Half Life 3 probably never coming out

[The Bandit]

Are you guys going to publicly apologize and admit how insane you were being when HL3 inevitably does come out?

People who like money don't abandon successful franchises. Valve likes money. Half Life 3 is coming out. I don't even understand how you can begin to think otherwise.

and fucking lol at the "no one will be hyped for it when it's announced" people. the internet will completely grind to a halt when valve announces it

 

[psijac]

I would say when Valve got hacked by the overly excited fan 10 years ago that was the nail in HL3 coffin

 

[vallorn]

Well, Valve News Network, a Valve fan site that does a lot of news and speculation heavily disagrees with the OP's assertion and the video embedded therein. I will leave it here for you to form your own opinions.


EDIT:

See, this is the ultimate karma. Too many times internet keyboard warriors have attacked and harassed people, now all that anger is biting them in the ass! The game so many are salivating for isn't coming out 'cos they have doomed it! They played an active hand in it's downfall.

Well, not quite, because the whole story is a crock.

Oh well, that puts that to rest ... hey everybody calm down 'cos Silvanus knows everything! He's like the bible just says stuff and it's true, no need to dig any deeper!

I'm more inclined to believed a somewhat researched video from kind of insiders, than some guy who posts a single line that is almost literally "nuh uh!".

Or... you could, you know, read the other posts in this thread that back him up including my video and evidence from Laidlaw that undoes the argument about HL3.

 

[Xeros]

Half Life 3 will release when Nintendo makes a new F-Zero. They're both trying to come up with something innovative that makes it as much of a landmark as the previous titles. As Newell stated while crafting his fancy crowbar: "These things ...they take time." I'm in no rush.

 

[Zontar]

So, one of the reasons that there will be no Half-Life 3 is because too many Mass Effect players did not know that Good Sci-Fi Often Goes Weird. I imagine how many of those haters must want HL 3, and it makes me kind of sadistically giddy.

I think you're making a fundamental mistake on what people took issue with for Mass Effect 3's story, namely that the ending was a literal deus ex machina the likes of which has been out of favour with sci-fi audiences for over 50 years at the least, and it doesn't work both logically and narratively to the point where it feels like it was made by different people who had no involvement with the story up to that point and didn't really care for it. Probably because it actually WAS written by people who had no involvement with the story up to that point and from the looks of it didn't care that their plothole filled ending made no sense in the context of the lore it was a part of.

The only way that Valve would see the reaction to ME3 as a reason to not finish Half Life's story would be if they intended to do the same thing.

On a sidenote: why the hell do people keep brining up Mass Effect 3 anyway? Do we really think that Valve, given its corporate structure compared to that of other more traditional businesses, will have the problem of an exec forcing a narrative change on the creative team? Which of their games have given people so little faith that they would make the same mistake as EA? If anything EA messing up ME3's ending may lead to a situation like that never happening again due to suits not wanting to face the backlash of their halfassed meddling with the story of a story driven game series.

 

[omega 616]

Well, Valve News Network, a Valve fan site that does a lot of news and speculation heavily disagrees with the OP's assertion and the video embedded therein. I will leave it here for you to form your own opinions.


EDIT:

See, this is the ultimate karma. Too many times internet keyboard warriors have attacked and harassed people, now all that anger is biting them in the ass! The game so many are salivating for isn't coming out 'cos they have doomed it! They played an active hand in it's downfall.

Well, not quite, because the whole story is a crock.

Oh well, that puts that to rest ... hey everybody calm down 'cos Silvanus knows everything! He's like the bible just says stuff and it's true, no need to dig any deeper!

I'm more inclined to believed a somewhat researched video from kind of insiders, than some guy who posts a single line that is almost literally "nuh uh!".

Or... you could, you know, read the other posts in this thread that back him up including my video and evidence from Laidlaw that undoes the argument about HL3.

Stuff like "steam doesn't have a management system" I don't know the inner workings of steam but I can't see how a company can work like that, people just turning into work doing what they think is right and then leaving. companies need direction and over sight, someone to manage resources ... I work in a kitchen and the effects of not communicating can be crippling. Also seems weird that it has no formal structure but it's always "lord Gaben" and Gabe speaking for steam ... not exactly anon is it?

By the sounds of it, a lot of you just can't let this dream die and look for any shred of evidence it is coming, while ignoring all info that says it isn't. For me, if it comes out, then it comes out but if it doesn't it doesn't.

Games are pretty mediocre anyway.

 

[Zontar]

Half Life 3 will release when Nintendo makes a new F-Zero. They're both trying to come up with something innovative that makes it as much of a landmark as the previous titles. As Newell stated while crafting his fancy crowbar: "These things ...they take time." I'm in no rush.

I think one serious issue that's likely been holding it back is that between when development started and now software has leaped forward quite a bit, and developers have been finding new tricks to take advantage of the physics engines they have to work with. I honestly think that their work on Source 2 may have been in part so they could use the new engine for it and other games they want to make. People harp on the fact that thanks to Steam and the economies of TF2, Dota and CS:GO they don't need to make games anymore, but while that's true many of the people, both who founded the company and who have been hired in the past decade, are ones who have a clear passion for making games, so that financial stability just means that they have more time to work on quality work instead of rushing it.

 

[Josh123914]

See, this is the ultimate karma. Too many times internet keyboard warriors have attacked and harassed people, now all that anger is biting them in the ass! The game so many are salivating for isn't coming out 'cos they have doomed it! They played an active hand in it's downfall.

Well, not quite, because the whole story is a crock.

Oh well, that puts that to rest ... hey everybody calm down 'cos Silvanus knows everything! He's like the bible just says stuff and it's true, no need to dig any deeper!

I'm more inclined to believed a somewhat researched video from kind of insiders, than some guy who posts a single line that is almost literally "nuh uh!".

Until Gabe Newell says it's coming out, we don't know if it's coming out.

Insiders were saying in 2009 that they were working on Episode 3 and then collectively the staff decided to focus their efforts instead on Left 4 Dead 2 and Portal 2. Such is the unique horizontal managerial system that Valve has, so disabuse yourself of the idea that your opinion is any more valid than Silvanus'.

EDIT: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24205497
How valve works.
TL;DR: Their lucrative online cashcow Steam allows them to fund (by comparison to most other developers) an extremely inefficient management system that allows different people to work on whatever project tickles their fancy. This means loose deadlines and a lot of scrapped ideas that may have ended in mediocre/ uninteresting games.

 

[Zontar]

Stuff like "steam doesn't have a management system" I don't know the inner workings of steam but I can't see how a company can work like that, people just turning into work doing what they think is right and then leaving. companies need direction and over sight, someone to manage resources ... I work in a kitchen and the effects of not communicating can be crippling. Also seems weird that it has no formal structure but it's always "lord Gaben" and Gabe speaking for steam ... not exactly anon is it?

Valve's structure is unconventional, but there is very much one there such as the aforementioned CEO and PR's face of the company Gabe. One thing which does make things different for them is the fact that developers choose which of the projects they have active at any given time to work on, with there being claims by some employs that their desks are made to be easily pushed to a different project if they want to do so. Not exactly structureless, but definitely far from the norm for a company of their size.

By the sounds of it, a lot of you just can't let this dream die and look for any shred of evidence it is coming, while ignoring all info that says it isn't. For me, if it comes out, then it comes out but if it doesn't it doesn't.

I don't see why anyone is surprised by how long it's taking. Even now it hasn't set the record for longest development time for a Valve game or sequel, TF2 still holds that title for another 2 years. And given the fact that a lot of effort at the company over the past few years seems to have been put into the Source 2 engine coupled with the 'info' that they aren't working on Half Life being as dubious as that which shows they are, coupled with every half life game still being updated on a regular basis even to this day (hell they updated them just in the past week again) it seem that there are, at the very least, a few devs over there still keeping it alive.

Games are pretty mediocre anyway.

Not sure which one you're talking about, because that sure isn't Half Life.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Expect half-life 3 as a VR exclusive.

You think I'm joking, right? But think about it...

Valve was one of the first company to incorporate experimental VR support into existing games.
They decided to implement their own VR system...
Tracking...


AND each half-life so far represented a technological milestone of some kind. Something which hadn't really been done before on some level.

Seriously, given the options, it's the most obvious continuation of how half-life has been getting releases over the years.

 

[Silvanus]

Oh well, that puts that to rest ... hey everybody calm down 'cos Silvanus knows everything! He's like the bible just says stuff and it's true, no need to dig any deeper!

Glad you understand. It feels damn good to receive the recognition I deserve, I can tell you.

I'm more inclined to believed a somewhat researched video from kind of insiders, than some guy who posts a single line that is almost literally "nuh uh!".

On a side-note, did you know the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?

Go and check; I'll wait.

 

[omega 616]

snip

Zomg that pic is so funny ....!

I'm saying one person posted a video containing pretty compelling reasons why it wouldn't come out and then that guy posts "it's a load of crock" with no explanation ... which do I believe?

snip

Sorry but yes, I was speaking about half life being mediocre ... if not plain boring. The only thing it got right was the gravity gun.

I can't imagine all the devs there are clocking in and instead of rushing to work on THE most anticipated game in the past 20 years, they are instead rushing to make another left for dead, which has never exactly lit the world on fire or portal, which after the first one is just another puzzle shooter or TF2, which I haven't played for god knows how long ... though they do seem to love to patch the shit out of it! Just can't imagine them being eager to do more work on it and not want to be building and polishing the shit out of HL3!

you don't have to spend long on the net to realize how eager people are for this (how many silly things have you seen where they make 3 and then say "half life 3 confirmed"?), there are only 3 games that have this much slobber on them .... HL3, battlefront 3 and a FF7 remake and 2 of those have been announced, which means gamers have calmed down for those two 'cos they know they are coming, they just have to wait. HL3 is the mystery now, they want it SOO bad but have zero clue about it.

So for the majority of valve to be working so hard on games that aren't blowing the world up and ignoring the one thing they want and have wanted for 8 years! Was 9 years from 1 to HL2:e2.

I just don't think HL3 can live up to the hype, what could it honestly do to blow your mind?

 

[Redryhno]

Expect half-life 3 as a VR exclusive.

You think I'm joking, right? But think about it...

Valve was one of the first company to incorporate experimental VR support into existing games.
They decided to implement their own VR system...
Tracking...


AND each half-life so far represented a technological milestone of some kind. Something which hadn't really been done before on some level.

Seriously, given the options, it's the most obvious continuation of how half-life has been getting releases over the years.

As much as I dislike VR, I don't think I'd mind it in this instance. Half-Life has had so many damn surprises, devs playing pranks on the players, their [s/]build-a-bear[/s] create-a-solution platforming and just general fun in the exploring parts of it that it would probably work really damn well.

Whenever it comes out, I'm pretty sure it's gonna be one of those games that I get pretty soon after release. I'm also certain I'm going to be a bit disappointed(it's been almost ten years, anyone that isn't the slightest bit disappointed is going to have no idea about the series as a whole), but I doubt it'll be anywhere near the void that ME3 left.

 

[Zontar]

I can't imagine all the devs there are clocking in and instead of rushing to work on THE most anticipated game in the past 20 years, they are instead rushing to make another left for dead, which has never exactly lit the world on fire or portal, which after the first one is just another puzzle shooter or TF2, which I haven't played for god knows how long ... though they do seem to love to patch the shit out of it! Just can't imagine them being eager to do more work on it and not want to be building and polishing the shit out of HL3!

Well, they have put a lot of time, money and effort into developing the Source Engine 2 over the past few years, so I think it's safe to say that's what a lot of them have been doing outside of patching and updating their games, since it seems their games after its release will be using it (hell even already out games are seeing re-releases using it like Dota 2).

you don't have to spend long on the net to realize how eager people are for this (how many silly things have you seen where they make 3 and then say "half life 3 confirmed"?), there are only 3 games that have this much slobber on them .... HL3, battlefront 3 and a FF7 remake and 2 of those have been announced, which means gamers have calmed down for those two 'cos they know they are coming, they just have to wait. HL3 is the mystery now, they want it SOO bad but have zero clue about it.

I think something you're forgetting is that there where about a half dozen other games on the list of ones people have been waiting equally long for, and that they too have been announced, made or confirmed as being dead IP, so it's no surprise that the last one which has had rumours that ever even fairly recent that it is being made hold some weight. I mean hell, just look at Fallout 4, Bethesda didn't even made a single piece of official news or anything else which implied it was being made during their past 7 years of development, and only made its existence know within 6 months of its release.

So for the majority of valve to be working so hard on games that aren't blowing the world up and ignoring the one thing they want and have wanted for 8 years! Was 9 years from 1 to HL2:e2.

And it was 9 years between TF and TF2, plus as I've stated before there's the Source 2 engine which took a lot of their manpower to get up and running. Until they come out and say they aren't making it anymore, or the evidence that they aren't starts to outweigh that which they are, it's safe to say that the game is just taking its time in being made, which is par for the course with Valve these days.

I just don't think HL3 can live up to the hype, what could it honestly do to blow your mind?

Have a decent story which deals with the cliffhanger ending of HL2ep2 which is 95% of the reason people want Half Life 3 in the first place. We want to know how the story that we've invested so much time into ends. Plus given the A.I. Half Life 2 had, having that improved could make for the most intelligent bots of any FPS on the market which could actually rely on skill and not automatic hit probability to be a challenge.

 

[vallorn]

Well, Valve News Network, a Valve fan site that does a lot of news and speculation heavily disagrees with the OP's assertion and the video embedded therein. I will leave it here for you to form your own opinions.


EDIT:

See, this is the ultimate karma. Too many times internet keyboard warriors have attacked and harassed people, now all that anger is biting them in the ass! The game so many are salivating for isn't coming out 'cos they have doomed it! They played an active hand in it's downfall.

Well, not quite, because the whole story is a crock.

Oh well, that puts that to rest ... hey everybody calm down 'cos Silvanus knows everything! He's like the bible just says stuff and it's true, no need to dig any deeper!

I'm more inclined to believed a somewhat researched video from kind of insiders, than some guy who posts a single line that is almost literally "nuh uh!".

Or... you could, you know, read the other posts in this thread that back him up including my video and evidence from Laidlaw that undoes the argument about HL3.

Stuff like "steam doesn't have a management system" I don't know the inner workings of steam but I can't see how a company can work like that, people just turning into work doing what they think is right and then leaving. companies need direction and over sight, someone to manage resources ... I work in a kitchen and the effects of not communicating can be crippling. Also seems weird that it has no formal structure but it's always "lord Gaben" and Gabe speaking for steam ... not exactly anon is it?

Steam probably has a team of employees over it. But Valve famously has wheeled desks as this video also remarks, this is because they are a flat organization with employees at Valve able to wheel their desks around to move from project to project at will. There is no "Management" at Valve really and the "Lord Gaben" thing is an internet pun more than any job title (Which you really should know). Besides, Gabe tends to do PR yes, but if he didn't want to one of the others could do it, as it is everyone recognizes him and so him performing the PR role makes logical sense, it gives a face and humanity to Valve as a company rather than them being a faceless monolith.

Valve's structure is INCREDIBLY unusual but they also have so many resources to play with that they can afford to be this unconventional, they regularly get the cream of the crop to work for them due to the freedom their employees are allowed and because of their reputation. It's similar to Google's famously laid back office design in that it sets them apart and works for them in their own way. However, Valve's structure isn't perfect and I, personally, think that employees moving around is a big reason for Valve Time and delays.

By the sounds of it, a lot of you just can't let this dream die and look for any shred of evidence it is coming, while ignoring all info that says it isn't. For me, if it comes out, then it comes out but if it doesn't it doesn't.

As it is, there is conflicting information here both from this anonymous source who has made repeated mistakes in how Valve is structured internally and from Valve employees and people who keep a very close eye on Valve. As it is, without more evidence than the word of an anonymous source I can't simply disregard everything else like you have.

Games are pretty mediocre anyway.

You should work at that fine, upstanding publication Polygon. [http://i.imgur.com/BqcAmsg.png]

 

[shadoe14]

Expect half-life 3 as a VR exclusive.

You think I'm joking, right? But think about it...

Valve was one of the first company to incorporate experimental VR support into existing games.
They decided to implement their own VR system...
Tracking...


AND each half-life so far represented a technological milestone of some kind. Something which hadn't really been done before on some level.

Seriously, given the options, it's the most obvious continuation of how half-life has been getting releases over the years.

^This...

Half Life 3 will release when Nintendo makes a new F-Zero. They're both trying to come up with something innovative that makes it as much of a landmark as the previous titles. As Newell stated while crafting his fancy crowbar: "These things ...they take time." I'm in no rush.

^This...
and probably more people that I missed.



I am completely convinced that Valve wants to release Half-Life 3, but they are waiting for the perfect piece of technology that will make HL3 be just as innovative as it's predecessors were. The biggest reason for the success of Half-Life 1 and 2 was just how innovative each of them were for their times, and Valve knows that. So, they are not going to release Half-Life 3 until they can make it stand out as a landmark for video game innovation; and if Valve's new VR system is as good as some people have been claiming, it's possible that they found their innovative technology.

 

[EXos]

Expect half-life 3 as a VR exclusive.

You think I'm joking, right? But think about it...

Valve was one of the first company to incorporate experimental VR support into existing games.
They decided to implement their own VR system...
Tracking...


AND each half-life so far represented a technological milestone of some kind. Something which hadn't really been done before on some level.

Seriously, given the options, it's the most obvious continuation of how half-life has been getting releases over the years.

I don't think it's going to be VR for the mere fact that it would put their game behind a fairly steep paywall. Sure you could say that it would be great for them because they sell the peripheral but I highly doubt it.
Further more it doesn't add that much to the game. Nothing ground breaking at least.

Personally I think they are waiting for the next generation of hardware (DDR4, HBM and 14nm CPUs to really kick off) and utilize the power to make an ever stronger engine. (More particle effects, like water that reacts perfectly and Snow/sand that shifts and displaces.)
In the HL2 demo they had an area where they were talking about shifting the ground and changing the level in realtime. This didn't really happen in the released game so my bet is they realized they need more power.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Expect half-life 3 as a VR exclusive.

You think I'm joking, right? But think about it...

Valve was one of the first company to incorporate experimental VR support into existing games.
They decided to implement their own VR system...
Tracking...


AND each half-life so far represented a technological milestone of some kind. Something which hadn't really been done before on some level.

Seriously, given the options, it's the most obvious continuation of how half-life has been getting releases over the years.

I don't think it's going to be VR for the mere fact that it would put their game behind a fairly steep paywall. Sure you could say that it would be great for them because they sell the peripheral but I highly doubt it.
Further more it doesn't add that much to the game. Nothing ground breaking at least.

Personally I think they are waiting for the next generation of hardware (DDR4, HBM and 14nm CPUs to really kick off) and utilize the power to make an ever stronger engine. (More particle effects, like water that reacts perfectly and Snow/sand that shifts and displaces.)
In the HL2 demo they had an area where they were talking about shifting the ground and changing the level in realtime. This didn't really happen in the released game so my bet is they realized they need more power.

Perhaps... But if anyone can afford that kind of risk right now, it's valve.
VR is an additional expense, sure. But it's not that bad in the scheme of PC hardware generally.
Do you recall the actual half-life 2 release? The source engine was a monster...
Nobody had hardware powerful enough to run HL2 back then. In fact, it took several years for the hardware to catch up.

Major PC upgrades make VR equipment look comparatively cheap. (even if VR demands framerates that also dictate rather serious Hardware to back it up)

VR really needs a 'killer app'. A company that has the resources to absorb the potential losses, and which is involved with the design of such hardware may well decide it's worth the effort.
Not for the sake of one game, but to push the take-up of the hardware.

This cost barrier is only a thing while nobody has the hardware.
It's like the problem of convincing people to buy a new games console.
To convince other devs to go through releasing games for your system, there has to be some guarantee of a market. (people who can reasonably be expected to have the hardware)
One way to try and make this happen is to release games that you are fairly sure a lot of people would want.

Valve is in a position where they could afford to do this if they chose to...
Doesn't mean they will, but I wouldn't be too quifk to rule it out...

 

[Fdzzaigl]

It will come eventually.

I mean: just look at how many game franchises that are over a decade old which are being ressurected now.

It might still take over 10 years or until everyone has already forgotten about it, but eventually some company or another will pick it up again. Even if just to make a quick buck out of it (not reassuring, I know).

 

[silver wolf009]

The Know, six months ago:

-Hatred Hit with Second Ever Adults Only Rating for Violence, Keeping it off Consoles - The Know.
-New 3DS XL Launches with 2 Limited Editions + No New 3DS for North America - The Know
-343 Apologizes for Halo: MCC with Free Halo 3: ODST and More - The Know

The Know, up to a month ago:
-Cars Getting HACKED?! - The Know
-Is Reddit DOOMED? - The Know
-Fallout 4: WILL IT SUCK? - The Know

Know what happened since then and now? Rooster Teeth got bought. I can't remember when they discussed it, but it was on an episode of the Patch, which I'll probably go back and look up to get the name of the buyer. The usual cries of "Don't worry, we won't change, they're very supportive, we're still going to be the same." rang out.

Notice the all caps? The furious question marks and exclamation points?! The obviously sensationalized titles? Pure, unadulterated click-bait, and it's disgusting to see what was and could have been a fairly on the level venue for gaming and tech news turned into a view whore with spread legs and arrows drawn in sharpie around their mouths.

And don't even get me started on those jack 0ffs at Funhaus, talk about being a symptom of a disease. The news story here should be: "Fall from grace all but confirmed as The Know gets suckered in by crap sources again."

Edit:

They were bought by a company called Fullscreen. I can't find much about them, but I'm not exactly digging that hard. Just kind of funny, how a change in management or funding can correlate so nicely with other changes in production or final products.