Half-Life 3 Will Probably Never Happen, Says Valve Insider

[Saltyk]

On the one hand...

The interview was actually conducted in 2015, but Game Informer's Andrew Reiner has spent quite a bit of time since trying to confirm the information he was given with another source. After being unable to do so, he shelved the interview until now, when it was published with a warning to take everything within with a grain of salt.

Then don't publish it. If it can't be confirmed, it's not news.

I still have faith.

And I have faith that Buzzfeed knew what they were talking about when they reported the unconfirmed, alleged leaks from pseudo-anonymous sources that Donald Trump hired Russian hookers to pee on Obama's bed.

It's not irresponsible and unjournalistic if you amend such statements with "no evidence currently exists to actually support any of this, and we are publishing this purely to share other peoples' speculation about unsubstantiated events so that everyone else can fill in the details and determine the accuracy for themselves based solely on their own prejudices and confirmation bias."

I agree with this statement. And I'd be taking this whole thing with a salt shaker. Not only is it an unnamed source, but it's from over a year ago and there's no telling what has changed since then, even if this is all true.

On the other hand, we're getting to the point where it's not inaccurate to start measuring the gap between the games in decades. Let's be honest, I think it's a little unreasonable to think it's taking them this long to do anything with the property.

And as others have pointed out before, Valve is allergic to the number "3".

 

[Naldan]

That would be incredibly stupid, given how Valve is in a position where it wouldn't matter even if they wouldn't sell a single copy of Half-Life 3, except for that it would damage the Halfe-Life brand. Which doesn't matter if they don't even publish any sequel to it in the first place.

Non-existence is more damaging than inferiority, when nothing depends on the existence. What are they planning then? Selling the IP? Even if it would damage other brands by Valve like L4D, Portal and Team Fortress. They can compensate for that many times over with Steam alone.

Look how successful they are with Counter-Strike GO and Team Fortress. CS is on the top-selling list all the time for years and its item system as well as TF's makes no doubt an incredible amount of money. Those could compensate as well.

There will be a time when Valve will need a new engine, though, if they're not going to pull off the feat of exchanging the whole engine with a new one. They could implement the same item system of TF in the next L4D, so there is a big incentive to publish a completely new game. More than there is for Half-Life 3. That would mean though that L4D 3 has to convince visually.

And at some time in the future, CS:GO will fall behind, too. As well as Team Fortress 2. And that might be the best point to showcase the next Source Engine with a new Half-Life. Since the Source-Engine itself also was very popular and the next one could be made into cash as well.

 

[Spade Lead]

Thinking back to when HL2 was originally released, I remember what a big deal Gabe Newell made about how great the episodic format would be for gamers. Thanks, Gabe, for all the bullshit over the years. No one doubts that you're a great developer, but maybe you should leave the planning and organization to someone who actually can get things done. And leave the talking to someone who isn't made of lies.

Now I am confused, did Half-Life 2, episode 3 ever get released, or am I just remembering incorrectly that you all were still waiting for it?

At one point I was planning on getting into the series because it was so popular on here, but I was planning on picking up the entire series at once, rather than just getting the first game and Chapter 1 & 2 separately from Chapter 3...

 

[Bindal]

Thinking back to when HL2 was originally released, I remember what a big deal Gabe Newell made about how great the episodic format would be for gamers. Thanks, Gabe, for all the bullshit over the years. No one doubts that you're a great developer, but maybe you should leave the planning and organization to someone who actually can get things done. And leave the talking to someone who isn't made of lies.

Now I am confused, did Half-Life 2, episode 3 ever get released, or am I just remembering incorrectly that you all were still waiting for it?

At one point I was planning on getting into the series because it was so popular on here, but I was planning on picking up the entire series at once, rather than just getting the first game and Chapter 1 & 2 separately from Chapter 3...

As written in the actual article - no, Half Life 2 Episode 3 is still not released. After one decade.
And if you only got Half Life 1, Half Life 2 Episode 1 and Half Life 2 Episode 2, you would still miss more than half of the franchise as there are a total of six games so far:
Half-Life
Half-Life: Opposing Force (First HL1 Expansion)
Half-Life: Blue Shift (Second HL1 Expansion)
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 Episode 1
Half-Life 2 Episode 2

And no, we don't know why the Episodes have the same name as the base game despite all that three episodes are supposed to be one sequel...
And also, no, when Half-Life 2 was released, there was never a talk about any episodic released. That only happened after Episode 1 was announced about a year later.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Can we just finish the story here, guys? How about you just release the finished story online? This isn't hard.

Furthermore, Valve, you haven't been making games for YEARS, period. I don't think "disappointing gamers" is what you're thinking about. I just think you guys really don't care now.

 

[Jorpho]

No one doubts that you're a great developer

Oh really now; they've barely released anything original in recent years. That is a poor metric for greatness.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Can we just finish the story here, guys? How about you just release the finished story online? This isn't hard.

Furthermore, Valve, you haven't been making games for YEARS, period. I don't think "disappointing gamers" is what you're thinking about. I just think you guys really don't care now.

Nailed it. Nailed it so hard that you broke the whole damn house they were trying to build. Valve isn't a game company any more. They're a service company, and they're perfectly fine with. I gave up on anything regarding Half-Life (and Portal), a few years ago. Now I'm just bitter toward them, because the level of incompetence, cowardice, laziness, or WHATEVER it is that has caused them to fail this badly with their games baffles me.

 

[Tiamat666]

No one doubts that you're a great developer

Oh really now; they've barely released anything original in recent years. That is a poor metric for greatness.

[a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/450390/"]The Lab?[/a]

There will be Half Life 3.

It will be named, 1.5 Life

 

[cleric of the order]

 

[MonsterCrit]

The interview was actually conducted in 2015, but Game Informer's Andrew Reiner has spent quite a bit of time since trying to confirm the information he was given with another source. After being unable to do so, he shelved the interview until now, when it was published with a warning to take everything within with a grain of salt.

Then don't publish it. If it can't be confirmed, it's not news.

I still have faith.

]The source sounds spot on though. Truth be told. IT's a good reason why not. Cause the question is. WHere does HL3 Go. mechanically, thematically and narratively .

The episodic thing taught them that releasing more of the same.. isn't gonna cut it

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Thanks to this topic, now I really want to see a dialogue-heavy Telltale Half-Life game where you play as Gordon Freeman, and every conversation option is just an ellipsis.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Considering they announced Half Life 2 Episode One like, maybe a month before it released, I don't expect to hear anything from Valve until any sequel is finished.

 

[laggyteabag]

Im not particularly surprised by this. As the guy says, even if they did make it, it would NEVER meet the hype. I mean, this is a game that people have been talking about and hoping for, for TWELVE YEARS. That is just a recipe for disaster.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Valve probably won't make another game- so long as they're making money out of their Counter-Strike slot machine.

 

[TwoSidesOneCoin]

Is anyone surprised? It's widely known that Valve no longer makes games, but instead adds microtransactions to existing games. Hell if they ever made Left 4 Dead 3 I doubt anyone would be surprised when they revealed the crates to let you add hats and weapon skins for your characters.

 

[Blitsie]

Valve insider says Half-Life 3 isn't going to happen.

Half-Life 3 confirmed.

"Half-Life 3" has Half-Life 3 in it.

Half-Life 3 confirmed.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

...Valve's a games developer?

 

[Bad Jim]

I'm not convinced by the impossible expectations thing. Most of the people that played Half Life 2 when it was released have since grown up. That's how long it has been. Most people would expect Episode 3 to resolve the plot and offer some fun, shooty action, not that it would be some holy grail of gaming.

It's clear that Valve is just making far more money from Steam and isn't interested in game development.