def no insider info on my side but from what I've heard/read they pretty regularly have a team spun up to explore a half life 3 but at this point they're afraid of a duke nukem forever (not that they'd make a shitty game like that) and that even if it's a great game it'd be seen as underwhelming because the community has hyped itself up so much on it over the nearly 20 years.
(no spoiler) From a storytelling perspective, Half Life 2 Episode 2 (the last mainline Half-Life game which Half-Life 3 was expected to be the sequel for) sets up Half-Life 3 as a proper ending to the game's story and confirmed by Mark Laidlaw's release of Epistle 3. I can see why they wouldn't want to rush quickly to the exit but at the same time, HL2E2 left them without much wiggle room. This issue alone is addressed in Half-Life Alyx.
From Valve's perspective, the Half-Life property is pretty valuable and its served them well as a means of demonstrating the newest source engine updates with a ton of hype bootstrapped because it is Half-Life.
Despite it's popularity, Half-Life is a delicate property in the sense that the story hinges on a lot of unknowns that are not revealed straight forwardly, similarly to LOST, the lack of detail stokes that mystery to the audience's delight, because they know there will be a big payoff that explains these mysteries at the end of the tunnel. That's a lot of pressure for the writers room @ Valve, especially so considering the development process of the game engine/assets itself.
It works for Valve. It sucks for fans, but the alternative is ending the property early or extending the property far beyond its intended shelf life. As long as I live to see the end of the narrative, I'll be happy. If not, then valve pls fix.
> Despite it's popularity, Half-Life is a delicate property in the sense that the story hinges on a lot of unknowns that are not revealed straight forwardly, similarly to LOST, the lack of detail stokes that mystery to the audience's delight, because they know there will be a big payoff that explains these mysteries at the end of the tunnel. That's a lot of pressure for the writers room @ Valve, especially so considering the development process of the game engine/assets itself.
They have noone else but themselves to blame for writing themselves into a corner. LOST is another example why you should absolutely not write a Mistery without knowing how it plays out before releasing the first part. Most importantly, it does not excuse their shitty cummunication about the development status of Episode 3 - to this day they have not formally acknowledged its cancellation. And all the vague hints at a sequel throughout the years which amounted to nothing are just abusive. Any hack can use the unknown with a promise of a future reveal to lure an audience but if you don't even have what you promise to reveal yourself then you are not better than a snakeoil salesman. Selling a promise you don't know you can keep is a scam, simple as.
Although with valve specifically I don't even believe that they couldn't manage to tie the story up but rather that they can afford not to - because they have found a more profitable business in selling other people's games as well as a few gambling simulators of their own rather than making single player games themselves. That alone would be sad but at least understandable - what's less OK is gaslighting their fans instead of coming clean about their plans.
> As long as I live to see the end of the narrative, I'll be happy. If not, then valve pls fix.
Good for you but many fans have died waiting for a sequel. Many more have moved on.
No insider info again but, IMHO, Half Life: Alyx was a genre-defining success that has not yet been matched but even that did not hit the bar expected of a Half Life 3. It’s an impossible expectation and they don’t have a financial need to try.
I think part of the issue is Half-life 1 & 2 were groundbreaking in terms of level design and storytelling in a FPS. It wasn't just about completing a maze, that was why Half-Life was so beloved there was nothing like it really before. Half-life 3 would just be like every other FPS game now, the trail has been blazed.
> Half-life 3 would just be like every other FPS game now
Artistically, aesthetically, nothing quite compares to the Half Life universe in other FPS games. A lot of people would be happy with just another chapter to explore.
There are too many open world boring grinding simulations nowadays.
Black Mesa was just a remake of Half Life 1 and it was so much more fun and immersive than any recent FPS game that I have played.
I think a lot of the special sauce with the Half Life games is their "Show don't tell" approach to game design.
You load up the game, watch an intro (for games after HL1) and boom you're in the game. Nothing is going to appear on your screen beyond your HUD except for one time tips when acquiring a new weapon and chapter titles when progressing to a new level. Everything happens in real time and everything always happens from the POV of the player. There are no cut scenes, there are no cinematic transitions, and the player's POV is never intercut with cameras/external perspectives.
It makes the games feel grounded and more cinematic, IMO. Its a game design language that really puts the onus on the player to witness the story and game for themselves. When I play a Half-Life or Portal game, I feel like I'm discovering the story as I play, while other games often feel like I'm being presented or shown a story as I play. The execution is more nuanced than that, but the game's simplicity makes it difficult to focus on anything other than the story and world within the game.
When you look at the stories of each Half-Life game, each game tends to follow the same structure with the same kind of plot points. But for me, it never feels repetitive because the experience of witnessing the story is different for each game. Of course Half-Life isn't the only game that does this and this of course isn't the only reason why Half-Life has been enshrined as one of the GOATs.
The underlying content of the game, its aesthetic, the textures and models, sound design and score, voice acting, ect. all are great in Half-Life, but I wouldn't say that Half-Life is the best at any of these things. I also wouldn't say the game's narrative is the best of the best either. Despite this it remains my all time favorite game franchise, possibly/probably because I grew up with it but also because the game does a fantastic job of using that underlying content to give little clues. Everything feels like it has a purpose, whether it is apparent in the moment or not.
But I am just a storyteller that happens to be a barely competent programmer with absolutely no experience in game development, so all of this is just my opinion based on my own experience!
Absolutely agreed overall, Half-Life's dedication to maintinging the player perspective is something many modern games could learn from. So many games are too focused on providing a cinematic experience of their story that they end up taking freedom away from the player with cutscenes where the character acts exactly like the designers want rather than how the player would. In a sense, cutscenes are a crutch that is too often used to force (or skip over) story developments that make no sense.
> You load up the game, watch an intro (for games after HL1)
HL1's train is also an intro that you more or less watch even if you can move around a bit and choose what to look at. Same for Opposing Force's helicopter flight but you are even more restricted: no more movement, only limited camera rotation. Kinda sad that they stripped away even that in the later games but I guess HL1 had the benefit of not having to show what happened previously.
> It makes the games feel grounded and more cinematic, IMO.
I don't think cinematic is the right word here - rather the opposite: HL feels much less like watching a movie.
You're right that if Valve made Half-Life 3 today it would be just like any other FPS - and Alyx does back up those concerns. But that doesn't mean that it has to be like that. Even just making Episode 3 with little technical and design changes from the other HL2 entries would be a breath of fresh air today. And that's just the bare minimum possible - there are many things about games that are still incredibly primitive.
They just happened to have the foresight to develop the most lucrative business model in gaming (owning the distribution platform) and Half Life 3 was the opportunity cost. They could have made a ton of money with that cliff hanger if they remained like every other game developer on the planet, instead of a metric buttload of money.
Opportunity cost? Steam was created shortly after half-life 1 and existed prior to half life 2's release. It was already a huge cash cow when they released games like CS go and TF2.
But further, the skills to write a game are different from the skills to manage a game distribution system. It's not like by having the HL2 devs valve was squeezed for cash or resources to expand steam.
I think it's pretty reasonable to assume if Valve never made Steam, they'd have made Half-life 3 do you disagree? Businesses tend to focus on what moves the bottom line most dramatically.
