Hostile Waters was set in an alternate history when it was released
That is, it wasn't simply rendered an alternate history by 2012 being a "business as usual" year. We can assume this with the following estimates:- Judging from the "Communist" member of the Cabal who notes that, "In the old days, we could own the means of production", and the fact that the game is set in 2032 likely meaning that actual members of the original Soviet Union as we knew it would be much older - judging from his accent, clothing, and physical appearance, he's clearly not Chinese. We can thus assume that the Soviet Union either lasted until 2012 and fell with every other nation on Earth. Given how it's a Russian Federation flag being burned in a cutscene, though, we can presume that the Soviet "Union" consisted only of what we would call the Russian Federation.
- Given how readily people set aside their ethnic differences (which wouldn't happen very readily), we can presume that the Balkan Wars and many other genocidal conflicts don't take place. If they do take place, the perpetrators end up siding with the Cabal.
- All the units are German-accented. This likely presumes that Germany remained a highly militaristic state, or that German culture ended up being significantly more militaristic than real life. This is another point that suggests the Cold War might still have been going on. Alternatively, Germany never fully "De-Nazified" after World War II, World War II ended more favorably for Germany, or never escalated beyond being the German-Polish war, thus while the Nazis might have eventually lost power, Germany was never properly defeated, maintaining a highly militaristic culture (and setting them squarely against the People when the events of 2012 occurred). They naturally lost, were angry at the now-peaceful world, and a significant portion of Germans became the backbone of the Cabal's forces.
- All the units themselves, though, possibly including the Mammoth tank, were designed by the Americans (given the M-6x designation of the Mammoth, we can presume that it was). The fact that there's still the technical know-how to build M1A1 Abrams tanks indicates that the United States was producing them (or a variation of them) long after they ceased producing them in real life. Similar applies for the Apaches (which, note, are the older version predating the Longbow - they don't have the "head" atop their rotor blades that he Longbow does).
- The fact that the Species exists, as well as many other technologies (the Antaeus itself, Soulcatcher being experimented on in the 1990s, etc) also lends itself to this. It seems unlikely that even if the Cabal started working on the Species as early as 2012 (and the Cabal technically didn't exist then), that they would have something as advanced as they do. Thus, development of an artificial species (likely for more peaceful purposes) was likely in development before then, as well as possibly using the "hybrid" ideas to grant disabled people the use of senses or limbs they otherwise wouldn't be able to use. The Cabal, being The Cabal, re-purposed it.
