The combine being a type 4/5 civilizations are so unfathomably advanced, that invading earth was the equivalent of a one your dead skin cells falling on some microbes
@@cowmoo5596 I dunno. I thought you were directly responding to UnCappel. It was a bit weird to go from the original comment to your response wich talk about another subject. Like if someone was talking about how to be a good boxer and then someone respond with some facts about Jujitsu.
I like to think Adrian Shephard's destiny is to be released from stasis some time after the Combine have been defeated, maybe a few centuries in the future, and then placed aboard the Normandy and promoted to Commander to save the universe from the Reapers.
Probably Gman detains Adrian as a "failsafe" against Freeman. And as freeman is now trying to get away from his control with the help of vorts, might come back in a new game.
@@jdn4070 well, Adrian wasn't even supposed to be hired or detained by G-Man in the first place. In his speech he basically goes "My employers literally want nothing to do with you but you're kinda like this orange dude so uh... Detained". If his employers didn't even feel it necessary to get Adrian in the first place maybe G-Man during the Interdimensional meeting he had with his employers went "Well I've got this guy with a gas mask!" and they went "No, we didn't even like him in the first place, just get the girl"
12:30 - if anything, G-Man's behavior in Opposing Force is even more in-character with his characterization in the later games. He regularly meddles in various affairs, he sees people as "assets" whose "potential" he might "invest" into, he can show some emotions, and his own views don't always fully agree with those of his "employers"(see him talking about Alyx in Ep2). All that is pretty consistent with him appreciating Shephard's abilities and wanting to preserve him, rather than simply disposing of him. At the same time, Adrian being detained rather than hired means G-Man probably doesn't have the freedom to deploy him in an official capacity.
I mention the Xen relays at 5:10 with regard to Marc Laidlaw's comments, but I didn't connect it back to HL2, which would have been a pretty strong connection to make.
Also Barney goes through a "Harmonal reflux" at the end of blue shift, which is the same thing Gordon experiences during the teleporter malfunction in Kleiner's lab.
and stasis is introduced in OpFor. in hl1 gordon walks into a portal and we have no idea what happens next, in opfor gman talks about preserving adrian and such, which he doesnt say in hl1
Most people don't notice that the bulletin board at Black Mesa East has a picture of what looks like crater with a circle around it, likely Black Mesa after it was nuked
I've always seen Race X as making perfect sense. They imply a much larger universe and I always saw them as opportunists that jumped in before the Combine did their thing. Hopefully we will see Adrian again. Great analysis!
The Noclip Arkane documentary revealed that in Arkane's cancelled Half-Life game you would have played as Adrian Shephard. It's a shame it was cancelled, but it shows that Adrian returning hasn't been ruled out. ***** Half-Life Alyx spoilers ***** At the end of HLA, G-man says that they've struggled to find a suitable replacement for Gordon, implying the non-existence of Adrian. However, Adrian being 'Detained' as opposed to 'Hired' might explain this, so it doesn't necessarily exclude him from Valve's canon. Anyway, really well made video with some interesting points. It's cool to see someone doing a deep lore dive on Half-Life, it's a super interesting universe. This should have way more views.
Pierce Smith Ah yes, I’d heard that was mentioned in the documentary but I haven’t gotten around to watching it yet. Obviously Valve or whoever could write a continuation of Shephard’s story, but him being detained wraps things up pretty neatly. And yes, I believe Shephard would not be available as a replacement due to being detained. Gman’s speech at the end of Opposing Force implies that he was already pulling a lot of strings with his employers just to get Shephard detained instead of leaving him to die, so I’d imagine it would be very difficult to use him in a similar vein as Gordon. But thank you for the kind words, I really appreciate it!
@@ericsbuds and remember, gman is hiring alyx in the ending of HL2 EP2 (ahh time travels). I can't wait for HL3, Eli is no longer dead so we can hear details about gman
Kunal Kishore actually, I think he was, in half life 1 when Gordon gets put to sleep it ends with a bright, while light. When Adrian is left in the void, there’s no white, he’s left all along forever.
@@CharlesBunyan0808 It can be that in half life 3, after Alex gone is missing and gordon needs someone to help in reaching the aparture ship I don't know the name sorry so G-Man sends Adrian shepherd to help him
dunno if you're on the fence about VR or not, but if you're a half life fan this game alone is worth it to invest in VR. Just don't get anything from facebook.
My idea is that the black mesa incident was one HUGE beacon of energy across the multiverse. Everyone who could see it, (race x, the combine) did. And some were interested...
@@rey4874 that's a lie, the pure distinct radioactive energies that came from the microwave when it popped the casserole were mixed with the tuna, which was more than enough to put earth on everyone's radar. Nice job gordon
13:12 this also extends to the armored headcrabs not being seen again, and how fast head crabs, fast zombies and poison zombies aren't in alyx, but are still obviously cannon.
You know how we saw what was later revealed to be a lightning dog in the first HL:A trailer? When I saw a creature scuttling along the floor shooting blue lightning, my mind immediately went to the Shock Roaches in OpFor. Even after we've learned what it actually is, I still think it could be tied to Race X if Valve wanted, as the power scheme fits with the rest of Race X creatures and it would explain where it came from.
Hey, do you know about the cut half life 2 beta line where Eli refers to black mesa and says "Black mesa is a crater". This implies that the Half Life 2 story arc was written with the knowledge of black mesa being nuked. Thank you
@@aarontheperson6867 Read my message again. The line proves that the plot arc of HL2 was written with the acknowledgement of Gear Box's choice to nuke black mesa.
@@richter6642 i thought you were saying that the current plot was written with that in mind. if you are, do i need remind of the cut children slaves? the current plot is not written with those in mind. if you are just saying that valve was willing to acknowledge the expansion, then yeah, you are correct completely, my bad.
@@aarontheperson6867 The lines we hear are from the final voice actor meaning it was probably from very near the end of story development. But ultimately yea I'm just saying that valves writerz acknowledge the crater.
Honestly I say Opposing Force is canon just because I find the idea of an alien invasion happening in the middle of another completely unrelated alien invasion funny.
You know, following the “ADRIAN DETAINED/CANON” Theory I wonder what would happen if the Detained would be released? Besides Adrian, imagine the other people G-Man had to “detain”
I always thought that Antlions were Race-X, mostly because I thought that the Antlion Guards were Voltigores, and had forgotten about their ranged attack by the time I played HL2. Really the only things that support my head cannon is the fact that both Race X and Antlions are insect like, and the visual similarities between the Guard and Voltigore.
That would be interesting since Vortigaunts are said to have basically farmed Antlions for generations. That would imply that there's a feud or some sort of hostility between the Vorts and Race X that's been going on for thousands of years. It would also explain why Race X attacks Xenian creatures. They kill Headcrabs because that's a food source for the Vorts, and they attack the Gargantua at the dam because it's working with the Vorts under the Nihilanth
All these years I thought Scott's jokes in Freeman's Mind about Coverups covering up the coverup were just jokes I had no idea that was the actual plot
15:10 the alien grunts were synthetic like much of the combines forces. In xen we see a factory with these big egg pod things that move on conveyor belts and are created by the vortigaunts. When you break them using a rocket launcher an alien grunt is inside.
This is one of those things people don't think about. Characters and locations can be canon but not talked about every 5 minutes. Russel is canon, but if he died/was captured in the years between HL Alyx and HL 2, why would they bring him up? Do people who have lost friends and family constantly talk about them? I can see it being brought up but if you were living on a razor's edge in a post-combine occupation, why would you bring up past dead friends?
Well. The main character of blue shift is barney? It says on steam. Made by Gearbox Software and originally released in 2001 as an add-on to Half-Life, Blue Shift is a return to the Black Mesa Research Facility in which you play as Barney Calhoun, the security guard sidekick who helped Gordon out of so many sticky situations.
Absolutely correct that is the description on Steam. But also articles at the time of HL:BS release in 2001, say the same, you play as Barney Calhoun, some of these articles can still be found today online, 20yr later. I mention the articles of the era because that shows Steam didn't came up with Barney name at a later time to justify it with regards to having worked at Black Mesa.
There's two timelines, the Valve timeline where the game continues the story from HL1. In this timeline, even if there are inconsistencies between HL1 and HL2, we can assume that whats presented in HL2, is the canon. Even if Barney was every security guard, now he is Barney, Gordons friend. This transformation happens to serve the game better and indeed, we do not consider Gordon killing all scientists canon, do we? What matters is the things presented in the current game as the graphical leap has heavily changed how stories and lore are presented, thus, "new canon", the first timeline. Second timeline, the Randy Pitchford timeline, begins during the events of HL1. Randy walks to the middle of his new gamestudio, takes a USB-stick full of child porn, announces that his gonna make it dissappear, inserting it in his hat. Boom, the hat is empty, everyone claps. They proceed to make Opposing Force while trying to avoid Randy and it's a success. Years later, the USB comes back to haunt him and he plays the "Bigot song" on his guitar. In my opinion, the timeline split isn't as big of a deal as people pretend and the fact is, it doesn't matter.
Why not like in the terminator franchise with the timeline changing? We have learned slowly that the Gman has quite a bit of power being able to take people out of the flow of normal time hence why Eli after seeing you after so many decades that you havent changed one bit from the last time he saw you. Then we see what appears to be a form of time travel in Half Life Alyx. With this in mind how do we know that the time line that is cannon is always changing due to the Gman meddling throughout time? He even said it in Half Life 2 in the opening monologue "the right man at the right time can make all the difference". If this is how they are doing it, this would be quite amazing cause you never will have cannon or non cannon as the time line is always changing where what happened no longer happened due to the changes in time. Such as the ending in Episode 2 where you and Alyx live but Eli dies.
@@Drprophetius, Yep Laidlaw the creator of the Half Life story. I know of him quite well. I feel he only said what he said because even though he was the writer for the Half Life story, it was still owned by Valve and he sure couldnt come out against Valve so he had to be very vague and neutral. But in the end there is quite a bit of evidence that supports the Gear Box DLCs were canon and part of the Half Life Universe. I personally always felt it was but I had to deal with people back in the late 90s before Half Life 2 came out, constantly going on and on about how its not canon cause it wasnt created by Valve nor did Valve have a hand in its development just a cheat sheet of the back story of Half Life to make it mesh.
the quality of this video essay, especially the editing, is incredible considering the subs/views you have. i was watching this thinking this was from some much bigger channel, but you only have 321 subs as i write this. you're going to blow up.
The fact that Valve pretty much confirmed through Laidlaw that Black Mesa got nuked, wouldn't that by itself make Opposing Force canon? Also yeah I believe it was a coincidence Gordon didn't saw any Race X aliens in Black Mesa. I mean the facility is pretty big and the Nihilanth focused all of the Xen aliens on him, im guessing there was a different entity (the X Race worm) focusing all the X Race aliens on Shepherd rather than Gordon, sense Adrian was the second biggest threat to Gordon. Now, by the time Adrian killed the worm, he pretty much destroyed all Race X continuation, leaving those who are alive to die in the nuke. So it makes sense why there aren't any Race X aliens in any other HL game. I believe while the Nihilanth had the Xen aliens in "chains", the worm wasn't only sharing the same mind with X Race, but he was also the main reason they were all alive. So I believe finishing off the worm killed this race completely.
The nuke could have perfectly occured without OP4 being canon, plus, Race X is supposed to be one of the strongest, therefore, The Worm would have dropped some of them on Gordon, being as Gordon was a bigger threat than Adrian
@@NoobGyver Why would you presume that? You *also* get teleported to other locations that clearly are within the Black Mesa Facility, so if it was nuked it must have been after Gordon was 'recruited' bythe G-Man.
on the black ops, id like to imagineee they were seperate entitys in thee early sttages of goverment involvementt, but later tthey were ordered to then kill the HECU soldiers
That would mean that the max potential of a Headcrab zombie is directly related to the host's physical fitness. The ones we see in HL1 and 2 are all skinny because the scientists aren't strong and the citizens of the Combine ruled Earth are malnourished. Since the military boys are stronger, the zombie is stronger as a result.
The gonomes are wearing scientist trousers. The stuff on their backs looks just like puss filled cysts. There are military zombies however none of the gonomes have the same trousers on. Maybe Jeff from half life alyx is more akin to what a gonome should be?
*ShepHard Nice video though. I also believe that OP4 is canon. There's no reason why it shouldn't be. Plus Shephard is a favorite character of many HL fans.
he is canon, the only reason gman don't use him because he is too unpredictable and dangerous, even gman failed to kill him. In the future maybe vorts will release him
Well, I kind of figured that the Gonome came to be in a similar way as the Tank from Left 4 Dead, as in that the Gonomes are former Marines that used steroids on themselves and got zombified by a Headcrab at some point after being sent to Black Mesa. The steroids in that Marines bloodstream would have caused extreme muscle growth during mutation of the body by the Headcrab.
Marc Laidlaw's take on canon is honestly... disingenuous. He believes in canon just like anyone else, he just doesn't want to discredit Gearbox's work, nor speak for Valve's position on the HL canon when he has no authority to do so, so he gave the best PR response that he could.
Opposing force doesn't fit into the lore, and it's never mentioned again. Also, he never says it is cannon, you're just telling people your opinion and lying that its actually a fact.
@@isoldmykidneysforyoutubepr3605 A lot of the stuff in the HL series is never seen or mentioned again and even Valve themselves have said that there is no real 'canon'. In many cases, the HL series being no exception, canon is a construct made up by fans.
Considering the ending to Alyx, I think after they go after the Gman in HL3, Gman wakes Adrian from his stasis and cuts to his text saying Hired after being told to... Hunt Down The Freeman.
I love both Opposing Force and Blue Shift, they both add great depth to the world, and I agree with pretty much every praise given to them, and it's actually an extremely nit-picky thing in each game which is why I don't actually think of them as canon. For Opposing Force, it's simply the existence of the displacement cannon. The vast majority of Half Life is spent making your way to the Lambda Complex because that's where Freeman needs to go to get to Xen, when you finally arrive you have to travel all over the place fixing their equipment so that they can even send you, and after it's all set up it still takes 5 minutes and the risk of an interruption (which happens in the form of the controller fight) before you finally make it to that first island. So you have the in-universe requirements of an entire nuclear reactor and wing of the Black Mesa staff to open the portal to Xen, the gameplay perspective of spending most of your time trying to reach this place, but sitting somewhere idle in the facility is just a gun that can instantly teleport you to Xen, powered by some depleted uranium. Even with Laidlaw saying that consistency is more important than gameplay, which is definitely true, I just can't swallow the idea of the "Xen gun". For Blue Shift, it's basically the same reason; there's just a second teleporter to xen that was left underground where nobody knows about it, is deceptively simpler to use, and only a handful of people seem to know about it
For Blue Shift I always thought of it like the small teleporter works becasue they have build something in Xen while the big one is needed to put you in a place where you dont have the slingshot device. (The Teleoprter in HL2 is also alot smaller and runs without the combine noticing -> low energy cost) And yea its bs BUT the displacement gun does not have a destination and may just teleport you into the void. As such it's a lot "easier". So my "Therory that could make it work" (Yea... That should not be needed) is the more precise the teleport and the lower the chance of a resonance displacement is the biger the teleporter has to be. As such it would cheapen Freeman’s journey and just be a lazzy excuse to not copy the same procedures to get to the same places. At the end of the day I concider them as semi canon. They are licensed by valve, do not have to contradict things directly ( -just minor that could be explained by later games- ) and - like you said - add great depth to the world. But they are not written by the main writer as such there will be small diferences that they can not have thought of. There are a lot of big franchises with alot more contradictions. Like, uhmm _Star Wars_
How critically acclaimed Alyx was i believe (and desperately hope) that this pseudo sequel/prequel/spinoff may not be the last. Considering Shepherd was meant to return in the 'return to ravenholm' chapter that got cancelled it wouldnt be outside the realm of possibility that maybe another VR game in the same vein as Alyx could be released later down the line. Maybe Half-Life: Barney, telling the tale of how he became an important player in the resistance and how he infiltrated the combines CP. Or Half-Life: Shepherd, telling a similar tale to the cancelled project from years ago. A man can certainly dream :)
Imagine a opposing force sequal where Adrian is released by the gman. And because of his military experience joins civil protection to hunt freeman for killing his fellow marines but realizes the evil behind the combine and ends up working besides freeman with the resistance
Some of my personal takes: 1) Shephard is canon, but isn't coming back, because he wasn't recruited as a backup, he was detained for prevention. Adrian shows throughout Opposing Force that he has similar skills and talents as Gordon, so he could be a suitable candidate for hiring. However, throughout the game, he shows that he has a mind of his own, and refuses orders when he needs to. He is sent in to kill the Scientists, but helps them out instead when shit hits the fan. The government sends in Black Ops to clean up Black Mesa, and he actively opposes them. The government tries to blow up Black Mesa, and he stops it. Additionally, Gordon only seems to do things because other people tell him to; "Get to the surface and let people know we're stranded down here.", "Get to the Lambda Labs and help them solve this mess.", "Go into Xen and kill the creature causing all this." From what I remember, Adrian never has this. He just wanders through Black Mesa, trying to survive and get out. No one orders him around. Shephard's seeming lack of authority, but with the capabilities of Gordon makes him a potential threat to G-Man's plans. If Gordon is capable enough of taking out the Citadel in HL2 by himself, imagine what Adrian could do on his own. So, G-Man detains him. Gets him out of the way so that he doesn't interfere with their plans. And maybe, if the shit really hits the fan for G-Man, he can release Adrian, like he's releasing a wild animal to wreak havoc. 2) Race X is a scouting race for the Combine I don't recall where, but I do remember some sources stating that the Combine have previously captured and enslaved other dimensions and worlds. I believe the creatures from Xen are only there because the Combine took over their home world. So, my theory is that Race X is a race of aliens that are hired/enslaved/whatever by the Combine, and used by them to scout out potential dimensions for resources and new races to enslave. Maybe they found Earth at coincidentally the same time as the Resonance Cascade. Maybe the Resonance Cascade acted like a beacon that drew them to Earth. Maybe they were scouting out Xen and the Resonance Cascade opened portals to a much more suitable world. Whatever it is, they came to Earth, this relatively small group of aliens came to Earth late in the Black Mesa Incident, took samples, got data on Earth defenses from the HCEU and Black Ops, and sent it back to the Combine. The Combine saw this data and later began the Seven Hours War, using the data collected by Race X to curbstomp Earth into submission. Race X doesn't show up in HL2 and onwards because they have no further purpose on Earth. It's been taken over, and Race X has moved on to other possible worlds to take over. And their limited time in a confined area where most of the witnesses were killed meant that few people were actually aware of their existence by the events of HL2.
Shephard was never given those orders though, in the starting chopper ride the grunts argue towards their captain what their orders are, and he snaps back telling them that they'll get their orders once they land, but they never land as they get attacked so he is never given the orders to wipe the scientist
Great vid! Couple of extra things, you could technically say that Jeff from half life alyx is a sort of gonome. Maybe the older headcrabs had spores and such that fested within the hosts bodies? And in half life alyx its also shown that the Gman doesnt give a rats ass about time and all that, so maybe adrian is just from a different timeline
I have a theory or two about headcrabs myself: The Gonome is one of the early stages of Gonarch development, which is only created when a headcrab cannot detect a living Gonarch nearby and have deemed it safe to begin the process of Gonarch formation. This is why you don't see any Gonomes in Ravenholm, as the many traps and fires in the area you travel through would make it unsafe for a headcrab to risk Gonome creation. It is also possible that headcrabs work in similar ways to bees, where Gonomes are only created when a headcrab zombie gets exposed to some sort of chemical or substance that would trigger the process of creating a Gonarch (like their version of Royal Jelly for bees.) This substance or a accidental recreation of it could have been found somewhere in Black Mesa in small amounts, hence why you only see a few Gonomes spread few and far between. Somewhat unrelated to the theories above, but I like to think that the poison headcrabs are the only heavily genetically modified headcrabs you find in the games (with the possible exception of the armored headcrabs from Alyx) and the fast headcrabs are more of a natural adaptation that the headcrabs have acquired in their time on Earth.
I played all but Decay due to it being PS exclusive recently and I loved them all. OF was my favorite after Half Life 1. I honestly thought that it was cannon since I heard that the Government nuked the site. Though my brain definitely wasn’t thinking much as I thought that the Shocktroopers were evolved Vortiguants as well as those stabby little guys
LORE: Xen is a borderworld that acts like a mid-station for other planets in the cosmos. not even the vortigaunts were originally from there, so yes there are many species in the universe, sometimes you see headcrabs being attacked by bullsquids in HL1.. so yea, race x is not the problem, even antlions are from another unkown world, and the gonome is just a different strain, the virus mutated differtly, since we get to see more times of headcrabs in the future.. I love OF, and makes sense as well to never mention black mesa since it was nuked.. they ended up in eastern europe, cuz new mexico is a giant crater... i hope we see these characters again, adrian, rosenberg etc ... some speculate that the scientist in HL Alyx is colette green from Decay, she has similar hair and was present at black mesa during the incident.. so everything IS CANON, even lost coast set in st olga... guess what, there's a Olga girl at the start of HL alyx..
The biggest evidence for Opposing Force being canon to me is that Valve planned to commission Arkane Studio to make a Half-Life 2 expansion called Return to Ravenholm which was to star none other than Adrian Shepherd himself. The game was also going to reveal the fate of Father Grigori. Also, I always thought Gonomes were just HECU boys infected by headcrabs, and that’s why they were so much faster and stronger. Then again, I haven’t played Opposing Force in a long time.
On the topic of Gonomes, they seem to be mutant Scientist Zombies since they have white pants and HL1 Scienists have white pants. (Note: The Scientists have brown pants in the HD Pack but OP4 came out before the HD pack was made) Also you encounter Zombie Marines in Opposing Force and they have a clear military uniform while the Gonome is just rotted flesh and skin except for it's white pants which belong to the scientists.
Spoiler (reference to HL Alyx) Something to consider is that in Alyx the Gman states he can make small nudges. Something noticeable is that he acts through intermediaries when accomplishing those. While it is implied that he is extremely powerful (time travel/manipulation, inter dimensional travel and is imprisoned in a reality bending labyrinth) and therefor could do whatever needs to done, he does so with pawns instead. This implies there being some kind of cold war being fought by proxy and direct involvement could cause issues. Next it is said he acted out of character in OpFor, true to an extent. He is tasked by his employers to bring about certain outcomes (we can only really guess at these). He takes personal action breaking these cold war esque rules that are in place. He tells Adrian that he is being kept out of trouble and to prevent him from causing trouble. We know that he did have his eye on Adrian form before so he was grooming him. We find out at the end of Alyx that Eli did make a deal with him since Eli was warned about unexpected consequences. So the Gman doesn't seem to just get rid of former pawns but does take steps to preserve them. TL'DR Adrian is evidence that the Gman broke rules, so he keeps him alive and hidden because he might need him but doesn't want anyone finding out he broke the rules.
My opinion is that opposing force is a mixed bag of Canon and non-canon. One of the biggest Canon things about it is seeing how black Mesa is dealt with aka the nuke from the black ops that even the head writer of half life (before he left) acknowledged and confirmed it. I'd say one of the bigger things that people always bring up when it comes to this discussion of Canon and non-canon is the existence of race X. Now we don't see any trace of those guys in half life 2, but then again neither do we see of bullsquids and houndeyes.
good to see someone put a spoiler alert on a game thats 22 years old, most people just think "eh everyone has played it anyways" i myself hadnt played any half life game before 2018
"I know there's a group of Half-Life fans that feel that Opposing Force is better than the original game..." *repeatedly points thumb at self* "Or even the best game in the series." *vigorously points at self* "Honestly I think it's one of the weakest Half-Life games." *smile immediately drops*
@@TheoreticalRain, Half Life was an amazing game. I spent hours and hours replaying the game trying to find anything I could have possibly missed as I wanted to know as much as I could about the black mesa facility. Blueshift I liked as well but for me out of the two DLCs I like Opposing force slightly more than blueshift. For me Blue Shift just seemed way too short.
I loved Opposing Force when I was growing up, I did feel mixed about it for years mostly with the aliens, but ultimately just loved anything that just dived into deeper and weirder parts of the general half-life concept. Was just more of a game I loved :D
What if killing the Nihilanth was the reason to why the Race X Creatures start to exist? Because I noticed at the last chapters of the Opposing Force game there wasn't much vortigaunts, meaning they could've hid and surrendered from their fear because they were just slaves of the Nihilanth and they were rather passive.
Jai Rovira Well Race X first appears before you see Gordon go to Xen, and they show up a lot immediately after that so I’m not sure if that would make sense.
No offense, but it seems Marc Laidlaw should be a writer for speeches given by politicians. He suggests just enough to keep you involved, yet takes responsibility for nothing. Every answer he gives is designed to be the vague "maybe" you want it to be.
OK, I can get people not wanting to consider Opposing Force Canon, but Blue Shift and Decay? They're obviously canon! Why would someone think B. Calhoun isn't Barney? And Gina and Colette seal the rift between Xen and Earth! They're essential to the story!
I could see people not considering Blue Shift canon, but Opposing Force and Decay have important info related to the story, story wise Blue Shift is the least important.
@@TylertheCC1010fan Decay is the most connected to Half-Life, and it's the most essential to the story. Opposing Force is *kind of* important to the story, I mean sure Adrian disarms the nuke and kills the Gene Worm, but G-Man reactivates the nuke right after and the Gene Worm probably would have been killed by the nuke.
@@CodenameBolts Opposing Force does give us info about the Black Ops, but yeah the Expansions in order of importance to Half-Life 1's story is as follows, Decay, Opposing Force, Blue Shift.
@@TylertheCC1010fan Blue Shift is only important in the way that it shows how a side character in Half-Life 2 survived. Not to diss it, I really enjoy it, just you're right in the way that Barney doesn't do anything to impact the story except not die.
thats a bad theory for multiple reasons but the biggest reason: Vortigaunts have explicitly been raising and rearing antlions since long before they came to xen.
Why doesn't this have more visits ?! It is a good video and with good arguments, you have really taken time to make this video, you know that now you have a new sub :)
"Fun in a game is ultimately more important than consistency". Well, I find fun in a game's consistency. Consistency is what makes a game enjoyable, right? Hence, people have been coming up with the explanations for why Race X isn't mentioned in any new game, or why Gman doesn't even mention Adrian Shepard in any Half-Life game other than OpFor. It's just a minority of Half-Life fanbase which states that Opposing Force and Blue Shift aren't canon. (Sorry for my bad English) Feel free to correct me at any point.
I'm glad you point out HL Alyx spoilers. I s t i l l don't have a VR headset nad sometimes it's hard to avoid spoilers for things. But thankfully the community has been very nice in making sure everyone knows when spoilers are coming. I want to play HL Alyx so bad! One day I hope I can.
I guess the real canon was the one Gman decided along the way.
Status: Hired
The right canon in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.
I mean he DID completely change the future with Alyx.
@@freedomgoddess or maybe the real canon was the GLUON GUN
GLUON GUN GANG BABYYYYY
@@migarsormrapophis2755 gluon gun gluon gun gluon gun gluon gun
I like that one of the Race X leaders noticed the sudden increase in earth portals and just thought “lmao let's invade that dimension”.
It just started becoming trendy to invade Earth.
The combine being a type 4/5 civilizations are so unfathomably advanced, that invading earth was the equivalent of a one your dead skin cells falling on some microbes
@@cowmoo5596 He's not talking about the combine thought.
@@-Zakhiel- No, no he is not. Your point?
@@cowmoo5596 I dunno. I thought you were directly responding to UnCappel. It was a bit weird to go from the original comment to your response wich talk about another subject. Like if someone was talking about how to be a good boxer and then someone respond with some facts about Jujitsu.
Reasons Opposing Force is canon: Otis is in it
160th like and first reply!!
166th like and second reply!!
170th like and third reply!
mmmmmmmm Candy
@@bigblue9996 Stupid machines! Why don’t these things ever seem to work?
I like to think Adrian Shephard's destiny is to be released from stasis some time after the Combine have been defeated, maybe a few centuries in the future, and then placed aboard the Normandy and promoted to Commander to save the universe from the Reapers.
@@TheSoCalledZoner1 Andromeda is bad, the others are great. Cretan.
@@TheSoCalledZoner1
Blasphemy!
@@TheSoCalledZoner1
I was joking buddy.
like and hate whatever you want
Cough even if you’re wrong cough ;)
Good one
@@thewerewolff7248 yes?
Probably Gman detains Adrian as a "failsafe" against Freeman. And as freeman is now trying to get away from his control with the help of vorts, might come back in a new game.
You fucked up my "Sequel".
Hunting down the freeman reloaded yay
@@cualquier6cosa *reloads*
The Problem is in Alyx when the G-man says they've struggled to find a suitable replacement, despite Adrian seeming perfect for the Job
@@jdn4070 well, Adrian wasn't even supposed to be hired or detained by G-Man in the first place. In his speech he basically goes "My employers literally want nothing to do with you but you're kinda like this orange dude so uh... Detained".
If his employers didn't even feel it necessary to get Adrian in the first place maybe G-Man during the Interdimensional meeting he had with his employers went "Well I've got this guy with a gas mask!" and they went "No, we didn't even like him in the first place, just get the girl"
12:30 - if anything, G-Man's behavior in Opposing Force is even more in-character with his characterization in the later games. He regularly meddles in various affairs, he sees people as "assets" whose "potential" he might "invest" into, he can show some emotions, and his own views don't always fully agree with those of his "employers"(see him talking about Alyx in Ep2).
All that is pretty consistent with him appreciating Shephard's abilities and wanting to preserve him, rather than simply disposing of him. At the same time, Adrian being detained rather than hired means G-Man probably doesn't have the freedom to deploy him in an official capacity.
Вероятно, что Gman пытается стать самостоятельным, используя Шепарда
Maybe they did that to make adrian canon
You forgot to mention that the Xen relays are shown in blue shift years before they're mentioned in HL2 at Black Mesa East.
I mention the Xen relays at 5:10 with regard to Marc Laidlaw's comments, but I didn't connect it back to HL2, which would have been a pretty strong connection to make.
Also Barney goes through a "Harmonal reflux" at the end of blue shift, which is the same thing Gordon experiences during the teleporter malfunction in Kleiner's lab.
@@farawaygaming_ and presumably, at the end of Anomalous Materials, but it was only given a name first in Blue Shift and stuck around for Half-Life 2.
@@VinVonVoom ii feel like the one in bs matches up with the hl2 one a bit better though
and stasis is introduced in OpFor. in hl1 gordon walks into a portal and we have no idea what happens next, in opfor gman talks about preserving adrian and such, which he doesnt say in hl1
When it comes to most of the Xen enemies from HL1, I can only imagine that the Combine rolled in afterwards and obliterated them.
That or the Combine left them in America to finish any human still left alive in the 7 hour war.
Speaking of, I'd really like to see some combine-augmented xen aliens in the next games, like combine bullsquids or alien controllers
@@manniacc2681 Imagine Alien Grunts in Combine kit
@EZRA BRAMAN Beta content suggests that Bullsquids are a rampant pest while houndeyes still exist but are not very suited to earth.
@@Shoxic666the combine grunts from HL Alyx
Most people don't notice that the bulletin board at Black Mesa East has a picture of what looks like crater with a circle around it, likely Black Mesa after it was nuked
never noticed that
There's a cut line of dialogue where Eli Vance says "Black Mesa is just a crater now." Even further proof that O.F. is canon.
I've always seen Race X as making perfect sense. They imply a much larger universe and I always saw them as opportunists that jumped in before the Combine did their thing. Hopefully we will see Adrian again. Great analysis!
That is exactly what I think as well. Seems that Race X just jumped in, and evidence of there short-lived invasion was wiped out by the nuke.
did this guy just pronounce Socrates as “so-CRAY-tees” lmao
This video’s been out for 5 months and no one noticed... and now today you’re the second person to call me out for it. Lmao.
@@TheoreticalRain Haha, it’s a great video though. I’m surprised it doesn’t have more views
@@siliconmonday Thank you!
@@TheoreticalRain don't worry about it too much, the English Socrates pronunciation is killing the original name as well :P
soceaDEEZ nuts
The Noclip Arkane documentary revealed that in Arkane's cancelled Half-Life game you would have played as Adrian Shephard. It's a shame it was cancelled, but it shows that Adrian returning hasn't been ruled out.
***** Half-Life Alyx spoilers *****
At the end of HLA, G-man says that they've struggled to find a suitable replacement for Gordon, implying the non-existence of Adrian. However, Adrian being 'Detained' as opposed to 'Hired' might explain this, so it doesn't necessarily exclude him from Valve's canon.
Anyway, really well made video with some interesting points. It's cool to see someone doing a deep lore dive on Half-Life, it's a super interesting universe. This should have way more views.
Pierce Smith Ah yes, I’d heard that was mentioned in the documentary but I haven’t gotten around to watching it yet. Obviously Valve or whoever could write a continuation of Shephard’s story, but him being detained wraps things up pretty neatly. And yes, I believe Shephard would not be available as a replacement due to being detained. Gman’s speech at the end of Opposing Force implies that he was already pulling a lot of strings with his employers just to get Shephard detained instead of leaving him to die, so I’d imagine it would be very difficult to use him in a similar vein as Gordon. But thank you for the kind words, I really appreciate it!
i though Alyx was a prequel. Why does Gman mention Gordon at all?
@@ericsbuds because it's after hl1 where gman and Gordon were in contract
@@bethanywhite247 i see i see. thanks!!
@@ericsbuds and remember, gman is hiring alyx in the ending of HL2 EP2 (ahh time travels). I can't wait for HL3, Eli is no longer dead so we can hear details about gman
I wanna see adrian again,hes a nice character tho i just wonder how would be his back
I think he is the coolest charecter after gordon freeman in whole universe
Wasn't he terminated by gman to stay in the void forever.
@@mondiefromroblox2738 no
Kunal Kishore actually, I think he was, in half life 1 when Gordon gets put to sleep it ends with a bright, while light. When Adrian is left in the void, there’s no white, he’s left all along forever.
@@CharlesBunyan0808 It can be that in half life 3, after Alex gone is missing and gordon needs someone to help in reaching the aparture ship I don't know the name sorry so G-Man sends Adrian shepherd to help him
Adrian was cool cus he was a soldier guy and I played as him. Thus he should be canon. Case closed
This makes much more sense than everything
Yeah he is cool 😎
Also he has a cute alien
Great argument but unfortunately, your mum
He has cool mask
This game better be canon, shit was hard as fuck, even on easy
Yeah these goddamn shocktroopers
@@clev3r928 the black ops........
Игра очень простая, единственнся проблема лишь в женщинах
I beat it on hard, one of the most difficult games ever
@@ВиталийПетров-п8р just like real life amiright
"Now here is a section about Half Life Alyx"
Me who doesn't own VR: *"This is where I get off."*
dunno if you're on the fence about VR or not, but if you're a half life fan this game alone is worth it to invest in VR.
Just don't get anything from facebook.
@@Geddy135 Speaking for me, I don't have a VR because I'm broke as fuck
I’m gonna say to you guys, there’s important stuff in HL:A lore wise so I mean you should’ve stuck around
@@Geddy135 I'm not getting vr for only one game... oh no I wouldn't. That's silly and wasteful.
@@doigt6590 you keep telling yourself that
My idea is that the black mesa incident was one HUGE beacon of energy across the multiverse. Everyone who could see it, (race x, the combine) did. And some were interested...
To think it all started with an antimass spectrometer and a Xen crystal, a routine experiment turned multiversal energy beacon
@@rey4874 that's a lie, the pure distinct radioactive energies that came from the microwave when it popped the casserole were mixed with the tuna, which was more than enough to put earth on everyone's radar. Nice job gordon
13:12 this also extends to the armored headcrabs not being seen again, and how fast head crabs, fast zombies and poison zombies aren't in alyx, but are still obviously cannon.
8:50 Also in the end of Portal 1, GLADOS laughs at the thought of Chell going to work at Black Mesa
@Dr. Cool yes very fat
I like to think that the crowbar Barney gave Gordon in hl2 is the same one the scientist at the end of blue shift had while opening the gate
You know how we saw what was later revealed to be a lightning dog in the first HL:A trailer? When I saw a creature scuttling along the floor shooting blue lightning, my mind immediately went to the Shock Roaches in OpFor. Even after we've learned what it actually is, I still think it could be tied to Race X if Valve wanted, as the power scheme fits with the rest of Race X creatures and it would explain where it came from.
maybe its an unwanted hybrid the combine are trying to make extinct so thats why you dont see many of them
apparently that thing is actually another variant of headcrab, so it's definitely from xen
@@Eira_ Welp, there goes that theory. As if we didn't already have enough different fucking Headcrab variants in the HL universe...
Maybe they are the same creature after all I'm sure "Lightning dog" & "Shock Roach" are just nicknames.
@@yurionedge2199 Dude, why you say that? Headcrabs are my favorite things in the series and I'd like to see *moar* of them :D
Hey, do you know about the cut half life 2 beta line where Eli refers to black mesa and says "Black mesa is a crater". This implies that the Half Life 2 story arc was written with the knowledge of black mesa being nuked. Thank you
im not saying the games not canon, it probably is, but cut content isn't canon and it was cut for a reason.
@@aarontheperson6867 Read my message again. The line proves that the plot arc of HL2 was written with the acknowledgement of Gear Box's choice to nuke black mesa.
@@richter6642 i thought you were saying that the current plot was written with that in mind. if you are, do i need remind of the cut children slaves? the current plot is not written with those in mind.
if you are just saying that valve was willing to acknowledge the expansion, then yeah, you are correct completely, my bad.
@@aarontheperson6867 The lines we hear are from the final voice actor meaning it was probably from very near the end of story development. But ultimately yea I'm just saying that valves writerz acknowledge the crater.
@@aarontheperson6867 You're telling me the Combine using children as laborers isn't canon? Get the fuck outta here
Honestly I say Opposing Force is canon just because I find the idea of an alien invasion happening in the middle of another completely unrelated alien invasion funny.
0:16 what is Canon?
Well, Webster dictionary describes a canon as: a large, heavy gun usually mounted on a carriage.
That is 'cannon', an entirely different word with entirely different spelling...
@@TheWonderRabbit i can see the line that the joke made over your head
You know, following the “ADRIAN DETAINED/CANON” Theory
I wonder what would happen if the Detained would be released? Besides Adrian, imagine the other people G-Man had to “detain”
and think of all the different alien species too
This is well done. Love to see HL:OF fans still around.
I think every half life fan is a fan of OPFOR
@@apyr1439 you'd be surprised how many people dislike specifically op4 for some reason
@@GEO_ACO Havent found any yet, and i hope i never find any
@@apyr1439 well, let me tell you this then: don't ever join half life discords, especially the r/halflife one
@@GEO_ACO Just stay out of Reddit in general
I always thought that Antlions were Race-X, mostly because I thought that the Antlion Guards were Voltigores, and had forgotten about their ranged attack by the time I played HL2. Really the only things that support my head cannon is the fact that both Race X and Antlions are insect like, and the visual similarities between the Guard and Voltigore.
That would be interesting since Vortigaunts are said to have basically farmed Antlions for generations. That would imply that there's a feud or some sort of hostility between the Vorts and Race X that's been going on for thousands of years.
It would also explain why Race X attacks Xenian creatures. They kill Headcrabs because that's a food source for the Vorts, and they attack the Gargantua at the dam because it's working with the Vorts under the Nihilanth
All these years I thought Scott's jokes in Freeman's Mind about Coverups covering up the coverup were just jokes
I had no idea that was the actual plot
Adrian shepherd was supposed to be the main character in the cancelled: Half life episode 4 : return to ravelholm
That proves nothing about his canonicity though
this is a joke...
15:10 the alien grunts were synthetic like much of the combines forces. In xen we see a factory with these big egg pod things that move on conveyor belts and are created by the vortigaunts. When you break them using a rocket launcher an alien grunt is inside.
This is one of those things people don't think about. Characters and locations can be canon but not talked about every 5 minutes. Russel is canon, but if he died/was captured in the years between HL Alyx and HL 2, why would they bring him up? Do people who have lost friends and family constantly talk about them? I can see it being brought up but if you were living on a razor's edge in a post-combine occupation, why would you bring up past dead friends?
Well. The main character of blue shift is barney? It says on steam. Made by Gearbox Software and originally released in 2001 as an add-on to Half-Life, Blue Shift is a return to the Black Mesa Research Facility in which you play as Barney Calhoun, the security guard sidekick who helped Gordon out of so many sticky situations.
Absolutely correct that is the description on Steam.
But also articles at the time of HL:BS release in 2001, say the same, you play as Barney Calhoun, some of these articles can still be found today online, 20yr later.
I mention the articles of the era because that shows Steam didn't came up with Barney name at a later time to justify it with regards to having worked at Black Mesa.
I wouldn't say Opposing Force is the weakest in the series, that honor belongs to Blue Shift.
There's two timelines, the Valve timeline where the game continues the story from HL1. In this timeline, even if there are inconsistencies between HL1 and HL2, we can assume that whats presented in HL2, is the canon. Even if Barney was every security guard, now he is Barney, Gordons friend. This transformation happens to serve the game better and indeed, we do not consider Gordon killing all scientists canon, do we? What matters is the things presented in the current game as the graphical leap has heavily changed how stories and lore are presented, thus, "new canon", the first timeline.
Second timeline, the Randy Pitchford timeline, begins during the events of HL1. Randy walks to the middle of his new gamestudio, takes a USB-stick full of child porn, announces that his gonna make it dissappear, inserting it in his hat. Boom, the hat is empty, everyone claps. They proceed to make Opposing Force while trying to avoid Randy and it's a success. Years later, the USB comes back to haunt him and he plays the "Bigot song" on his guitar.
In my opinion, the timeline split isn't as big of a deal as people pretend and the fact is, it doesn't matter.
Why not like in the terminator franchise with the timeline changing? We have learned slowly that the Gman has quite a bit of power being able to take people out of the flow of normal time hence why Eli after seeing you after so many decades that you havent changed one bit from the last time he saw you. Then we see what appears to be a form of time travel in Half Life Alyx.
With this in mind how do we know that the time line that is cannon is always changing due to the Gman meddling throughout time? He even said it in Half Life 2 in the opening monologue "the right man at the right time can make all the difference".
If this is how they are doing it, this would be quite amazing cause you never will have cannon or non cannon as the time line is always changing where what happened no longer happened due to the changes in time. Such as the ending in Episode 2 where you and Alyx live but Eli dies.
@@Milner62 makes sense, a lot actually, it was some valve writer that said that he doesnt like canon at all, dota 2 has similiar thing going on.
@@Drprophetius, Yep Laidlaw the creator of the Half Life story. I know of him quite well. I feel he only said what he said because even though he was the writer for the Half Life story, it was still owned by Valve and he sure couldnt come out against Valve so he had to be very vague and neutral.
But in the end there is quite a bit of evidence that supports the Gear Box DLCs were canon and part of the Half Life Universe. I personally always felt it was but I had to deal with people back in the late 90s before Half Life 2 came out, constantly going on and on about how its not canon cause it wasnt created by Valve nor did Valve have a hand in its development just a cheat sheet of the back story of Half Life to make it mesh.
the quality of this video essay, especially the editing, is incredible considering the subs/views you have. i was watching this thinking this was from some much bigger channel, but you only have 321 subs as i write this. you're going to blow up.
I appreciate the compliments! To be honest, I think I post too infrequently to really get big, but I'm glad to see anyone enjoying my content.
1.35k Now!
Damn, an actually underrated video by an underrated youtuber. How strange.
Haha thank you
its more common than you think
i know a few peeps and have come across some fellas that are criminally underrated like holy crap
How does this have so low views
Hey Zeri RUclips is brutal, but thank you for the compliment!
Kermit the Forg u have good content so much effort I like it
The fact that Valve pretty much confirmed through Laidlaw that Black Mesa got nuked, wouldn't that by itself make Opposing Force canon? Also yeah I believe it was a coincidence Gordon didn't saw any Race X aliens in Black Mesa. I mean the facility is pretty big and the Nihilanth focused all of the Xen aliens on him, im guessing there was a different entity (the X Race worm) focusing all the X Race aliens on Shepherd rather than Gordon, sense Adrian was the second biggest threat to Gordon. Now, by the time Adrian killed the worm, he pretty much destroyed all Race X continuation, leaving those who are alive to die in the nuke. So it makes sense why there aren't any Race X aliens in any other HL game. I believe while the Nihilanth had the Xen aliens in "chains", the worm wasn't only sharing the same mind with X Race, but he was also the main reason they were all alive. So I believe finishing off the worm killed this race completely.
The nuke could have perfectly occured without OP4 being canon, plus, Race X is supposed to be one of the strongest, therefore, The Worm would have dropped some of them on Gordon, being as Gordon was a bigger threat than Adrian
it would be too risky for race x to return after the combine invade, and the combine probably would of wiped them off earth anyways
well it's confirmed it's been nuked in half life 1, at the end when you get teleported to a crater that's presumably black mesa
@@NoobGyver Why would you presume that? You *also* get teleported to other locations that clearly are within the Black Mesa Facility, so if it was nuked it must have been after Gordon was 'recruited' bythe G-Man.
@@TheWonderRabbit You dont get teleported around Black Mesa in Half-Life but Xen instead. That only happens in the remake "Black Mesa".
on the black ops, id like to imagineee they were seperate entitys in thee early sttages of goverment involvementt, but later tthey were ordered to then kill the HECU soldiers
I always thought the gonomes were just a type of Military zombie. I guess they do kind of look like they have the green armor, right?
That would mean that the max potential of a Headcrab zombie is directly related to the host's physical fitness. The ones we see in HL1 and 2 are all skinny because the scientists aren't strong and the citizens of the Combine ruled Earth are malnourished. Since the military boys are stronger, the zombie is stronger as a result.
The gonomes are wearing scientist trousers. The stuff on their backs looks just like puss filled cysts. There are military zombies however none of the gonomes have the same trousers on. Maybe Jeff from half life alyx is more akin to what a gonome should be?
Very interesting, and well-edited video. I hope to see more!
PurpleColonel Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Opposing force 2: Adrian throws hands with G-man and breaks the fuck out of stasis
Lmaoooo
Hunt Down the Freeman proves that Opposing Force is canon.
I'll show myself out.
Here’s the door, now get out.
@@notsooriginalmapper267 I left a long time ago. >:D
Ms. Vance, you wouldn't need all that to imprison Adrian Shephard.
Brother
@@ScientistHL Glad to oblige a fellow scientist.
@@Spamster3212 Do you know who ate all the donuts?
@@ScientistHL It's inconclusive.
@@ScientistHL I did
id like for gman to release adrian into the events of counterstrike to defuse bombs for eternity.
i was joking but not gonna lie it would be pretty badass if they added an adrian shephard player model for CT’s LOL
*ShepHard
Nice video though. I also believe that OP4 is canon. There's no reason why it shouldn't be. Plus Shephard is a favorite character of many HL fans.
Honza Balák Haha, thank you. I agree. But where did I misspell his name?
Kermit the Forg In the quotations.
Honza Balák Ah, that was a direct quotation. Laidlaw misspelled it, not me.
Kermit the Forg Alright, then. Sorry mate.
he is canon, the only reason gman don't use him because he is too unpredictable and dangerous, even gman failed to kill him. In the future maybe vorts will release him
Well, I kind of figured that the Gonome came to be in a similar way as the Tank from Left 4 Dead, as in that the Gonomes are former Marines that used steroids on themselves and got zombified by a Headcrab at some point after being sent to Black Mesa. The steroids in that Marines bloodstream would have caused extreme muscle growth during mutation of the body by the Headcrab.
That is now my headcanon :)
Half-Life: Alyx, Half-Life: Adrian
in half-life decay dr. keller talks about dr. kleiner
Marc Laidlaw's take on canon is honestly... disingenuous. He believes in canon just like anyone else, he just doesn't want to discredit Gearbox's work, nor speak for Valve's position on the HL canon when he has no authority to do so, so he gave the best PR response that he could.
That's exactly the reason
I'll save you 16 minutes of your life. Yes, it is canon.
I don't think so.
Opposing force doesn't fit into the lore, and it's never mentioned again. Also, he never says it is cannon, you're just telling people your opinion and lying that its actually a fact.
@@isoldmykidneysforyoutubepr3605 A lot of the stuff in the HL series is never seen or mentioned again and even Valve themselves have said that there is no real 'canon'. In many cases, the HL series being no exception, canon is a construct made up by fans.
@@isoldmykidneysforyoutubepr3605 these nuts don’t either
@@isoldmykidneysforyoutubepr3605 It’s canon
Reasons opposing force is canon: Corporal Adrian Shepherd is the protagonist
Considering the ending to Alyx, I think after they go after the Gman in HL3, Gman wakes Adrian from his stasis and cuts to his text saying Hired after being told to...
Hunt Down The Freeman.
You just earned a subscriber! I love Half-Life so much!
Opposing Force was made canon by the canonical third entry in the Half Life saga, Hunt Down the Freeman
XD
I'm a gnome zombie and you have been gnomed
Gman really send Shepard into _TIME PRISON_
I love both Opposing Force and Blue Shift, they both add great depth to the world, and I agree with pretty much every praise given to them, and it's actually an extremely nit-picky thing in each game which is why I don't actually think of them as canon. For Opposing Force, it's simply the existence of the displacement cannon. The vast majority of Half Life is spent making your way to the Lambda Complex because that's where Freeman needs to go to get to Xen, when you finally arrive you have to travel all over the place fixing their equipment so that they can even send you, and after it's all set up it still takes 5 minutes and the risk of an interruption (which happens in the form of the controller fight) before you finally make it to that first island.
So you have the in-universe requirements of an entire nuclear reactor and wing of the Black Mesa staff to open the portal to Xen, the gameplay perspective of spending most of your time trying to reach this place, but sitting somewhere idle in the facility is just a gun that can instantly teleport you to Xen, powered by some depleted uranium. Even with Laidlaw saying that consistency is more important than gameplay, which is definitely true, I just can't swallow the idea of the "Xen gun".
For Blue Shift, it's basically the same reason; there's just a second teleporter to xen that was left underground where nobody knows about it, is deceptively simpler to use, and only a handful of people seem to know about it
That’s an interesting perspective, actually. I never considered how the displacement cannon cheapens Freeman’s journey to Xen in HL1.
For Blue Shift I always thought of it like the small teleporter works becasue they have build something in Xen while the big one is needed to put you in a place where you dont have the slingshot device. (The Teleoprter in HL2 is also alot smaller and runs without the combine noticing -> low energy cost)
And yea its bs BUT the displacement gun does not have a destination and may just teleport you into the void. As such it's a lot "easier".
So my "Therory that could make it work" (Yea... That should not be needed) is the more precise the teleport and the lower the chance of a resonance displacement is the biger the teleporter has to be. As such it would cheapen Freeman’s journey and just be a lazzy excuse to not copy the same procedures to get to the same places.
At the end of the day I concider them as semi canon. They are licensed by valve, do not have to contradict things directly ( -just minor that could be explained by later games- ) and - like you said - add great depth to the world. But they are not written by the main writer as such there will be small diferences that they can not have thought of. There are a lot of big franchises with alot more contradictions. Like, uhmm _Star Wars_
How critically acclaimed Alyx was i believe (and desperately hope) that this pseudo sequel/prequel/spinoff may not be the last. Considering Shepherd was meant to return in the 'return to ravenholm' chapter that got cancelled it wouldnt be outside the realm of possibility that maybe another VR game in the same vein as Alyx could be released later down the line. Maybe Half-Life: Barney, telling the tale of how he became an important player in the resistance and how he infiltrated the combines CP. Or Half-Life: Shepherd, telling a similar tale to the cancelled project from years ago. A man can certainly dream :)
Leaving a comment to help with statistic. Man, you're underrated, really good content.
Imagine a opposing force sequal where Adrian is released by the gman. And because of his military experience joins civil protection to hunt freeman for killing his fellow marines but realizes the evil behind the combine and ends up working besides freeman with the resistance
That would be great ... but that would be the reason why gman employees stop shepard because it would be one more problem for g-man
Wait I've heard this plot before
You fucked up my face
@@RPbirdzz "hund freeman"
*PTSD flashbacks*
Commenting for the algorithm! Great video! Well produced and thought out. Love these geeky arguments about lore :)
Haha thank you!
Imagine Adrian comes back in half life 3
And the Gman is using him to kill/or capture Gordon freeman
Gets Hunt Down The Freeman flashbacks
@@DoC3Y god, I hate this fucking thing
If Op4 is canon, then so are Blue Shift *and Decay* .
I have spoken.
Some of my personal takes:
1) Shephard is canon, but isn't coming back, because he wasn't recruited as a backup, he was detained for prevention.
Adrian shows throughout Opposing Force that he has similar skills and talents as Gordon, so he could be a suitable candidate for hiring. However, throughout the game, he shows that he has a mind of his own, and refuses orders when he needs to. He is sent in to kill the Scientists, but helps them out instead when shit hits the fan. The government sends in Black Ops to clean up Black Mesa, and he actively opposes them. The government tries to blow up Black Mesa, and he stops it.
Additionally, Gordon only seems to do things because other people tell him to; "Get to the surface and let people know we're stranded down here.", "Get to the Lambda Labs and help them solve this mess.", "Go into Xen and kill the creature causing all this." From what I remember, Adrian never has this. He just wanders through Black Mesa, trying to survive and get out. No one orders him around.
Shephard's seeming lack of authority, but with the capabilities of Gordon makes him a potential threat to G-Man's plans. If Gordon is capable enough of taking out the Citadel in HL2 by himself, imagine what Adrian could do on his own. So, G-Man detains him. Gets him out of the way so that he doesn't interfere with their plans. And maybe, if the shit really hits the fan for G-Man, he can release Adrian, like he's releasing a wild animal to wreak havoc.
2) Race X is a scouting race for the Combine
I don't recall where, but I do remember some sources stating that the Combine have previously captured and enslaved other dimensions and worlds. I believe the creatures from Xen are only there because the Combine took over their home world. So, my theory is that Race X is a race of aliens that are hired/enslaved/whatever by the Combine, and used by them to scout out potential dimensions for resources and new races to enslave. Maybe they found Earth at coincidentally the same time as the Resonance Cascade. Maybe the Resonance Cascade acted like a beacon that drew them to Earth. Maybe they were scouting out Xen and the Resonance Cascade opened portals to a much more suitable world. Whatever it is, they came to Earth, this relatively small group of aliens came to Earth late in the Black Mesa Incident, took samples, got data on Earth defenses from the HCEU and Black Ops, and sent it back to the Combine. The Combine saw this data and later began the Seven Hours War, using the data collected by Race X to curbstomp Earth into submission. Race X doesn't show up in HL2 and onwards because they have no further purpose on Earth. It's been taken over, and Race X has moved on to other possible worlds to take over. And their limited time in a confined area where most of the witnesses were killed meant that few people were actually aware of their existence by the events of HL2.
Shephard was never given those orders though, in the starting chopper ride the grunts argue towards their captain what their orders are, and he snaps back telling them that they'll get their orders once they land, but they never land as they get attacked so he is never given the orders to wipe the scientist
Here is the newest video of the Opposing Force remake (called Operation Black Mesa): ruclips.net/video/56F603waNbI/видео.html
Great vid!
Couple of extra things, you could technically say that Jeff from half life alyx is a sort of gonome. Maybe the older headcrabs had spores and such that fested within the hosts bodies?
And in half life alyx its also shown that the Gman doesnt give a rats ass about time and all that, so maybe adrian is just from a different timeline
7:01 wow i compltelty forgot about the combine using headcrabs to their advantage
I have a theory or two about headcrabs myself: The Gonome is one of the early stages of Gonarch development, which is only created when a headcrab cannot detect a living Gonarch nearby and have deemed it safe to begin the process of Gonarch formation. This is why you don't see any Gonomes in Ravenholm, as the many traps and fires in the area you travel through would make it unsafe for a headcrab to risk Gonome creation.
It is also possible that headcrabs work in similar ways to bees, where Gonomes are only created when a headcrab zombie gets exposed to some sort of chemical or substance that would trigger the process of creating a Gonarch (like their version of Royal Jelly for bees.) This substance or a accidental recreation of it could have been found somewhere in Black Mesa in small amounts, hence why you only see a few Gonomes spread few and far between.
Somewhat unrelated to the theories above, but I like to think that the poison headcrabs are the only heavily genetically modified headcrabs you find in the games (with the possible exception of the armored headcrabs from Alyx) and the fast headcrabs are more of a natural adaptation that the headcrabs have acquired in their time on Earth.
Wtf you are so underrated I don't understand how people don't know about this channel, these videos are great
Thank you!
I played all but Decay due to it being PS exclusive recently and I loved them all.
OF was my favorite after Half Life 1. I honestly thought that it was cannon since I heard that the Government nuked the site. Though my brain definitely wasn’t thinking much as I thought that the Shocktroopers were evolved Vortiguants as well as those stabby little guys
The reason why Race X isn’t mentioned in any other games is because no one but Adrian knew about them
Everyone who knew about them were killed by them
And Gordon was entering xen quite early in the game
And Calhoun had escaped
“So-cray-dees” lol
Q from star trek, Rod Serling from twilight zone, and g-man are all the same guy
LORE: Xen is a borderworld that acts like a mid-station for other planets in the cosmos. not even the vortigaunts were originally from there, so yes there are many species in the universe, sometimes you see headcrabs being attacked by bullsquids in HL1.. so yea, race x is not the problem, even antlions are from another unkown world, and the gonome is just a different strain, the virus mutated differtly, since we get to see more times of headcrabs in the future.. I love OF, and makes sense as well to never mention black mesa since it was nuked.. they ended up in eastern europe, cuz new mexico is a giant crater... i hope we see these characters again, adrian, rosenberg etc ... some speculate that the scientist in HL Alyx is colette green from Decay, she has similar hair and was present at black mesa during the incident.. so everything IS CANON, even lost coast set in st olga... guess what, there's a Olga girl at the start of HL alyx..
Female Scientist from HLA is a completely different character called Kahn. I think we are going to see her leading remaining combines in eventual HL3.
this is actually really good, you should have more subs honestly
Thanks for the kind words!
The biggest evidence for Opposing Force being canon to me is that Valve planned to commission Arkane Studio to make a Half-Life 2 expansion called Return to Ravenholm which was to star none other than Adrian Shepherd himself. The game was also going to reveal the fate of Father Grigori.
Also, I always thought Gonomes were just HECU boys infected by headcrabs, and that’s why they were so much faster and stronger. Then again, I haven’t played Opposing Force in a long time.
On the topic of Gonomes, they seem to be mutant Scientist Zombies since they have white pants and HL1 Scienists have white pants. (Note: The Scientists have brown pants in the HD Pack but OP4 came out before the HD pack was made)
Also you encounter Zombie Marines in Opposing Force and they have a clear military uniform while the Gonome is just rotted flesh and skin except for it's white pants which belong to the scientists.
this quality content with 700 subs?I'm impressed
Thanks!
Spoiler (reference to HL Alyx)
Something to consider is that in Alyx the Gman states he can make small nudges. Something noticeable is that he acts through intermediaries when accomplishing those. While it is implied that he is extremely powerful (time travel/manipulation, inter dimensional travel and is imprisoned in a reality bending labyrinth) and therefor could do whatever needs to done, he does so with pawns instead. This implies there being some kind of cold war being fought by proxy and direct involvement could cause issues.
Next it is said he acted out of character in OpFor, true to an extent. He is tasked by his employers to bring about certain outcomes (we can only really guess at these). He takes personal action breaking these cold war esque rules that are in place. He tells Adrian that he is being kept out of trouble and to prevent him from causing trouble.
We know that he did have his eye on Adrian form before so he was grooming him. We find out at the end of Alyx that Eli did make a deal with him since Eli was warned about unexpected consequences. So the Gman doesn't seem to just get rid of former pawns but does take steps to preserve them.
TL'DR Adrian is evidence that the Gman broke rules, so he keeps him alive and hidden because he might need him but doesn't want anyone finding out he broke the rules.
Every time I think about the return of Adrian Shepard is with gman calling him to kill Gordon when going to borealis
But Gman wants Gordon alive
My opinion is that opposing force is a mixed bag of Canon and non-canon.
One of the biggest Canon things about it is seeing how black Mesa is dealt with aka the nuke from the black ops that even the head writer of half life (before he left) acknowledged and confirmed it.
I'd say one of the bigger things that people always bring up when it comes to this discussion of Canon and non-canon is the existence of race X. Now we don't see any trace of those guys in half life 2, but then again neither do we see of bullsquids and houndeyes.
good to see someone put a spoiler alert on a game thats 22 years old, most people just think "eh everyone has played it anyways" i myself hadnt played any half life game before 2018
Yeah, you’ve got to account for new generations too. I wasn’t even born when HL1 came out and didn’t play it until 2015.
@@TheoreticalRain yes, same for me, thank you.
You explain so good and your voice sounds so chill.
I'm subscribed
Haha thank you, I appreciate it!
Adrian Shepard returning as like some sort of crazed traumatized dude in Half Life 3 would go crazy. After being isolated for years.
But stasis is just sleep in HL
Yeah, if that’s how that worked I don’t think Gordon would be very sane.
"I know there's a group of Half-Life fans that feel that Opposing Force is better than the original game..."
*repeatedly points thumb at self*
"Or even the best game in the series."
*vigorously points at self*
"Honestly I think it's one of the weakest Half-Life games."
*smile immediately drops*
Hahaha sorry, “Half-Life game” is still a pretty high bar to clear
@@TheoreticalRain, Half Life was an amazing game. I spent hours and hours replaying the game trying to find anything I could have possibly missed as I wanted to know as much as I could about the black mesa facility. Blueshift I liked as well but for me out of the two DLCs I like Opposing force slightly more than blueshift. For me Blue Shift just seemed way too short.
I loved Opposing Force when I was growing up, I did feel mixed about it for years mostly with the aliens, but ultimately just loved anything that just dived into deeper and weirder parts of the general half-life concept. Was just more of a game I loved :D
What if killing the Nihilanth was the reason to why the Race X Creatures start to exist? Because I noticed at the last chapters of the Opposing Force game there wasn't much vortigaunts, meaning they could've hid and surrendered from their fear because they were just slaves of the Nihilanth and they were rather passive.
Jai Rovira Well Race X first appears before you see Gordon go to Xen, and they show up a lot immediately after that so I’m not sure if that would make sense.
Still happy that they made the game whether canon or not. They made my childhood the best
I think OP is canon as Race X invasion was so short, all evidence of it was wiped out, and only Shepard saw them
Other saw race X as well
That one scientist who got kidnapped by a shocktrooper
@@denifnaf5874 survived I mean
I'm kinda hoping Adrian will get a crossover with portal, maybe he explores aperture and it is infested with monsters, or something like that
No offense, but it seems Marc Laidlaw should be a writer for speeches given by politicians. He suggests just enough to keep you involved, yet takes responsibility for nothing. Every answer he gives is designed to be the vague "maybe" you want it to be.
Yeah and I love it anyway
OK, I can get people not wanting to consider Opposing Force Canon, but Blue Shift and Decay? They're obviously canon! Why would someone think B. Calhoun isn't Barney? And Gina and Colette seal the rift between Xen and Earth! They're essential to the story!
I could see people not considering Blue Shift canon, but Opposing Force and Decay have important info related to the story, story wise Blue Shift is the least important.
@@TylertheCC1010fan Decay is the most connected to Half-Life, and it's the most essential to the story. Opposing Force is *kind of* important to the story, I mean sure Adrian disarms the nuke and kills the Gene Worm, but G-Man reactivates the nuke right after and the Gene Worm probably would have been killed by the nuke.
@@CodenameBolts Opposing Force does give us info about the Black Ops, but yeah the Expansions in order of importance to Half-Life 1's story is as follows, Decay, Opposing Force, Blue Shift.
@@TylertheCC1010fan Blue Shift is only important in the way that it shows how a side character in Half-Life 2 survived. Not to diss it, I really enjoy it, just you're right in the way that Barney doesn't do anything to impact the story except not die.
I was ready to grab a pitchfork but honestly I can see how one would consider Opposing Force a weak entry
i think antlions are race x, maybe a de-volution of something seen in op4
thats a bad theory for multiple reasons but the biggest reason:
Vortigaunts have explicitly been raising and rearing antlions since long before they came to xen.
This type of quality would've belonged to channels of millions of subs, great job, deserved more subs.
Thanks, I appreciate it
Everyone talks about Opposing Force and Blue Shift but everybody ignores Decay
Why doesn't this have more visits ?! It is a good video and with good arguments, you have really taken time to make this video, you know that now you have a new sub :)
Thank you!
"Fun in a game is ultimately more important than consistency".
Well, I find fun in a game's consistency. Consistency is what makes a game enjoyable, right? Hence, people have been coming up with the explanations for why Race X isn't mentioned in any new game, or why Gman doesn't even mention Adrian Shepard in any Half-Life game other than OpFor. It's just a minority of Half-Life fanbase which states that Opposing Force and Blue Shift aren't canon. (Sorry for my bad English)
Feel free to correct me at any point.
@Jacob the Goblin Yup.
I'm glad you point out HL Alyx spoilers.
I s t i l l don't have a VR headset nad sometimes it's hard to avoid spoilers for things. But thankfully the community has been very nice in making sure everyone knows when spoilers are coming.
I want to play HL Alyx so bad! One day I hope I can.
There’s a non vr version being made by a fan
@@Immort4l5 There's hope for me yet
Does that technically mean Hunt Down the Freeman canon?
Never ever!!!!!
We don't talk about that abomination around here partner
*omega bruh*
**strider noises**
NO.