Which Half-Life stories are "canon"?

Half-Life Series
#1

Apart from Half-Life, Half-Life2, Half-Life2:Episode 1 and Half-Life2:Episode2, which games, mods, spin-offs and other material are considered canon by Valve (Marc Laidlaw, Gabe Newell, etc.)?

i’ve heard argument that Opposing Force and Blueshift don’t fit into the original Half-Life story…at least not officially as far as Laidlaw is concerned. i’ve also hear just as many arguments that the likes of Someplace Else and Minerva:Metastasis (fan-made mods) have actually been accepted as canon.

i don’t want to debate anything HERE. What i’d rather see are articles, quotes and the like to back up either story. There’s SO much going on in the Half-Life universe!

-Kawai Tei-

#2

Black Mesa being destroyed is canon. I don’t recall if any nuke is canon, let alone the nuke in Opposing Force, but Black Mesa being destroyed is.

As far as I know, nothing else is officially canon, though players are free to work in whatever material they want and Valve will acknowledge its existence if they feel like it, but aren’t compelled to do so.

#3

Laidlaw has stated that the concept of canon in the HL universe was created by the fans, and that he doesn’t think of it that way.
He has also said that you could consider as canon those story elements that are reused in later official HL games.

#4

Someplace Else & Minerva:Metastasis are not canon. They’re fan made with no discernable place in the Half-Life storyline. Opposing Force and Blueshift however were made by another company then valve, but were loosely guided by valve. They’re ambiguously canon. Valve doesn’t seem concerned with them even remotely, and some fans cling to them under the belief that everything is canon unless the next games go out of their way to contradict it, and even then some people will come up with split-timelines or some crap like that to try to justify it. There really is no point to it.

#5

The nuke was definitely canon, as was blue shift’s description of the teleportation process.

#6

Plus Barney being the guard at the door in the tram tunnels.

Minerva and Someplace else could be argued as being canon, seeing as they’ve never been contradicted, and the creator being hired by Valve.

#7

They have. In metastasis, the headcrab variants were genetically engineered, but Mark Laidlaw said they were the result of adaptive evolution and eating toxic stuff.

#8

Opposing Force is canon. Race X are not.

#9

what about the events of decay? they seemed to fit in pretty close with the original storyline as well

#10

Portal has been aknowledged as being In-universe.

#11

Shock and freakin’ awe!

D:

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.