Particle Storm

"The first storm I saw, I made the mistake of stopping to study it. That's... how I lost my leg."

- Eli Maxwell

The Particle Storm is an enemy cut from Half-Life 2. It only exists as sound files, although information about it can be found in the Half-Life 2 Beta source code.

Overview
In the folder "sound/temp/eli" from the playable Half-Life 2 Beta files, Eli Maxwell seems to be telling Gordon about the Particle Storm, while he refers to it only as "storm". In that speech, Eli warns Gordon to run when he sees a "flicker of green light" while being "out there", as it managed to tear off one of his legs when he made "the mistake to study it". The Particle Strom was therefore to emit a green light, somehow recalling the portals' and the Resonance Cascade's green color seen in Half-Life and its expansions.

Behavior and skills

 * In the speech mentioned above, Eli also talks about how he has seen a Particle Storm tear gunboats, filled with soldiers, to bits, and believes that, contrary to some stating it is a mere "electrical disturbance", Particle Storms are somehow intelligent. He wishes the Resistance could communicate with it so that it could join their side as a "powerful ally". This indicates that it is not a Combine creation, but rather a wild "creature", sentient and powerful enough to destroy gunboats, kill living beings and simply cut off a leg, as mentioned above, possibly acting like a black hole.
 * Another related folder from the playable Half-Life 2 Beta files named "particle_storm" can be found in the "sound/npc" folder. It contains four sounds the Particle Storm was to emit, associated with different moves: "form", "dissipate", "hover", and "lightning". It was therefore to probably form out of nowhere in front of the player, hover above the ground and emit lighting flashes.

List of appearances

 * N/A