A fan-made Half-Life 2 sequel to Opposing Force, bringing back Adrian Shephard to assist Gordon Freeman during the assault on Nova Prospekt? Yes please!
Remember Half-Life: Opposing Force, the sort-of sequel expansion pack to the original Half-Life, told from the point of view of the Marines sent in to contain and clear out the Black Mesa Research Facility? Well there’s now a sort-of sequel to that, building upon the story of Half-Life 2, and it’s a fan-made project called Prospekt.
There’s precedent for this, as the original Opposing Force wasn’t actually developed by Valve, way back in 1999; it was in fact developed by Gearbox software, with Borderlands creator Randy Pitchford as the lead designer. Opposing Force puts the player in the shoes of U.S. Marine Adrian Shephard and brought a very different, more action-focused twist to the puzzle-oriented Half-Life experience. It was very well received and importantly freed Valve up to work on other projects, rather than burying more resource into expansions to the first Half-Life.
Prospekt picks up the story of Adrian Shephard and is once again interwoven with the escapades of The Freeman. This time, Shephard has been summoned through time by the Vortigaunts to assist Gordon Freeman against unwinnable odds, as he is overrun by a Combine assault on the Nova Prospekt prison complex in the main Half-Life 2 story. In that respect Prospekt takes a really interesting approach, casting Adrian Shephard in the role of unsung backstage hero, anonymously pulling strings behind the scenes to help Half-Life 2’s hero without (in theory) ever visibly impacting the main series’ canon.
Prospekt also isn’t being developed by Valve: it’s a fan-made effort by independent creator Richard Seabrook, and it looks super-exciting. Thankfully Valve are just about the coolest company in the world when it comes to indies using their IP, and once the Prospekt project was voted through Steam Greenlight, they gave it their blessing to be featured – and sold – on their ubiquitous game delivery platform.
Richard’s creation is available to pre-order on Steam now, and Prospekt is expected to launch in February of this year.
