for the little things you might have missed
In the end, Black Mesa draws power from that limitation; it clarifies and rewires Half-Life's undercooked tale of invasion and colonization — one that continues with humanity itself colonized by an unimaginable cosmic empire. In that sense, Gordon arriving to Xen with his arsenal of weapons feels fitting; in a year like 2020, it should be clearer than ever that the mistakes, evils, and constraints of the past always ripple forward into the present and future.
Right now, it's rough around the edges, clearly a bit unfinished, but still crystallized in a way that feels wholly rougher, odder, and more unique than its more polished predecessor. In that very literal sense, I hope it does end up as a Majora's Mask to an Ocarina of Time—a piece of art that leverages the iconography of a (brilliant) original to tell a weirder, rougher kind of story. One wholly appropriate to the brand of children's literature it draws from, and the control-based medium in which it makes its home.
But in the aftermath of that feeling, I realized something else—that the euphoria I'd felt in the wake of that fight came alongside the dropping of the game's initial facade. Kratos is not redeemable. He is a monster, and those blades represent that. Only a monster can wield them as he does. Only a monster can descend into Helheim and fight his way back out. Only a monster can harness that fiery maelstrom to survive those hordes of ice.
Sunset Over Ithaca 