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 intelligent infantry units of the Combine Overwatch. They generally work in squads and have a variety of attack methods. While Civil Protection officers have jurisdiction over the relatively minor affairs of policing the cities and enforcing compliance, Overwatch Soldiers can be found everywhere, and form the backbone of the Combine's military presence on earth. Standard Overwatch Soldiers are the most common soldier variant.

Overwatch Soldiers travel by way of APCs or Dropships. When attacking an area, soldiers are inserted by the latter.

Overview
Standard Overwatch Soldiers, like other soldier variants, wear standard issue blue and gray body armor over their torsos with padding on their arms, thighs and groin. 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. Standard Overwatch Soldier helmets have glowing blue/turquoise goggles. Several insignias are worn on the arm pads.

Overwatch Soldiers are equipped with SMGs or AR2 Pulse Rifles, as well as grenades.

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 the AR2 Pulse Rifle. 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 the city, 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 staff in the Nova Prospekt. In addition, they also serve as pilots and gunners of the Combine hunter-choppers.

Overwatch soldiers are confirmed to be 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, and are likely to have their memories replaced. 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 in 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 obviously being prepared for clothing. Some players like to think of Overwatch soldiers as human synths; Dr. Kleiner describes them in Episode One as "post-human" in reference to their enforced enhancements.

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, "Oh, Shit!" before the grenade explodes). They also communicate over radios, but unlike Civil Protection officers, are not addressed or controlled by dispatchers, but instead use them to update military situations, such as saying, "Overwatch, sector's not controlled.". Based on announcements made over the public address system of Nova Prospekt, punishments for failing to achieve objectives include "permanent off-world assignment". It may also be possible that the Combine are testing humanity's combat usefulness in the form of the Trans-Human Overwatch (Combine Soldiers). This is hinted at during Dr. Breen's speech which can be heard in Nova Prospekt. Judging from Dr. Breen's speech, it can be inferred that the Combine may assimilate humanity into the Combine to use as "human synths" in future conquests if the Trans-Human Overwatch proves successful, or exterminate humanity if the Trans-Human forces prove ineffective.

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.

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 (such as buildings and walls.)


 * 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.


 * 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 using 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 players position.


 * 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 so that the player can 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.

Variants


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

Overwatch Sniper
Overwatch Snipers are specialized soldiers in the Combine Overwatch trained in the use of the 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, so attacking them while they are shooting at something else is a good strategy. If engaging from a distance, dash in a zig-zag pattern from cover to cover so that they can't get a bead on Gordon. They are invulnerable to small-arms and crossbow fire; only explosives (such as the rocket launcher, SMG-1 grenades or frag grenades) or roller mines can take them out. 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 normal Overwatch soldier, using the same weapons and having the same stats, the only difference being their armour which is blue with yellow goggles, the words "Nova Prospekt" stitched onto their back armor as well as their shoulder and their armor is a dark blue rather than the normal gray. 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 comlinks in a deeper, more human voice, not knowing this soldier has already died.

Shotgun Soldier
Shotgun Soldiers are specialists in close quarters combat and exclusively wield the shotgun. In the PC versions of Half-Life 2 and Episode One, Shotgun Soldiers are visually identical to a normal Overwatch Soldier, but in the console versions of The Orange Box and the PC version of Episode Two, shotgun soldiers can be distinguished by their grey/red uniforms and battle armour. 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 or possibly a higher ranked soldier variant or a squad leader.

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 hit with helmets with fly-like eyes, the final helmet design, similar to that of the Metrocop, was based on the human Combine Guard.
 * Originally, the uniforms were intended to have randomly generating alphanumeric unit numbers on them, as well as have a different camouflage design, yellow undergarments and dark orange goggles. However, due to gameplay and programming issues, the design was reworked.
 * 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. Of note, the Elite insignia on their leg pads, possibly signifying a higher rank.
 * 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 H.E.C.U. troopers. Originally, the Combine soldiers would be able to kick doors down, as seen in the E3 video "Traptown". However, this was changed most likely due to no room for the kick in the final game, the animation didn't fit the combine soldier overall, and using the gun as a melee weapon was more conventional. However, a left-over animation of the Beta/Leak Combine Soldier can be viewed in the Source SDK under the name of "shootAR2G". This animation shows how the leak animations for the Combine 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 soldiers armor and boots are flecked with mud, indicating they have been traveling by foot for long periods of time and are becoming increasingly stressed and overworked.
 * The patch worn on the arm of Combine soldiers appears to be a yellow variant of the United States Army 7th Infantry Division insignia.
 * Shotgun soldiers appear throughout Half-Life 2 and the episodes in the console versions of The Orange Box, but only in Episode Two on PC. In the console version of Half-Life 2, Nova Prospekt prison guards who wield shotguns look identical to ordinary prison guards with the exception of red goggles.
 * An Overwatch Soldier can be seen above the sewers in the chapter Route Kanal, but this is probably a mistake made by developers who forgot to delete it (this is then technically the first time the player sees a combine soldier). If it is a mistake, then the first intended appearance of Combine soldiers is in Water Hazard, when they eject from the Hunter-Chopper.
 * As soon as Gordon enters the Depot of Nova Prospekt, he can hear two Overwatch Soldiers being killed by Alyx Vance. However, they die with the flatline noise of Civil Protection officers.
 * 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".

List of appearances

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