Happy 10th Anniversary, Announcement of Half-Life 2 Episode Three

[RedRockRun]

If Gabe doesn't want to make it, why does he not just set a team on it? Or is Valve completely occupied with Steam, VAC, CS:GO, TF2, and DOTA2 - AKA all online stuff? I never would have expected Valve to hold IP hostage like other companies and actually believed for a time that Valve cared about their customers. Speaking of the customers, how many people would actually be interested in HL3? Is it a vocal minority compared to the hundreds of thousands who play DOTA2 alone?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Not counting the sequel to a mod of the third Warcraft game, they haven't released an actual game in 5 years.

 

[MysticSlayer]

*Shrug* They're a game distribution service now as opposed to being developers or even publishers. (Yes, I know about The Lab. If they weren't using it to showcase their VR headset, they wouldn't have made it.) The fact of the matter is that game development is expensive with a risky rate of return. And Episode 3? At this point, it would be stupid to make it.

As Duke Nukem Forever showed us, gamer preferences change as do cultural mores. Even if you downgraded the graphics, we would have been declaring DNF game of the year in 1998. Now? Duke Nukem's humor has aged about as well as the Rock's "Attitude Era" schtick every time he shows up for Wrestlemania and the gameplay, while it was amusing as hell in multiplayer, isn't anything that stands out anymore.

From what I remember, Duke Nukem: Forever didn't just fail because of its humor. It failed because it was an ugly, unpolished game with boring gameplay that neither appealed to nostalgia nor modernized the older styles. People wanted DNF, but it wasn't a good game.

On the flip side, more recently we have DOOM, which in terms of wait is very close to Half-Life 3. That game has been doing fantastic. It's not because DOOM had a bunch of things to offer DNF couldn't offer. It's because the developers eventually got a handle on their project and turned it into a game people wanted, which unfortunately didn't happen with DNF.

So I'd imagine a Half-Life game could do well today. The biggest barrier is Valve's lack of commitment to their franchise. It's clearly not a priority for them, and it likely never will be so long as they continue prioritizing everybody's favorite DRM their storefront. I mean, why invest in a game when you can spend your time making deals to monetize mods working on your massive platform that every PC gamer basically has to flock to sooner or later.

 

[immortalfrieza]

To me, it's rather damn embarrassing that it's been a whole bloody decade and they don't have a single thing to show for it. I understand about wanting to take their time and not rush the thing out the door but good lord. I'm not trying to be rude but jesus, we haven't heard a peep in all this time too so I honestly don't know what they're doing over their at Valve.

*Shrug* They're a game distribution service now as opposed to being developers or even publishers. (Yes, I know about The Lab. If they weren't using it to showcase their VR headset, they wouldn't have made it.) The fact of the matter is that game development is expensive with a risky rate of return. And Episode 3? At this point, it would be stupid to make it.

As Duke Nukem Forever showed us, gamer preferences change as do cultural mores. Even if you downgraded the graphics, we would have been declaring DNF game of the year in 1998. Now? Duke Nukem's humor has aged about as well as the Rock's "Attitude Era" schtick every time he shows up for Wrestlemania and the gameplay, while it was amusing as hell in multiplayer, isn't anything that stands out anymore.

I suspect that, if Episode 3 did come out, it would have a terrible reception as well. While it wouldn't fall into the content pitfalls that Duke Nukem had, we'd still probably try the gameplay and find that it doesn't hold up any more. Hell, even if the gameplay were miraculously great, there would be so many expectations put on the game that it couldn't possibly live up to, it would still be considered a failure.

It's far better for Valve to just run their game distribution service and leave the risk-taking for their hardware department. The world has passed Half-life by.

At this point? I'd rather just have an absolutely out of date utterly terrible Half Life 3 and just get the series over with already rather than having to deal with the relentless hanging of everything and the endless "Half Life 3 CONFIRMED!!!" jokes. In fact, I'm surprised to find that the fans haven't made an actual sequel yet.

BTW, I thought Duke Nukem Forever was good, but then I've played the series since day one and thus got nothing what I wouldn't have expected to get out of DNF.

 

[Li Mu]

Perhaps they'll fund it via Kickstarter, and backers will be able to specify which of their descendants their copy of the finished game will go to.

This is Valve. They have more money than a million kickstarters. But I get your idea.

 

[Kingjackl]

I used to be one of those people for whom Half Life was the be-all and end-all of gaming, but the lack of Half Life 3 have soured me on it. I still think HL2 is a fantastic game, but the delays have actually helped me expand my horizons a bit.

At this rate, they probably wouldn't do it unless all the free peoples of the world begged them ala Tom Bombadil. I'm imagining some kind of Chasers-esque "Make a Realistic Wish" sketch where some kid on his deathbed wishes for Half Life 3 to come out so he can play it before he dies. The Make a Wish foundation actually get Gabe Newell to come in, and he just tells the kid "sorry, but that's not really in the cards at the moment. But here's a voucher for the TF2 marketplace."

"I don't play TF2"

"You'll take the voucher and love it, you shit!"

 

[False Nobility]

Can....Can we stop acting like this game is going to happen? Like seriously? It was a joke 5 years ago, and now even the joke has outstayed it's welcome.

 

[Somebloke]

The way you can see the years pile on Newell in that video compilation...

 

[ExileNZ]

There's only a couple of ways this ends:

- You get Prey, which was surprisingly good but largely forgotten by the time it came out

- You get Duke Nukem Forever, which was slammed as being the biggest disappointment since Phantom Menace

- You get Team Fortress 2, which was hailed as a transcendent moment in gaming and is still going strong years later.
And was, coincidentally, produced by Valve.

The one company that could believably pull this off, and they're backing down and pussying out.
It's infuriating.

 

[Chaosian]

Now, I've heard from my boss, who knows people at Valve, that Half Life 3 is a dead project.
Maybe some intern in the back is thinking about how one day he might go get the paper to start drawing concept art, but for all intensive purposes, stop waiting for it. It's not going to show up.

 

[Auron225]

Can....Can we stop acting like this game is going to happen? Like seriously? It was a joke 5 years ago, and now even the joke has outstayed it's welcome.

That's my sentiment exactly. Even if hell freezes over and this thing somehow see's the light of day, I won't believe it. I won't believe the rumors, the official announcement, the release... I won't believe that it exists if/when I am holding it in my hands. Somehow, Valve will have focused all it's energy and resources into ensuring that the final game... does not exist.

It's not going to happen. It may be that it was never going to happen. Why finish off one of the most anticipated trilogies in gaming history, when you can just NOT do that and have it become an urban legend instead?

 

[votemarvel]

Valve have just left it too long, both for Episode 3 and Half Life 3.

Where once Half Life 2 was the pinnacle of shooters, it really doesn't hold up very well compared to modern FPS.

There is no way that they could ever hope to meet the expectations of people waiting for the third episode of Half Life 2 or Half Life 3.

At this point a reboot would probably anger less people than trying to continue the original series.