Location from Half-Life 2 by Valve
The underside of City 17 — a network of drainage canals and waterways that the resistance uses as an escape route and the Combine uses as a killing ground.
The canals are City 17's circulatory system, and both the Combine and the resistance use them. For the resistance, they're the primary route out of the city — following the water eventually leads to the coast and Black Mesa East. For the Combine, they're a containment problem, constantly patrolled but too extensive to fully lock down. Gordon's escape through the canals is a running battle — airboat chases, helicopter pursuits, manhack swarms in close quarters, and Combine barricades that must be breached or circumvented. The journey takes him from the industrial heart of City 17 to the outskirts and eventually to Black Mesa East. The canals exist in a liminal space — technically still City 17, but beyond the reach of the Breencasts and the orderly oppression. Down here, the occupation is raw: checkpoints, shooting, and the sound of water masking everything.
Concrete drainage channels and tunnels running beneath and between City 17's districts. Water varies from shallow trickles to deep, fast-moving channels. Combine barriers and checkpoints block key junctions. Resistance graffiti and Lambda supply caches mark the safe routes. Civil Protection units patrol in airboats. Manhacks — small flying buzzsaws — swarm through narrow tunnel sections. Barnacles hang from ceilings with their sticky tongues dangling like lethal stalactites.
Also known as: The Canals, City 17 Canals, The Waterways