Overwatch Soldier

"If the transhuman forces are to prove themselves an indispensable augmentation to the Combine Overwatch, they will have to earn the privilege."

- Wallace Breen

Overwatch Soldiers are the basic transhuman infantry units of the Combine Overwatch, composing the backbone of the Combine's military presence on Earth. In contrast to Civil Protection, whose duties are to enforce order within suppressed population centres, soldiers of the Overwatch are tasked with more hazardous actions requiring skill and tact: from patrolling the treacherous borders of Combine-controlled territory to raiding Resistance-held strongholds.

As military personnel as opposed to law enforcement, Combine Soldiers are given access to military-grade equipment and tactical combat training, making them more formidable opponents than Civil Protection Officers.

Overview
Standard Overwatch Soldiers, like other soldier variants, wear standard-issue blue and grey camo body armor over their torsos with padding on their arms, thighs, and groin. Several insignias can be found worn on their arm pads, signifying their position in the Combine regime. Perhaps the most advanced piece of equipment found on Overwatch Soldiers are their helmets, which cover the head entirely and are equipped with air filters. These helmets have glowing blue goggles, and appear to be a cross between an old Soviet PMG and PBF gas mask.

Overwatch Soldiers are equipped with MP7s, shotguns or AR2 Pulse Rifles, as well as grenades. Using these standard-issue weapons, Overwatch Soldiers typically work in squads of four to six, each squad having at least one soldier armed with a shotgun and another armed with an AR2 Pulse Rifle. During combat, soldiers make use of squad tactics and will attempt to flank its enemies and cover each other.



Overwatch Soldiers are initially encountered in the coastal wasteland outside City 17, patrolling the highways for Resistance activity and staffing Combine outposts. They can, however, be found anywhere the Combine requires direct military action, as soldiers can be quickly transported to a desired area via Dropships. Overwatch Soldiers are also tasked with guarding high-security areas, monitoring Stalkers in the Citadel, and serving as guards in Nova Prospekt. In addition, they also serve as pilots and gunners of the Combine Hunter-Choppers.

Overwatch Soldiers are humans that have undergone extensive modifications including, but not limited to, brain and chest surgery, removal of genitalia, and implantation of various mechanical devices in the throat and around the abdomen. This procedure is carried out at Nova Prospekt and the Citadel. It is notable that in the B2 cell block of Nova Prospekt, after a few switches of a security monitor, a "naked" soldier can be seen lying on a table between two control panels. His eyes are open, indicating the soldier is not asleep, and is being prepared for clothing.

Despite the extensive surgery and modifications they receive, Overwatch Soldiers still appear to have certain human characteristics - for instance, they still feel pain, and during the Nova Prospekt chapter, Doctor Breen is giving what appears to be a morale-boosting speech to them, and they sometimes can be heard shouting expletives in the heat of battle, indicating that they still have human emotions to a certain extent (after throwing a grenade at certain Overwatch units, one can hear them say, "Shit!" before the grenade explodes).

Overwatch Soldiers communicate over radios, but unlike Civil Protection officers, they are not addressed or controlled by dispatchers, but instead use them to update military situations, such as saying, "Overwatch, sector is not secure." According to announcements made over the public address system of Nova Prospekt, punishments for failing to achieve objectives include "permanent off-world assignment". It was originally planned that Gordon's suit picked up radio transmissions from the Combine, though this idea was dropped in favor of simply hearing sound leaked from their helmets.

In combat, soldiers fire their weapons with decent accuracy. The amount of damage soldiers can take before dying is determined by the difficulty level the game is being played on. If a hostile target is at point blank range, a soldier will perform a melee attack with the butt of his weapon.

Variants


Being one of the most versatile units at the Combine's disposal, Overwatch Soldiers come in several varieties:

Overwatch Sniper
Overwatch Snipers are soldiers armed with the mounted Overwatch Sniper Rifle. Their presence (and where they are aiming) is indicated by a blue laser sight-guide; besides Gordon, they will generally shoot at anything that moves, even birds and moving props. They wear the standard blue Overwatch uniform.

Nova Prospekt Prison Guard
Prison Guards are tasked with guarding and maintaining the Nova Prospekt facility. These guards are almost exactly the same as a standard Overwatch Soldier, using the same weapons and having the same stats, the only difference being their armor. Their armor is dark blue and they normally have yellow goggles, but the shotgun soldiers use red goggles, the words "Nova Prospekt" is emblazoned onto the back armor as well as their shoulder. They also speak with a fairly lower tone from their vocoder than standard Overwatch Soldiers, showing a possibility of further mechanical enhancements. However, they still have the standard badge similar to their Overwatch counterparts. Interestingly, after a soldier of this kind has been killed, its allies will page the dead one over their com-links in a deeper, more human voice, not knowing this soldier has already died. They also seem to use shotguns more often than normal Soldiers since the prison features a much closer combat spaces than the outside. Furthermore, grenades are used quite rarely by Prison guards.

Shotgun Soldier
Shotgun Soldiers exclusively wield the shotgun. Shotgun Soldiers can be distinguished by their grey and red uniforms and battle armor. Their helmets are slightly darker than the average Overwatch Soldier, and have blood red/orange goggles. They also bear the Overwatch Elite insignia on a red shoulder pad, suggesting that they may be a branch of the Overwatch Elite, a higher ranked soldier variant, or a squad leader. In Nova Prospekt they have the same dark blue armor color and Nova Prospekt insignia on their right shoulder that a regular Nova Prospekt soldier would; however, they keep the red/orange goggle lens color and Overwatch Elite insignia on their left shoulder; both of which they would normally have outside of Nova Prospekt.

Shotgun Soldiers are also the only Combine units seen manning Combine computers. This happens when the Citadel Core is unstable. When far away enough from the trooper, he will use the computer, seemingly in an attempt to prevent the Core's detonation. The soldier will ignore Gordon, even when shot at, much like the soldier seen using the binoculars in Highway 17.

Tactics

 * Overwatch Soldiers use a variety of squad tactics when engaging hostile targets. These tactics include flanking, providing each other with covering fire, and effective use of grenades. Always exercise caution when entering an area with structures that offer concealment (e.g. buildings and walls).


 * When a soldier is injured or has to reload his weapon, he will typically try to find cover and get behind a solid object. When taking cover while in a firefight, be aware that the soldiers who are being engaged will most likely throw a grenade at Gordon, so be ready to throw it back at them with either the Gravity Gun or the "USE" key. If a grenade is not thrown, then it is likely that one or two of the soldiers are making their way to the player's position.


 * Maintain complete 360 degree awareness of the surroundings while engaging a squad of soldiers. Also, try not to concentrate on a single soldier while being engaged; be mindful of all enemy movement. Try to keep some distance from soldiers at all times. If Gordon is right in front of a soldier or beside him, he will resort to a melee attack. Grenades will generally make soldiers disregard everything and attempt to get out of the blast radius. This is a good way to get soldiers out into the open if they are hiding behind cover, or just to make them stop shooting at Gordon for a few seconds in order to cause some damage.


 * Shotgun Soldiers, especially in close quarters combat, should be the first priority, as their shotguns are a much more significant threat than the weapons used by ordinary soldiers. Take them out from a distance, as their shotguns are a less-effective range weapon.


 * Soldiers have a tendancy to crouch when being shot on their upper body. This can cause slower players to miss them entirely, and waste ammunition. When shot on their lower body, they will tend to retreat a few feet, while still firing at the player.

Behind the scenes

 * The Combine Soldier has had many predecessors during the game development. The Alien Combine Soldier is one of them. The early elite soldiers, the Combine Synth Elite Soldier, the Combine Super Soldier and the Combine Guard, can also be considered as indirect predecessors. Just like for the Overwatch Elite, a more conventional look was chosen over all those concepts to avoid, among other things, overshadowing the remarkable nature of the Citadel and to keep the Combine as a more elusive enemy. While several concepts depict helmets with fly-like eyes, the final helmet design, similar to that of the Metrocop, was based on the human Combine Guard.


 * Alternate, green-colored Combine Soldiers with glowing orange eyes were seen in preview screenshots of Half-Life 2: Episode One, at the time when the episode was still called Aftermath. It is unclear how this variation differed from the rest of the Combine Overwatch, as they were replaced by regular Combine soldiers in the game's final release. They are, however, seen in Episode Two, wielding shotguns, but this version is maroon. These same green-colored soldiers can also be seen in the main menu of Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.


 * A texture from the 2003 leaked Half-Life 2 Beta indicates that the soldiers were to have some sort of shield at one time.


 * The Combine Soldiers in the playable Half-Life 2 Beta were also supposed to use weapons such as the HMG1, the MP5K and the OICW.


 * The Half-Life 2 soldier still has a firing animation for the HMG1, although it is unused.


 * In the Half-Life 2 Beta, the soldiers used the same melee kick as the HECU troopers. Originally, the Overwatch Soldiers would be able to kick doors down, as seen in the E3 demo "Traptown". However, this was changed most likely due to no room for the kick in the final game. Overall, the animation didn't fit the Overwatch Soldier, and using the gun as a melee weapon was more conventional. A left-over animation of the Beta Overwatch Soldier can be viewed in the Source SDK under the name of "shootAR2G". This animation shows what the leaked animations for the Overwatch Soldiers originally looked like: feet closer together, and although they look less experienced than the retail animations, they are more dynamic than the retail animations.

Trivia

 * During Half-life 2: Episode Two, the soldier's armor and boots are flecked with mud, indicating they have been traveling by foot for long periods of time.


 * The patch worn on the left arm of Overwatch Soldiers appears to be a yellow variant of the United States Army 7th Infantry Division insignia.


 * Shotgun Soldiers appear throughout Half-Life 2 and its episodes in the console versions of The Orange Box, but originally only appeared in Episode Two on PC. As of the May 26, 2010 updates, Shotgun Soldiers appear in Half-Life 2 and Episode One on PCs as well as consoles. This also adds red goggle-wearing Nova Prospekt guards to the PC version of Half-Life 2. In Xbox version of Half-Life 2 there are no Shotgun Soldiers because the game latest update was released before The Orange Box release.


 * An Overwatch Soldier can be seen above the sewers in the chapter Route Kanal, in the map "d1_canals_05," but this is probably a mistake made by developers who forgot to delete it (this is then, technically, the first time the player sees an Overwatch Soldier). If it is a mistake, then the first intended appearance of Overwatch Soldiers is in Water Hazard, when they eject from the Hunter-Chopper.


 * The Combine have installed technology that allows the Overwatch to upload data directly to the soldier - most likely directly into their brain. This is mentioned in the sound files for the Overwatch Dispatcher: "Attention. Prepare for visual download of Anticitizen One." This is a non-sequitur conclusion however, as the visual download could just as easily appear on the inside of their goggles like pilots and some soldiers already do.


 * There are at least two Standard Overwatch Soldiers (not Prison Guards) in Nova Prospekt. One is shot and killed by Alyx Vance at the beginning of Entanglement, and another is seen dead in electrified water later on.

List of appearances

 * Half-Life 2
 * Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
 * Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
 * Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
 * Half-Life 2: Episode One
 * Half-Life 2: Episode Two