Second, the legs would have had two toes on each foot, the toes and foot where replaced.
Last, they were most probably completely harmless prior to the combine conquering them, they seem to have been animals from the same planet as the gunship and dropship, as well as unused beta soldier synths. They were most likely herbivores that used their long legs to reach tall plants, similar in function to earth's giraffes.
Will you make a video of you doing it
@@CursedCaptainGaming I will if it is desired, it would be my first ever youtube video.
@@samanthagarrett3671 ah, ok I’m just curious to see em
I'd watch jt
So what your saying is we need to strap machine guns to giraffes?
Imagine how painful it must be to be kidnapped by another alien species and turned into a living machine gun
The Half-life community should be alive again, and I hope people will notice this amazing lore videos you do Sky
roblox arma 3
many games have mods about half life and they are recent
Did it ever go away? What border world are you living in?
@@JpAmbulante gary's mod in npc section pure combines
@@JpAmbulante ???
striders remind me of the tripods in War of the Worlds
same bro
Its a brutal Weapon
They are aliens not machine
I'm doing a play through with mods right now and the strider sounds have been replaced with the tripod horns. It's epic.
They were planned to have the tentacle arms on the bottom but it didn’t work very well.
When I was younger I always thought striders and head crabs were just weird looking thanksgiving turkeys
when i was younger i thought striders were just mech gonarchs
What turkeys were you eating?… LOL
Bruh
I absolutely love striders my favourite synthetic let alone my favourite thing in half life I wish there was more we could do with it or atleast see what it originally looked like
Hunters are mine
@@KyleNornIreland dropships are mine.
@Random Person yeah Striders r mad i Love them all ut Hunters r my Fave
The Strider is my #1
The Gunship (not the helicopter) is my #2
And the Hunter is my #3
I always liked the weird noise they make when you kill one
Sounds like a dubstep whale
it does!
When you look at the striders, they appear to be mostly unmodified. They are an insectoid species, with a proboscis-like feeding tube. Their stilt legs could mean that their original homeworld, the strider homeworld (strider prime) is a low gravity, forest world. Probably their homeworld orbits a star similar to ours and has an atmosphere similar to ours.
@@JamieLeeBornhorn Many theorized gunships as a type of aquatic (or dense gasses) creature. In the concept art of gunship bay, the tail is similar to a whale (like a U shape), then it is merged into a donut shape and formed into a propeller.
Dropships are probably based on crustacean, the two back jets always reminds me of a crab with “opened” abdomen, crab abdomen are really just like a lobster tail, but shortened. And in the concept idea, they were meant to be a crab like enemy that walks on land after dropping enemies.
@@anonymouswhite7957 there is concept art of a cut enemy, I forget where I saw it but it looks like an unmodded dropship
I personally believe the legs, the shell and the two cannons are modifications because they seem way more artificial than the rest of the body. I think the most organic thing is their dark body, but it has some tubes and machinery as well.
@@leo_the_v.3847 the legs and shell are natural. It's just basically a chicken with a gun attached to it. Their dark body is meat. You kill a strider by shooting it's belly no? It wouldn't make sense for the combine to take a soft animal and make it into a tripod death machine. It's just an animal armed with a cannon
According to the original designer of the Strider, they are actually synthetic copies of a combine sub-race. Fun fact!
In an interview for The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx, Tristan Reidford recalled asking Backman whether Striders were existing creatures subjected to cybernetic modification by the Combine, to which he replied that the Combine scanned the creature that would become the basis of the Strider's design in its natural habitat before recreating it synthetically
My favorite enemy in hl2
Same
Same but it can be annoying tho
Every game has an immediate recognizable enemy. The strider is that for me, alongside the headcrab.
Yeah they're cool but not on the bullsquid's level.
@@numnaut1314 nah better than acid squid
Fun fact: Striders have a melee attack when an enemy is under them. This attack sticks the ragdoll of said enemy [If possible] to their leg for some amount of time, before the strider kicks the ragdoll off, ready to strike another enemy.
Do lore behind the gunships, They're interesting.
They're on the list :)
Alright.
@@Skyrionn what about combine dropships
@@ChrisRC2008yep
Am i the only one who wanna touch the strider's head i mean cmon it just looks so scratchy like you could scratch it and it looks so smooth
I thought it would be covered in little hairs
I want to give a strider headpats
I think it would fell slimey
**DESINTEGRATED**
"NO WAY THEY STOLE THIS FROM SKIBIDI TOILE-"
"shoots bullets from my bottom turret(not a dingdong)(idk I haven't played half life)"
These things probably used to look completely different before the combine, they're like the stalkers are to humans. Soulless, hollow, useful.
I believe that a lot of the combine enemies (Striders/ Hunters) could maybe be imprisoned by the combine, or at least the combine go to their planets and take what they need, including reinforcements... I dont know!
Striders, hunters, and all synths are forced to evolve and have weapons attached, they likely only share similarities with their former being, but for the most part are completely changed.
Give them headpats
I also think Strider and Hunters are modified cousins of Houndeyes.
"Their bodies are covered in a hard shell, which protects them from damage"
Meanwhile, Dog: "is for me?" *rips out the shell like a maniac*
Rips with ease :)
Definitely based on a crab. The yellow bits or 'mustard' of a Blue Claw Crab is a thing. They have a very similar structural build in the legs, leg joints, and body. I even noticed the patterning of the 'lungs' from a real crab in the architecture of the Strider's body. Yeah, the developers were thinking 'crab'.
Guncrab?
@@leonardofilho7397 That works : )
This is great! Are you also using Half Life Alyx as a resource? Please make Combine Soldiers lore!
Here I'll do it for you.
Basically combine soldiers
(The human ones) are humans that have been captured or have volunteered to become a combine soldier. The process of becoming one is quite complicated, as most of their brain gets replaced by machinery and military experience .
Keep in mind that Metro Cops are not combine synths, they are just civilians who decided to sign up for the Metro Cop position for extra rations.
(the same thing goes for the grunts in alyx)
And that's basically it.
Playing through HL2 the striders were just another thing to kill but in the opening sequence in Half Life Alyx as the strider walks across the roofs has completely changed that for me, there was genuine fear as that thing walked over you.
this guy needs more subs and likes
Thanks so much! I appreciate that :)
@@Skyrionn np
Visited this comment again, glad to see you grew so much!
could you do a video on the history of half-life teleportation? i think it's pretty interesting
boom used strider sounds for upgraded titan speaker man
Strange how before Half-Life 2, Metropolice rode on top. Great video too.
I’ve never played Half Life but I love your other videos so I’m watching this one too. Might give the game a go just so I can understand the lore more
Play it. NOW
Play it or else.
@@humankerbal3623 what can you play it on
@@CursedCaptainGaming The entire series is best played on a PC because it can run on almost any computer
@@Thlormby I don’t have a computer in general
The lore behind race x
My headcanon is that the striders, dropships and gunships all originated from the same ocean planet. The strider was a crustacean at some point, the dropship some kind of whale-like creature and the gunship some smaller sort of fish.
dude! that makes so much sense! I can't believe I've never heard or thought of this before- especially because it makes sense for the flying critters to have come from an underwater planet.
yeah, it make so much sense that badass flying aliens came from super mario bros world 2-2
Striders are very creative. I love fighting them. When you hot them I actually feel like I hit them because of their pained screams when I strike them with a rocket
My fav alien in HL games
Very interesting lore
striders are a bit of a multipurpose support and heavy assault class, with their supportive capabilities coming in by area denial, destruction or demolition, or carrying sensitive but heavy objects(as seen in alyx). but they are much more known for their heavy firepower and thick armor, only heavy explosives can get through it.
i personally think that the striders and hunters are from the same world or at least from similar landscapes and this can be supported by them both using three legs possibly indicating a rocky and steep home worlds and may even be related to the hound eye but thats kinda my idea
Not really sure how any of this is Lore, you just described them as we see them in the game
The striders were captured and modified by the CWU. Which are a force of combine servants who built all sorts of things. For example they created the creamators helmet.
I just want to know what the originals look like instead of the armored one
2:14 again, just like the soldiers. That what they do all the game. Growl cry and all.
Can you do city/wasteland scanners?
Weren't Wasteland Scanners cut?
@@DresDEAD617 it has a diferrent name.
@@czechcrusader6461 What is it?
@@DresDEAD617 i think it's called shield scanners? It has the synth armor
I'm not sure if this is a game franchise you're interested in at all (if not that's totally fine), but I would love to see the timeline and lore of the Doom games.
I'm thinking of where to do the next timeline. I've never played Doom so it could be cool to play it.
I’m starting to think the Half Life devs have a thing for 3rd arms/legs
I mean striders, hunters, alien grunts, alien controllers, and the nihilanth have a 3rd arm or leg
Even the vortigaunts have a 3rd arm
Half life 4 confrked
Houndeyes too
Striders have full emotion and intelligence. Here’s why:
Hunters and striders are connected and protect eachother. Hunters are smaller than striders, and when the player is low in HP hunters make a laughing noise. Striders have a brain much like the hunter’s and it’s a lot bigger than the hunter’s brain which shows they can communicate and aren’t idiotic. Hunters have proven emotion from the laughing I said earlier. Striders have proven emotion because when they die they roar a lot louder and their roar gets wavy as if they are running out of life until it fades. The default roar noise isn’t wavy and doesn’t fade. Showing that they are more than dumb brutes with 99% of them replaced with metal. So.... there you have it. Proof that striders are not just dumb brutes.
You are going to say I’m crazy for what I am going to say, but listen here.
Given that time is a key part of this franchise, from how Vortigaunts and the G-Man can control time and stop it at will, that means there are timelines. And from how these things have brains bigger than human heads that are completely Intact with no modifications, hear me out and I bet you’ll call me crazy, but in one timeline, ONE TIMELINE, a strider becomes a defect and gets taught to help resistance and rebels against the combine. From how they speak and can communicate with hunters, and even know how to shoot into the sky to let combine know they found a high profile target such as Gordon and Alyx, they are at least smarter than a dog. Dogs are smart enough to understand A portion of English. Their brain is smaller than a human’s brain, and from these creatures having such a big brain, they are smart enough to understand English. Meaning that if a rebel disarms a strider, and tells the strider that the combine took over their planet using some sort of waves in the way hunters talk to striders telepathically, that they can convince striders to rebel and rearm the strider by telling the truth about the combine. It sounds crazy, but from how I think it, it adds up....
I guess striders and hunters share also the same origin.
seems like a cool theory, I like to think that the striders are some what intelligent somewhat on the same scale as a dolphin or corvid but not necessarily as intelligent as a human
Fun fact: There was going to be a scene in Alyx where the player allied with rogue strider, but it was scrapped for being too complex, among a number of other issues.
The size of a brain is irrelevant, intelligence is due to the number of complex neural pathways.
whale brains are bigger than human brains, size isn't determining of intelligence, only it's limit
Dude that dog is MAD.
We love to see it
i like the fact that the striders are literal tripods. i think the devs took some inspiration before war of the worlds 2005 by spielberg was released.
maybe they were inspired by the aslyum tripods.
or they read the book.
THATS WHAT I WAS THINKING
I always thought the spikes near the end of their legs were a sensory organ to aid them navigating the environment.
Not unlike earthly insects.
Hah, a nice idea. Come to think of it, it's not only the case with insects as domestic cats (among other felines) also have whiskers on their paws. As you can read on the web:
"Whiskers on the back of the legs help your cat climb trees. The carpal whiskers, located on the underside of the cat’s wrist are very useful in hunting. When the cat has prey captured in her paws, the carpal whiskers help determine if there’s any movement. Since cats can’t see as well up close, the carpal whiskers also help determine the position of the prey."
Considering the enormous length of striders' legs, I suppose additional sensory organs wouldn't be out of place, helping them navigate through tight spaces and detect enemies.
Im left with questions such as what species did they originate from? How massive must their planet be in order for them to need such long bodies? And what would they look like had they not been so incredibly malnourished as they seemingly are? As well as I see a parallel between the Striders and the Stalkers, that being similar treatment
I won't be surprised if the striders are inspired by the tripods from HG Welles classic novel the war of the worlds. They are both similar, not just with having 3 legs but also haveing a over powered weapon on them. With the tripods from War of the worlds having a hear ray instead of a blast cannon.
I always imagined that the cannon on their belly's once were a means for the creature to drink, like an elephant trunk. They'd squat down by a lake or something and dip the trunk in. The smaller gun on the head could have been a proboscis, like an insect, that would suck the insides of fruit growing on high up trees, or what ever equivalent the striders had on their home world. This would explain why they are so tall.
Striders remind me of the boats in the music video for "Eyes Wide Open" by Gotye, but that was released after Half Life 2.
Ahh Of Course A Spider I Even Don't Wanna Fight
I want to give a strider headpats
Tripod's cousin
the combine dropships look interesting you should cover that
Good idea!
Striders are cool
These creatures are most likely just as intelligent as the hunters, their brains are quite massive and they seem to communicate with a language
hl2 is up for a remake in the new engine
"if by vhance they are damage, they leak a yellow substance"
-proceed to show the strider bleeding purple juices
the striders are just tripods from War of the worlds but in a more like weirder way or whatever idk
May I request one Video?
If yes can you do the Shu'ulolthoi or Advisors Lore
If no it's ok I'll try n ask later
I'm always happy to take requests.
In the case of this one, just check the playlist of Half-Life lore. It should be in there :)
It's clear to me that the Strider's design is based off the Tripods from H.G. Wells The War Of the Worlds.
Terrifying up close.
Use ranged weapons
Thank you for making this Videos! Can you do a Video about Gunships and Dropships?
Sure thing! If I can find enough information, I'll look into it.
That would be awesome thank you so much! I hope you get more Subscribers for your effort! And thanks for the fast respond. :D
One day I hope the resistance could capture and use things things and give the damned combine a taste of their own medicine
Hopefully not, wouldn’t be a good thing to stoop to the level of depravity of the combine slave empire imo
@@KeegoonBarnacle wdym The striders aren’t animals or being they are robotic weapons and ya they have a brain but it’s robotically made I don’t really see striders as creature to me they are just like regular tanks or fighting vehicles that’s it
@@Sidedlist No. The Striders are creatures from another planet the Combine conquered, and turned them into war machines, very much like whats they are doing to humans by turning them into Combine soliders or Stalkers.
Conquer, strip away identity, add mechanical implants and use the conquered beings to do your dirty work. Yeah you have to be kinda evil to partake in that. And more like theres no way to turn them back.
Want to see someone make a mod that replaces striders with the Tripods from War of the Worlds (the book-accurate ones, not the movie ones)
The changes of anything coming from mars
Never got past The White Forest Battle and I hate myself for never finishing episode 2 because of that level.
Really? Man, how could you have just given up right before the grand finale?
@@BrunoBluthgeld I for once found it difficult to progress further, those God damn Strider things just tore me apart every damn time.
How quaint, I never had any troubles mowing through the combine forces. The infantry is laughable and there's always a rocket or two to deal with the synths. Hope you didn't choose the easy way and watche the Episode two's ending on youtube.
On a side note, it's funny to compare HL2 fighting system to Wolfenstein New Order. I never finished the latter cause one man wrecking the worldwide Nazi War machine all by himself is ridiculous. Half Life may seem similar as Freeman also appears out of the blue and wreaks havoc to the combine almost singlehandedly. The main difference, however, is that at no point does Freeman come across as invincible demigod. First, he runs from the combine and even his later victories are only moves on the chessboard where Gordon is merely a pawn. Ah, damn, sorry for rambling off-topic.
Maybe striders are just sea treaders so the combines could have went to 4546b and somehow managed to bring them back and then they modified them which would be why they have a gun
Imagine this being in the same universe? Wow
Funny thing is that one of the inspirations for the Sea Treader Leviathans is thought to be the Striders, which in turn were inspired by the tripods from War of the Worlds.
@@TylertheCC1010fan
And the tripods were made by HG wells who was definitely inspired by martians that don't exist, and those martians were inspired by-
I heard a rebel say” I swear they put babies in those striders”
The striders are my favorite
What I find sad and weird is that when I play Gmod.if you hit or kill them they let out a long agonising scream which makes me feel some sort of sympathy.
Dog is a freaking beast !!!
For the first month of me playing gmod, i found the strider sexually attractive for some reason
Is it because of the gun looks like a pp or the strange sounds
playing Half-Life 2 in the citadel level, going to Breen's office (when you are riding a cage-like transport), you can spot a Beetle Synths marching, with green color. I don't know what is it, and I didn't encounter it in a fight. hopefully you will make a video of it.
They were supposed to be full on enemies in the beta, but they were out there as just an Easter egg or something. The ones that float around are the mortar synths, and the ones that crawl are the crab synths. The crabs were supposed to have a mini gun, and could only be killed with explosives I think.
I think those spiky protrusions surrounding the base of the foot are hypersensitive feelers.
I have dirty mind and the strider's machine gun reminds me of.... 🤨
the striders literally can kick you to the top of the citadel
Bro this is just weve got hostiles from half life 1 black mesa without the start
pp cannon
Before I even knew their name in the game I would call them tripods
thanks
Their gun is basically their... ya know...
Nice coc- warp cannon
So they are alien cyborgs.
In my mind strider is an lifeform alien but forced to use armor and machine gun and another equipment
0:51 yes theire legs
Striders remind me of War of the worlds Tripods
its like a bunch of slaves going up against each other. the combine is extremely evil
They really are!
I put the brain in a rocket.
The shell is actually made of Kevlar making them bullet proof
Kevlar isn't exactly bullet proof, it's bullet resistant, but higher caliber bullets can easily penetrate it for example .50BMG.
Striders looks like a King Crab
Do dropships lore
you make good videos its a shame no one watches these
I appreciate the comment. I'm hoping the algorithm boosts the channel soon!
Why walk when you can ride? oops wrong game.
dog rode a strider once
do a lore behind gunships or dropships
So are these of the same twisted species as the hunters?
They remains me of alien tripipods
Not so much lore as a description?
this is more of an analysis
Phew i thik you will tell the secrets of striders
Most horrifying? No, because Stalkers is just too high a bar to top, and it’s hard to gauge how much the Strider is actually suffering. Most effective? Quite possibly, Hunters are up there though.
as much as Ifind it interesting, I wouldnt call it Lore as such for I thought Lore was things such as, What ARE strider, and What Striders Once Were, Not just talking about there role.
But I really like this video none the less.