Race X In Future Games

[Pandorium]

Well, I wonder we’ll ever get to see and know more about Race X in any future (yeah, yeah HL3 if that happens) game? I guess there’s not a heck of a lot to know about them but I wouldn’t mind seeing the reappearance of one or two of the Race X types return.

[Pyroclase]

Given that they only appeared in an expansion pack made by a different developer than the rest of the games, I’d say it’s very unlikely.

[Maxey]

They’ll be featured on Half-Life 3: The Adventures of Adrian and Chell in Fantasy Crossover Land coming soon for Sega Dreamcast 2.

[GilCMassey]

^I’d buy it

And Pyro’s right, there’s little chance they’ll come back since they’re technically non-canon and only relevant to Op4.

[Crypt]

Yeah, and they were hardly even relevant then, just recycled Xenians, really.

[Pandorium]

@Pyro

Given that they only appeared in an expansion pack made by a different developer than the rest of the games, I’d say it’s very unlikely.

@0_22one

^I’d buy it

And Pyro’s right, there’s little chance they’ll come back since they’re technically non-canon and only relevant to Op4.

Eh, it’s quite possible. OpFor is popular and has always been included as part of HL1 Anthology even up to now. Plus, Valve has stated they really leave it up in the air in regards to canon so it’s still possible. Valve never stated OpFor (or Blue Shift) is non-canon.

Plus, it wouldn’t be bad to see Shepard make a return. Would be cool to have him fighting Reap… I mean, Combine.

[geekofalltrades]

@Pandorium

Valve never stated OpFor (or Blue Shift) is non-canon.

@Marc Laidlaw

[COLOR=‘Red’]racex was purely a gearbox creation that doesn’t figure at all in my thinking about the world. Understand, they wanted to come up with a set of creatures that would create gameplay they knew how to make. They could have been making an original title or an add-on for some other franchise, and plugged racex into that–the reason being that they had gameplay they wanted to explore and needed the freedom of their own race of critters to conduct those experiments with. If gearbox had kept making hl games, i suppose we might have seen these threads develop. Since blackops are not a gearbox creation per se, but an opportunistic use of existing real-life elements, i don’t see how the idea of canon applies to them.

@Marc Laidlaw

hi, daniel, i won’t be able to clear up much. It was a deliberate decision to have gearbox never call him barney in blue shift, only calhoun. Raising the bar is not a game, so material is presented differently there; manifestations differ in every medium. Gearbox took our barney and did their own best version, but i’m not sure that barney is the same barney i’m picturing when i picture valve’s barney. In the time bs was created, there were many barneys. Only gradually have the redundant creature and character types slowly settled into iconic individuals…it’s an ongoing process. Gearbox did what was right for their games. Even though they had feedback and guidance from us, they didn’t always listen to it, and they steered by their own lights, etc., etc. I wasn’t very close to the creation of the expansion packs, and much more concerned with how to move the story forward and open up the universe; so [COLOR=‘Red’]i only take the games created by valve into consideration when i am working on the story…there are more than enough potential contradictions in our own designs without me worrying about contradictions in the inventions of other developers who were not part of our initial creative meetings. I know this is confusing to fans; it’s partly a byproduct of the way expansion packs were created, the way they were packaged and published, and also i was very new to this whole concept at the time. It never occurred to me that large chunks of the story would be taken out of our hands, changes made beyond our control, and then have the stuff handed back with some odd unexpected kinks in it. So try not to worry about it, and simply do my best with material directly in my control. However, as to your last question, [COLOR=‘Red’]there was pressure on us to set half-life 2 at black mesa, which a lot of us felt would be creative death; it was important to break new ground. Nuking black mesa was a good way to ensure that we had a way to avoid setting half-life 2 there. You might say i gave the g-man his orders.

Emphasis mine. Only the nuking of Black Mesa at the end of Opposing Force is official canon.

[Pandorium]

Still does not specifically say it is not canon.

Series writer Marc Laidlaw stated that the issue of canon is “something the fans came up with” and that they do not have an official stance on it. He remarked that they “do not get involved in issues of canonicity” and that “canon itself is non-canon”, letting the games stand on their own. Valve also chooses not to define a precise timeline as they would only end up contradicting themselves in the future. As such, a handful of retcons have occurred throughout the series.

https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Canon

So until they specifically say OpFor did not happen, I will assume it is left open.

Besides, why throw away such a good game especy since they include it with every HL1 anthology? If they really want it discarded from canon, just separate it from all the lists. Plus, I have to admit I would be irked if they officially decided to retcon it.

[Maxey]

I’d rather see Valve expand on the Combine race and culture than work on a race they didn’t create and probably don’t understand as well as Gearbox.

[GilCMassey]

Maybe if race x was sonehow worked in as a combine slave race. I mean, some of the combine gear reminds me of race x stuff, like hunters, but I dunno.

[Pandorium]

@Maxey

I’d rather see Valve expand on the Combine race and culture than work on a race they didn’t create and probably don’t understand as well as Gearbox.

Well, since Laidlaw said he has no interest in it (then again, nobody at Valve seems to have an interest in HL3 period), I can lay that to rest. I would like to know more about the Seven Hour War and more about Combine forces because it has to be something big.

[Mr_Sir_Shpee]

I want a Half-Life game that takes place during the Seven Hour War, maybe. Not a main entry, but maybe a spinoff or OpFor2?

[Boundaryman]

@Pandorium

Well, since Laidlaw said he has no interest in it (then again, nobody at Valve seems to have an interest in HL3 period), I can lay that to rest. I would like to know more about the Seven Hour War and more about Combine forces because it has to be something big.

In speaking of both Race X and the Seven Hour War, I’m surprised Valve didn’t commission an expansion pack in the vein of Opposing Force during that period. They originally commissioned Arkane to do an expansion which was to be Episode 4, and sadly they put that one on hold. The video game market has changed since then to allow the kinds of expansion packs we used to know, like the Mission Packs for Quake, the Plutonium/Plasma Paks for Duke and Blood, and Mysteries of the Sith for Jedi Knight. Opposing Force was one of those special expansion packs which we may never see again… Well, except for inspired mods like Azure Sheep.

Considering what the Source engine can do now, and the release of Source games/mods like The Stanley Parable and Black Mesa, I think the Seven Hour War would be the ripe material for a fan made expansion.

Here’s my premise for an ideal expansion of HL2. It would start out during the events of Half-Life 1 from the point of view a temp worker or accountant in Black Mesa, who is called into the lab during some late night work for a physical. He ends up getting outfitted with an experimental HEV suit, and is locked in the pantry for an unknown reason. He awakes when the resonance cascade occurs, and fights his way through aliens and grunts to a restricted part of the facility. Time warps start to open, and he awakens in the future in City 17.

He attracts notice of the Combine, and they start chasing him all around town. Then, he stumbles upon another time warp which takes him back to 1998 in California where he’s being chased by feds. Back and forth in the time warp again, he is held in an underground facility in Washington D.C. among alien lab specimens. Being chased by Black Op Assassins while escaping, he emerges in a Washington that now head Xenian critters in the alleys and streets, and a curfew is keeping everyone inside.

With all the time warping jumping the temp/accountant goes through, he witnesses the Seven Hours War commencing, and how Dr. Breen came to power. He also encounters another interdimensional alien force, a possible rival of the Combine’s, which meddles with time. The player would have to deal with the unseen threat before further repercussions ensue.

You could play with the idea any way you want. This concept could be a fun idea to revisit Half-Life 1 within the context of Half-Life 2.

The new weapons would include:
A handful of weapons from HL1
A Fire Axe
A Time Warp Generator
A Beta Gravity Gun
and The Strider Beam Cannon (taken right from the Strider)

[Tiki]

@Mr. Sir Shpee

I want a Half-Life game that takes place during the Seven Hour War, maybe. Not a main entry, but maybe a spinoff or OpFor2?

That sounds fantastic. The whole reason for his detainment was to prevent him from spilling the beans about what happened at Black Mesa Research Facility. Once the war starts, keeping that a secret is no longer very important, so it would be sensible to bring Sheppy back to delay the inevitable.

Perhaps he was given an unassigned task of drawing attention to the future location of City 17 by unleashing him there, as a little bastion of resistance (to ensure the Combine would place a Citadel, a token of power, there where they encountered the most trouble).

The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.

[Pyroclase]

@Boundaryman

The video game market has changed since then to allow the kinds of expansion packs we used to know, like the Mission Packs for Quake, the Plutonium/Plasma Paks for Duke and Blood, and Mysteries of the Sith for Jedi Knight. Opposing Force was one of those special expansion packs which we may never see again… Well, except for inspired mods like Azure Sheep.

Not really. We still have expansion packs, they’re just called DLC now.