Sprite

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The title of this article is conjectural.

Although this article is based on official information, the actual name of this subject is pure conjecture.

Sprite
General information
Type	Energy Orb
Affiliation	Race X
Individual information
Health	N/A (cannot be killed)
Attacks / Weapons	N/A
Game information
Designed by	Stephen Bahl
Entity name	MAP_ENTITY_STAR (cannot be spawned)

The Sprite is an entity that can be seen floating through the Black Mesa Research Facility during the later stages of the Black Mesa Incident, and appearing to be a flying ball of light. They are seemingly brought to life by Race X, and so have a mind of their own, able to steer themselves through space at will.

Overview

Sprites flying from a Race X purple portal on Xen.

In the scene where a Gargantua is tied to the Hydro-Electric Dam in Half-Life: Opposing Force, the G-Man stands on the defunct control tower holding a cell phone while sprites fly into a portal behind him, after which he steps through and vanishes. They eventually all led to the portal that brought the Gene Worm through, evidently acting as energy conduits to construct and charge the portal to the world of the Race X aliens.

Adrian Shephard first saw them on Xen, where they kept coming through a purple portal and leaving through the one leading back to Earth. A possibility is this was the "gateway" between Earth and the Race X homeworld. It is unknown if these sprites are biological aliens or the technological creations of Race X.

In Half-Life: Opposing Force, sprites act as guides to show the direction to the next objective when the path ahead might otherwise be unclear. It is interesting to note that during the resonance cascade in Half-Life, sprites fly toward and away from the anti-mass spectrometer.

Two other sprite appearances include a faint glimpse of them being sucked towards the portal at the tip of the Lambda core reactor when it is fully open. Another appearance of the sprite is in Blue Shift if the player refuses to enter the Displacement Field, shown by Sprites dissipating from its portal and Dr. Rosenberg shouting, "You fool, you've taken too long!"

Behind the scenes

• The actual name of the Sprite is unknown, as the name used on the wiki is merely a nickname, a general reference to computer graphics. The entity only consists of floating sprites with no AI when not used in a map trigger, also named "MAP_ENTITY_STAR," as seen in the original map editor.

Trivia

• In the Hazard Course levels of Half-Life and Blue Shift, Sprites appear on occasion to light up objects that the Holographic Assistant addresses and thus are rather gameplay indications and not the Race X entity.

Gallery

Sprites flying at the Gene Worm's purple portal before its arrival in another nearby room.

Sprites flying at the Gene Worm's purple portal before its arrival.

The Gene Worm is defeated, while Sprites continue to swarm into the portal.

An HEV suit charger being highlighted by a sprite.

Sprites being drawn towards the Anti-Mass Spectrometer, during the Resonance Cascade.

List of appearances

• Half-Life (First appearance)
• Half-Life: Opposing Force
• Half-Life: Blue Shift