Both he and the player only meet the Combine a few minutes after he is awakened from this stasis. After beating the boss of the original Half-Life, Gordon Freeman is frozen in time for 20 years by the mysterious entity knows as the G-Man. However, the player knows next to nothing about them. The Combine first appear at the very beginning of Half-Life 2. They are one of the most brutal examples of a dystopian society in gaming. Ruthlessly inhuman, The Combine come off as especially intriguing and disturbing for their extreme level of scrutiny in their oppression. Since the series' second entry, Half-Lifeplayers have taken up the mantle of Gordon Freeman to combat the interdimensional alien empire known as The Combine.
