Construction Paper Tells Half-Life 2‘s Entire Tale

The best videogame synopses are always made out of construction paper.

**Spoiler Warning** This post basically spoils the story of Half-Life 2. Go play it already.

Construction paper animation has this appeal that I just can’t explain. In the past we’ve seen it used to tell the story of the Star Wars Trilogy, and now YouTube’s Remus2008 has spoiled the entirety of Half-Life 2. With paper.

The video tells the entire Half-Life 2 tale, from the point where the player first gets off the train to the big explosion at the end. The characters are all made of rectangles, but these rectangles bleed just as red as real people.

It takes a few liberties with Half-Life 2, including making Alyx a ninja, adding in a Pac-Man ghost, and featuring a Thriller interlude. This is all just part of the animation’s charm. There’s something about the Gordon Freeman-like silence of the whole thing contrasted with the various deaths of paper characters that makes it really enjoyable.

If Paper Half-Life 2 looks familiar, it’s because Remus2008 did the same thing in 2009 for the original Half-Life. The Half-Life 2 version is a major upgrade, but here’s the previous animation clip for anyone that hasn’t seen it.