I didn't like Opposing Force as much as the base game but I agree it's a pitty we don't know what happened to Adrian Sheppard afterwards. Also, it was nice experimenting the context of the story from another point of view.
It’s too bad that Gearbox and Valve never did anything else with Race X. They were an interesting faction that could have really been expanded upon in future games. I saw this thing saying that a lot of their lore was basically reused for the Combine. They’re an alien coalition that invades other worlds and terraforms/conquers them for habitation and resources, they used Xen as a way to go from one universe to another, and something else I can’t remember. It’s also really weird how neither studio did anything else with Adrian Shepherd. Interestingly Arkane was making Episode 4 called Return to Ravenholm. You were supposed to play as Shepherd and help at Grigori. It would have taken place between Episodes 1 and 2. There would be Headcrabless zombies that were running around this abandoned hospital. Noclip released 1 hour of gameplay footage, and it looks interesting. At this point most of the assets were just placeholders. Hopefully Valve gives them the go ahead to finish it or at least just release what they have. Sadly, this will be very tricky because Arkane and by extension Bethesda are owned by Xbox/Microsoft, and Valve are well Valve. Who knows, maybe we’ll get a Half Life that’s a Shrexbox exclusive on Gamepass (yes I made a terrible Shrek pun. No I will not apologize for that). I saw this one thing talking about Race X saying that early on the Pitdrones were supposed to have this mind control hat. Whenever you’d kill enough of them they’d flee, and if a Shocktrooper was nearby it would send out a beam or electricity that would force the Pitdrones back into combat. I really wish they would have keep this in the final game. It would have made their encounters more interesting. Then you could come up with a head canon justification for why they’d attack the Shockroaches instead of it just being the result of reused Bullsquid and Headcrab ai. I know there’s that Operation Black Mesa remake of Opposing Force, but I have no idea how far along it is. Hopefully they release a playable built at some point. I really hope it’s not like the various Half Life 3/Episode 3 fan projects where the team never actually does any real work and it just ends up dying after they all realize they waisted literal years and have nothing to show for it.
I remember back in the day there was that fan sequel Opposing Force 2. When I first learned about it I was so excited. Back then I was a dumb kid who couldn’t tell the difference between official and fan made content (at this point there might as well not even be a difference because Valve doesn’t really do anything. Stuff like the Steamdeck and Alyx were outliers, and the Portal collection is literally just a Switch port. I don’t have much faith in Valve at this point. Just look at the dumpster fire that is TF2 because they don’t do anything about the bots). Like back then I thought the Aether mod was an actual part of Minecraft, and that Point of View (playable Vortigaunt mod) was a free dlc/expansion. You can probably imagine my disappointment when years later I learned the mod was cancelled and that basically nothing got done. There were just a few maps that ranged in quality, most of the new weapons/enemies were reskins, and a lot of the really cool stuff that was promised on their Moddb page was nowhere to be seen. It’s amazing how so little got done in YEARS of working on that mod. Personally I think that would have been a good sequel to Opposing Force. Sadly, the mod is dead. From what I hear there’s people working on finishing it, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for that. The last attempt to finish the mod Opposing Force Lost bombed out. As far as I remember story for Opf2 was that it takes place 6 months after the 7 hour war, the Combine were using Synth Soldiers because they hadn’t really experimented on humans much (although, they did have some proto-soldiers that looked like a mix between that one Combine plugged into a charger, and the Borg minus the armor), there was a render of Pitdrones so I’m assuming Race X would have been around in some form, Adrian Shepherd was supposed to meet up with a coalition of soldiers from different branches of the US military and they’d form the resistance, I think there was something else but I don’t remember. There was a video in Russian talking about the mod that I sent to one of my friends who can speak Russian, but he wasn’t much help because he doesn’t know anything about Half Life. I’m very sad that mod was cancelled. It would have been awesome. For whatever bizarre reason they made this truly hideous models for the Bullsquids and Houndeyes, when they could have just reused the leaked beta models. Interestingly that mod is where the Charger models used in Overcharged came from. There were also supposed to be the cut Stukabats and Kingpin from HL1. I would hope that they were also planning on having the Gonomes return because those things were pretty cool (sadly those haven’t appeared in HL2/Episodes). Kind of an off note, but I’m going to circle back to Point of View. I remember as a king thinking it was awesome. Sure, it definitely has it’s flaws, and the story was weird. But, I have a lot of nastalga for it so I can overlook these for the most part. Plus, when I was younger I didn’t really know the lore so I thought what was there was super cool. It’s definitely canon breaking, but the mod came out before HL2/Episodes so the guy had to make up all this stuff to tell a story. It only retroactively appears asinine when you compare it to what we have now. I wish that someone would remake the mod in Black Mesa. I think a fair amount of the plot points/lore could be retained if they kept what doesn’t outright contradict the current lore. Seeing it in hd would be awesome. What are some videos you have planned down the pipeline?
I want these to happen if there will be a Half Life: Shepard game. The intro of the game is that Shepard is still in the helicopter realm and he remembers the times that Gman always visited their headquarters and he is always talking to their superiors... and then suddenly, he heard the voices of the combine soldiers and something lighted up like a box and this is the vault that was used to imprison G-Man in Half Life: Alyx .. he heard the voices of the combine soldiers like this "it's him! capture him !" , "we need to capture him at any cost", they are capturing G-Man using the vault and those voices are heard by Shepard in the realm and he see a vague images of the combine soldiers capturing G-man .. and after they locked gman in the vault, there was a small crack or small portal appeared where Shepard was.. because of the G-man's captive , the force that keeping Shepard unable to move has been weakened and Shepard was freed and able to move again and then suddenly multiple portals comes out from every direction in the realm where Shepard is being freeze .. and Shepard was just staring at the small portal near him that came out and thought to approach it and he got absorbed by it and he blocked out ..( like what happened to Freeman when the Resonance cascade happened .. the screen blocked out and then teleported to xen). When Shepard woke up, he first saw the big xen crystal next to him .. and surrounded by people wearing tribal clothing as if they were worshiping or praying in front of the big xen crystal .. the small portal that Shepard entered was going or connected to the big Xen crystal that where it was prayed by the tribe .. Shepard was teleported to the continent that looks like Africa with tribe living in a big cave like a big city and the combine forces can't track them .. this tribe are praying together in front of the big xen crystal.. this tribe tamed the half life 1 aliens and the aliens became their helpers to survive.. just like the Bullsquids they made like horses because their legs are strong and because they also run quite fast and also the houndeyes they are like the dogs and alerting everyone if there's something suspicious entering their place or hideout.. and they also have vortigaunts with them who are also praying in front of the xen crystal.. and when they are all praying altogether, suddenly the big xen crystal lit up and Shepard come out or teleported in there .. they think that Shepard was sent to help them and this will be the adventure of Shepard xD .. (Sorry for my bad English xD) In Africa chapters Shepard will meet some kind of Freedom Fighters and they have with them one of the survivor of the Black Mesa incident and he is Doctor Walter .. and they have also Vortigaunts .. Doctor Walter telling Shepard that he got separated from Dr. Rosenberg , Dr. Simmons and Barney because while they are escaping, the 7 hour war just started... and combine army invaded the Earth . The Tribe and the Freedom Fighters didn't got notice by the combine because the Vortigaunts blocking all signals from outside the continent or outside their territory or headquarter because of that they are safe from combine invasion and the combine thinks that it's just an empty and an already destroyed country or place they just destroyed some of the cities in there .... but in turn because of the signal blocking , they have no idea what's happening outside the continent and they didn't receive any of the message of Dr.Kleiner, Eli and the resistance but after Shepard just got teleported in there , they think that it's time to stop the blocking of signals or whatever signals 🤣 and they think it's time to help the humanity The villains in this Half Life: Shepard game will be these people/monsters: 1. The rival tribe that lives in the forest or maybe in other places on this continent.. they have this kind of ceremony or ritual that they put tamed headcrabs on the head of their people to make them stronger and fast.. they call this ritual "The Bond" or "The Fusion" (hahaha sorry I can't think of a better name for this ritual xD) they are making zombie headcrabs but not actually zombie because the human are still 70% conscious because they tamed these special headcrabs .. after the successful bond of headcrab on the head of the human, the human now will gain abnormal amount of strength and speed that they can jump higher or run faster but their speech is not that clear like they have difficulty in breathing. (Africa continent chapter) 2. Half Life 1 and race X aliens upgraded and enslaved by the combine empire: Like the Gargantua .. they are now shooting lava and the combine modified it's appearance to make it look cool 😎 and also the race X aliens Pit Drone . It's now looks terrifying and run fast now and shoots spikes really fast and it has poison that you will lose your health every second 3. Upgraded Combine soldiers some of them now are using jetpacks with upgraded guns. These combines will appear in the Europe continent chapters 4. One of the high ranking combine advisor or whatever high ranking creature in the form of a human just like G-Man will visit Earth and he will be the final boss of the game .. Combine employer or high ranking officers have been worried because Shepard escaped G-Mans stasis and they are being paranoid that maybe Shepard will sabotage their plans (but they didn't know that G-Man planned this, maybe G-Man will betray the employers?) .. this advisor has a power like G-Man that he opens portals and send you there and he can summon soldiers just by opening door portals to fight you . And he can also send you to other dimension in the past and kill you there by influencing the timeline. In this entire game , you will see a cameos of Gordon Freeman wearing HEV suit.. you know, just like G-Man, that you will see him in a distance in the entire game in different locations and when you see or spot him or go near him he will walk away and he will disappear .. but why Gordon ? Maybe that Gordon is from the future ? And he stole G-Man's power or maybe G-Man gave it to him? G-Man will not be a cameo because he is being imprisoned in the vault but he will only appear in the last scene... And maybe Gordon now is visiting timelines now to influence the past or the events in that timeline? Maybe Gordon, G-Man and the Employers are doing a war of timelines xD hahaha .. and in Europe chapters Shepard will meet Father Grigori .. Shepard will help Grigori to save and rescue civilians .. and they will take their separate ways when they are finally safe and father Grigori telling Shepard that they know a safe town called Ravenholm and father Grigori and other civilians will go there ( maybe in hl2 Father Grigori loses his mind because he sees all of the people he care turning into headcrab zombies and he has no other choice but to kill them) After Shepard defeated the final boss , the final boss is about to explode just like Nihilant when it got defeated by Gordon and the air is cracking near Shepard like it's opening multiple crack portals and it's showing different timelines. In one of this portals, you can see a cameo of the Mystery woman (the woman from HL:A that's talking about moving the box) and also there's a crack portal and you can see a cameo of Chell and also a crack portal with the HECU soldiers fighting the Hl1 aliens in the black Mesa and also a crack portal showing Otis survived the nuclear explosion because he's in some kind of bomb shelter something like that .. maybe some scientists in BlackMesa created a very non destructive shelter like that in case some explosion happens in Black Mesa 🤣... and also a crack portal showing Gordon and Vortigaunts just staring at him .. After you beat the final boss, after all of that portals just appeared, G-Man will appear and he will get Shepard again and he will send himself and Shepard to another dimension.. the G-Man that took Shepard after beating the final boss is one of the G-Man that separated from the original G-Man in the ending of Half Life Alyx (when G-man is talking to young Alyx and he split himself into multiple G-Man in the ending scene of HLA) G-Man will talk to Shepard like this "Corporal Shepard , we meet again arghhhgaghhj (difficult breathing xD) blah blah blah blah" .. like that 🤣 Maybe G-Man will use Shepard against Gordon or to help Gordon ?
