Cremator

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Cremator
General information
Faction	Combine
Type	Cleaner Short range assault
Individual information
Weapon(s)	Immolator
Game information
Entity	npc_cremator
Designer(s)	Dhabih Eng

 

"Keep it clean... or he will"

― Combine propaganda poster

The Cremator is a Combine unit cut from Half-Life 2 and Half-Life: Alyx. "A Combine janitor of sorts", it was originally intended to remove corpses from the city streets, cleanup Wasteland trains coming into the city from any wildlife that might have held on to it during the journey, as well as patrol some parts of the Wasteland, such as train depots. It was also designed to occasionally fight the player.

Overview

The Cremator factory.

• The Cremator was to be some kind of janitor, breathing heavily and disposing of dead bodies through the use of its Immolator - a large cannon capable of spraying a green beam of plasma, which would disintegrate organic matter upon contact. It was intended for the player to obtain an Immolator, which would have been effective against organic enemies.

• It has a Poké Ball-like sphere located on its belly, which was to be connected to the Immolator via a hose, providing the corrosive substance for the weapon and suggesting that much of the Cremator's disproportionate body was used as a vessel for storing the acid.

• Cremator heads were to be prepared by children in the Cremator factory located in the Combine Factories area in City 17. It is therefore unknown to what extent the Cremator was to be transhuman or if it was to be transhuman at all, since while it appears to have at least human arms and hands (although with only four fingers), the original human was probably beheaded at some point. The rest of the process of the preparation of Cremator units was apparently not to be seen.

• The player was also to be able to pick up Cremator heads and throw them at enemies, as part of the Brickbat weapon.

• Although the Cremator's NPC has no AI (no coding related to it can be found in the leaked source code), no clear fight animations and was mostly intended to clean the streets, sound files indicate that it was to notice the player, invalidating the theory of the Cremator being more of a dynamic prop than a real NPC, like the Boid in Half-Life. Another sound file indicates it was to be seen dying, indicating it was to be fought and killed by the player or Rebels, allowing the player to use its weapon and pick up its head to throw it at enemies. It was likely to be passive at the start of the game, and turn against every non-Combine NPC during the uprising.

• In its model, its eyes and "mouth" textures are incorrectly displayed, although they are properly rendered in the Brickbat's Cremator head.

• The Cremator bears some similarities to the Alien Assassin. They both have an identical orange sphere on the back of one hand that looks like some sort of lid (the left hand for the Cremator, the right for the Alien Assassin, in lower resolution), similar arms and hands (except that the Cremator has only four fingers), and also lines on the hands (although the Cremator has them on its gloves instead of the skin like the Alien Assassin).

Maps

Cremator in the WC map pack map cremator_039, with Combine Door Tower and barricade behind.

Several WC map pack maps, such as cremator_street02 or cremator_039 (which features a building seen in sniper_029), feature areas of the American-like City 17 of the first concepts where some Cremator tests were conducted by the development team. The map cremator_street02 involves a run-down area in fire with two Cremators, while cremator_039 involves a normal area with Cremator squads protected by Metrocops and a brick tunnel filled with wrecked cars, Manhacks and Ceiling Turrets, all attacking the player (this tunnel was somehow recycled into the Half-Life 2 chapter Anticitizen One and the Episode One chapter Lowlife). It also contains several door/guard towers, also cut from the final game. Another map, wasteland_depot, last edited August 2001 and set in the Wasteleand, features an early Depot with, among other things, a Cremator waiting for the player on the train platform. Another Wasteland map, toxic_pit03, last edited June 2001, consists of a small valley filled with Headcrabs, and several Cremators stationed above.

Behind the scenes

A Cremator head in the jar in Eli's lab in Half-Life 2.

The Cremator partially made the final cut as an Easter egg left in Eli Vance's lab at Black Mesa East. A Cremator's head can be found apparently preserved in formaldehyde on the table located to the right of the teleport, but green-colored, instead of the original white. Eli mentions that Alyx brought it in, stating "We're still not sure what that does. Alyx brings in the strangest things". A nearby computer screen with some sort of scan of the Cremator head on it also suggests it is studied by Eli or someone else (it is also featured in the Half-Life 2: Deathmatch map Steam Lab). Early Half-Life 2 footage also shows that the Cremator's head was originally not contained in a jar.

Early in the development of Half-Life: Alyx, an updated version of the Cremator was planned to appear as one of the Combine clean-up units that specialized in combating invasive Xen fauna in City 17. The Cremator was cut from the final game, with its role in the story being given to the Combine Hazmat Workers instead. However, the Combine Hazmat Workers are only ever encountered by the player as corpses or Zombies throughout the game.

Gallery

Half-Life 2

Pre-release

• 

  Concept art.

• 

  Propaganda poster reusing the previous concept art, and originally used in Half-Life 2 as the older version of paperposter002a.

• 

  Model leaked as part of the 2016-2017 leaks featuring the same twin-barreled Immolator seen in concept art, with missing texture sheet replaced by a generic one.

• 

  Ditto, side view.

• 

  Ditto, closeup of the Immolator.

• 

  The Cremator factory in the WC map pack.

• 

  Cremator in the WC map pack map cremator_street02.

• 

  Ditto, in the destroyed building.

• 

  Cremator in the WC map pack map cremator_039.

• 

  Cremator and Metrocops.

• 

  Ditto.

• 

  Cremator posters in the map c17_old07, with one using the middle part only.

• 

  The Brickbat, Cremator head version.

• 

  Cremator head.

• 

  The Immolator.

• 

  The Cremator's right hand, with the orange sphere.

• 

  Orange sphere texture, from the Cremator texture files.

• 

  Child Citizen carrying a Cremator head.

• 

  Closeup of a Cremator in the map toxic_pit03.

Retail

• 

  The Cremator's head on a computer screen in Eli's lab.

Half-Life: Alyx

• 

  Concept art of an updated Cremator cut from Half-Life: Alyx.

List of appearances

Main games

• Half-Life 2 (First appearance) (As an unidentified head and on a computer screen)

Other

• Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar (First identified as Cremator) (Non-canonical appearance)
• Half-Life 2: Deathmatch (Non-canonical appearance) (On a computer screen)
• The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx (Non-canonical appearance)