Recently, it was revealed by a YouTube channel, Richter Overtime, that a ‘charred’ character skin in Half-Life 2 (and by association, GMod) is an in-game rendering of an actual corpse. Reportedly, images of a real burned body were simply wrapped onto a character model, making for what players always thought was hauntingly realistic – but never real.
In a strange turn of events, a series of gory, graphic images were shared to a subreddit (that we won’t link here), and one user made the connection between one shot and the in-game skin used for Half-Life 2, and later, GMod. Following a little digging, the truth behind the character’s skin was uncovered.
Well, That’s Creepy
There are many levels to this ‘controversy’, with some suggesting that it’s a mere coincidence that the real corpse and the in-game skin look so similar. However, the evidence is staggering, and it does look like Valve simply took the images of a man who died a tragic death and laid them over a simple in-game model.
Ultimately, art imitates life, and when a designer or a developer is putting together an asset, they’ll take inspiration from a real-life source. For example, in Grand Theft Auto, almost every vehicle is modelled on a real-world model. There are buildings that are reminiscent of actual locations – in Modern Warfare II, for example – the hotel and the museum levels came under fire for being almost like-for-like copies of real-world locations.
However, there’s taking inspiration from an inanimate object such as a building or a vehicle and copying and pasting images of an actual charred body and inserting them into a game for all to see. Here’s Richter Overtime’s video, which dives into the background of the Half-Life 2 burned corpse controversy:
There are threads of discussion online that reveal the original images used in the creation of the skin, but we won’t share those here. While a little editing was applied to the final product, there’s still no taking away from the fact that that skin is absolutely terrifying.
It may still be something of a festive period, but that’s a story straight out of a Halloween special.
For more Insider Gaming news, check out our coverage of the top games we expect to be announced in 2023.
