Half-Life Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Half-Life Wiki
This subject is from the Black Mesa Incident era.This is a featured article.
Imagecat For other uses, see Assassin (disambiguation).
Wiki spoiler This article contains spoilers. Read at your own risk!
Wiki images This article would greatly benefit from the addition of more images.
To illustrate the article add one or more relevant images or upload them from canonical / official sources. For more instructions visit Half-Life Wiki:Images.

 
"Why do we always have to clean up a mess the grunts can't handle?"
―Male Black Op[src]
 

The Black Ops, sometimes hyphenated to Black-Ops[3] and known in full as Black Operations,[4] are a group of trained government agents.[1] Soon after the HECU, they invade the Black Mesa Research Facility to conceal any evidence of the Resonance Cascade.

Overview[]

Half-Life[]

Female Black Ops are strikingly nimble and agile, able to sprint faster than any other enemy and can jump to extreme heights. They wear a black jumpsuit and use night vision goggles that include a headset with a microphone, although none are ever heard speaking. They are armed with a suppressed Glock 17 and grenades.

Half-Life: Opposing Force[]

Along with the female Black Ops, Opposing Force introduced the group's male variant. They wear black combat gear and balaclavas that only expose their eyes. Some are seen wearing night vision goggles. Although not visible, they apparently have a communicator in their ear which they are seen listening to whenever they eliminate a target.

Male Black Ops can run much faster than the Marines and up close, they use martial arts kicks and punches as melee attacks. Also, unlike their Marine counterparts, Black Ops operate in total silence when in combat, refusing to even yell in pain when injured. Therefore, they can be more of a surprise as you can't hear the loud radio chatter as from the HECU Marines.

They are equipped with the same SMG with grenade attachment that the HECU use, but some male Black Ops have an M40A1 Sniper Rifle. They utilize equipment and vehicles, such as the M35 cargo truck and the AH-64 Apache.

Appearances[]

Half-Life[]

The Black Ops first appear in Sector E in Half-Life during the chapter Apprehension, and later make one more appearance in Sector F, during the chapter Lambda Core. Only female Black Ops are seen by Gordon Freeman in the game.

Half-Life: Opposing Force[]

Massn bomb truck

Maxiron and Jakerockwell in Opposing Force.

Black Ops are featured much more prominently in Opposing Force. The reason for their presence at Black Mesa is also explained, something that was never made clear in the original game. Opposing Force explains that, after the initial failure of the HECU's clean-up operation, the Black Ops are sent to cover up the whole incident by destroying the entire facility. To do this, they intend to set off a thermonuclear device within the complex. Adrian Shephard locates the bomb the Black Ops deliver in a parking garage and is able to disarm it, but shortly thereafter it is seen being reactivated by the G-Man. The flash of a nuclear explosion is later witnessed in the epilogue, indicating the successful detonation of this bomb.

During gameplay, Black Ops are shown to have utter contempt for the HECU, considering them incompetent and inept. One male Black Op angrily remarks to another, "Why do we always have to clean up a mess the grunts can't handle?". The Black Ops are openly hostile towards Marines, killing any who have not yet escaped as part of their mission. While the HECU are aware that the Black Ops group exists, they are utterly confused by their arrival and wonder if they are there to assist.

However, the Black Ops soon start killing all the non-Black Ops personnel they can find. HECU radio traffic shows that the Marines are at first totally taken by surprise, much like how the HECU initially overwhelms the Black Mesa personnel. Further evidence of their viciousness can be seen after discovering a Marine engineer who, after being brutally beaten and interrogated, is simply left for dead, trapped in a garage.[3]

Half-Life: Decay[]

In Decay, the Black Ops are only featured in the bonus chapter, Xen Attacks. In it, they battle against the players' two Vortigaunt characters, R-4913 and X-8973, in the underground parking lot originally featured at the end of Opposing Force, under Sector E's largest Ordinance Facility.

Behind the scenes[]

Bm31

Early model, with a crossbow.

  • The female Black Ops were originally going to be armed with crossbows. The crossbow bolt quivers are still attached to the model's belt.
    • The early female Black Op model features yellow goggles. They are red in the retail model.
  • The female Black Ops originally had the ability to attack their enemies at close range by kicking them. The unused attack animations are still present in the model file. In the retail version, the Black Ops will leap backward when approached at point-blank.[5]
  • In the original Half-Life, female Black Ops were coded to fight on the same side as the Marines. However, the two groups are never normally found in the same area of the game's maps.
  • As seen in the Opposing Force model files, male Black Ops were originally going to use flash grenades.
  • Early concept art for Quiver features special CIA units, one of which is a female. The original Black Ops likely stem from it.[2]
  • Originally, the CIA was to send four types of units to Black Mesa[2] that were cut or simplified in the final version. These include the two Black Ops classes kept for the Half-Life series:
    • The original female Black Op, dubbed "Light Attack / CIA Soldier", which the final product kept much of the classes ability with a new clothing;
    • The original male Black Op, dubbed "Special Weapons / CIA Assassin", cut from Half-Life and later reused in Opposing Force, without most of his abilities such as to combat the player in water and throwing knives.
    • The two classes that remained cut were the "Special Attack / CIA Psionic Soldier", a small man who was to use a "mind gun" linked to his oversized brain and possess psionic abilities similar to the Kingpin and a high level of intelligence, and the "Special Unit, aka The Butcher / CIA Soldier", who was to have powerful dual chainsaws apparently extending his arms.
  • The Half-Life 2 successor to the female Black Op is the cut Combine Assassin.[2][6]

Trivia[]

Dead black op eyes

Dead female Black Op, with flipped up goggles.

  • In some instances, if a female Black Op is killed by being shot in the back while running, her night vision goggles flip up, revealing blue (in Half-Life) or brown (in Opposing Force) eyes, and she will pull her legs together and lie dead on her left side.[5]
  • The female Black Op model featured in Opposing Force has brown eyes, while they are blue in Half-Life. She also does not have grenades attached to her belt. The textures are also of lower resolution and slightly different, such as a different, darker gray for the Glock's suppressor. Its overall build is also thinner.
  • The female Black Op is the only NPC who will investigate any suspicious sounds. Sounds such as gunfire, explosives, and melee weapons hitting against a surface will make her walk slowly to the source of disturbance. Afterward, if she does not find any threat, she will return to her original position.[5]
  • When playing in Hard mode, female Black Ops also have a cloaking device, which they use to become partially invisible during combat.[5]
  • The female Black Op only throws hand grenades if she confronts the player from head on and close enough; she never throws if attacking the player from behind.[5]
  • The highly exaggerated bounce of the female Black Ops breasts while walking was removed in Opposing Force and in the PlayStation 2 console port of the original game.[5]
  • The female Black Op in Half-Life: Source has a higher rate of fire and will likely shoot in automatic mode, without a decrease in accuracy.
  • Male Black Ops models lack a head hitbox, so they do not take extra damage from headshots.
  • In the DLC "The Secret Armory of General Knoxx" for Gearbox Software's 2009 video game Borderlands, enemies named "Lance Assassins" look and behave in a way very similar to the female Black Ops. This may have been influenced by Gearbox's work on the Half-Life expansions.

Gallery[]

Pre-release[]

Retail[]

Screenshots[]

Models[]

Imagecat The Half-Life Wiki has more images related to Black Ops.

List of appearances[]

References[]

Advertisement