Half-Life: Alyx Is A Reminder Of What An Incredible Setting City 17 Is

thegamer.com:

For me, the defining image of Half-Life 2 will always be those faded yellow tenement buildings being devoured by the violent, otherworldly architecture of the invading Combine. This anonymous Eastern European city, with its striking collision of faded Soviet modernism and jarring alien brutalism, is one of the most atmospheric, evocative settings in video game history.

Half-Life 2 is 17 years old, but this setting has lost none of its power—and it's even more impressive in Half-Life: Alyx. In Valve's sensational VR game, which more people should be able to play, we get to revisit it with a level of fidelity we could only dream of back in 2004. Visuals aren't everything, but the increased realism amplifies everything that makes City 17 so memorable.

Related: Half-Life 2's Hands-Off Storytelling Is Still Unmatched

We never find out what City 17 was called before the Combine swept in, made it their capital on Earth, and assigned it a number. You know you're in Eastern Europe, but you're never really sure where. This geographical ambiguity is intentional, but there are elements of real-world cities—particularly Sofia, the Bulgarian city where art director Viktor Antonov was born.

The choice of an Eastern European setting isn't an arbitrary one. It's implied, albeit in a suitably hands-off way, that City 17 was once under Communist rule. Grand Neoclassical government buildings sit uneasily alongside cheaply built, concrete-panelled Soviet tower blocks—a familiar sight in the Eastern Bloc, and a visual suggestion of the city's almost certainly Soviet past.

Now, with a Combine dictatorship in place, history is grimly repeating itself. There's a clear parallel between how the citizens of City 17 are oppressed by these alien