Okay, I know there are people working on making Opposing force using the source engine. There are also various fans who clamor for Adrian Shephard to make a return. The major point that constantly is contested is that Valve hasn’t accepted Race X as cannon and if they brought Adrian Shephard back, they’d be forced to accept Race X as cannon by association.
However I was wondering if this really needed to be the case. What if Opposing Force was retconned when it was redone? COULD it be retconned? As a little thought experiment, I thought about what the different Race X creatures really accomplished and what they could be replaced by that IS part of Half Life cannon.
Pit Drone - These were essentially the Vortigons of Race X
Shock Trooper - essentially the Alien Grunts of Race X
Shock Roach - These have no counterpart, but might be substituted in certain situations by having a few more snark traps scattered around.
Voltigore - these have no counterpart in HL1 that I can think of, but HL2 provides an excellent substitution with the Ant Lion Guardians. Obviously they would lack the long range attacks of the Voltigore, but would make up for it by being much harder to kill. Obviously having every Voltigore replaced with an Ant Lion Guardian would be a bit much, but the Acid Ant Lions bring in the long range attack that the Guardian lacks while still being easier to kill. The baby voltigores could be replaced with regular Ant Lions.
Even if Valve felt that this SHOULDN’T be how Ant Lions got into earth’s ecosystem, that gets wrapped up neatly by the Nuke at the end of the game, which can be said to have wiped out that crop of ant lions, but then another group of antlions entered earth’s ecosystem at some other time period.
Pit Worm - This was essentially the Tentacles of Race X. Lets face it, the entire scenario was practically a carbon copy of the part in HL1 where you roast the Tentacles with the Jet thruster testing area. Obviously the section would need to be drastically reworked in order to make it still play properly, but having two sets of tentacles that come out of pipes that stick out above the toxic waste could then be flooded and killed by the toxic waste level raising the same way.
Gonom - Again HL1 offers no real substitution, but Episode 1 shows that regular headcrab can use grenades when they take over combine, so if headcrabs take over military in Op4, you could claim that they can use grenades too while also having the body armor protection. It wouldn’t directly replace the gonoms, but it might help balance areas towards that.
Gene Worm(final boss) - this is the only one I don’t have a clear idea for replacing. Theoretically, you might be able to throw in an advisor or something and claim that it was a frontal scout for the combine. At that point Adrian Shephard may have played an unknown part in keeping the combine forces at bay, but also being responsible for how well prepared the combine forces were to deal with Earth’s military force when they attacked during the 7 hour war.
Male Assassins/Black Ops - I don’t think this would NEED to be changed, but if Valve was feeling particularly anal retentive, the assassins/black ops could just be made so that they were all female. At that point the female assassins/black ops would need to be allowed to use other weapons, since the combat did change drastically. (grenades, smg, and sniper rifles)
Spore Launcher - There’s no clear indication that this is connected to Race X, or for that matter even connected to Xen. I don’t think leaving this in would break cannon.
So do people think these substitutions would allow Opposing Force to be treated as cannon? Is there anything else that would need to be revamped for cannon purposes? Would it still be fun to play even without the “new” enemies to fight? Could all the various levels be balanced properly? Would it make the game better or worse? I’m curious what other’s think, or if people have given any thought to this at all.