Ravenholm

One part of Ravenholm.

Ravenholm is a fictional Eastern European town in the 2004 computer game Half-Life 2. It was a small mining community inhabited by escapees from the Combine-controlled City 17. Due to bombardment with artillery containing headcrabs, however, Ravenholm is now swarming with several varieties of headcrabs and the zombie-like creatures created when they take over humans. Gordon Freeman, the game's main character, must travel through Ravenholm when the Combine attack nearby Resistance base Black Mesa East, during the chapter entitled "'We don't go to Ravenholm ...'"

Not much information is directly given about what happened in Ravenholm, other than Alyx Vance's ominous pronouncements "We don't go there anymore," and "Believe me, that tunnel is sealed for a reason." Spent artillery shells are scattered throughout the city, however, and "live" rounds containing headcrabs appear in other areas of the game. It is easy to conclude that Ravenholm underwent a huge shelling that turned a large portion of the populace into "headcrab zombies"; these zombies slaughtered the survivors.

While fighting off hordes of zombies, Gordon meets the lone human occupant of Ravenholm, Father Grigori. The priest-turned-zombie-hunter provides assistance and advice, eventually showing Gordon the way out of the city. Many areas of Ravenholm are littered with large sawblades, oxygen cylinders, barrels of flammable material, and booby traps that have been contrived by Father Grigori; due to the severe scarcity of ammunition in the area, Gordon must rely on the traps and the Gravity Gun (with which he can fling the blades and other objects) to destroy the zombies.