Half Life 3 is in Safe Hands

[WhyWasThat]

Remember how Half Life 2 took SIX YEARS to develop? No? Neither do I. What I do remember though, is stepping off a train and being stunned by the flash of a hovering security camera, as I took in the new, terrible world that had emerged from the ashes of Black Mesa. I remember traversing the haunting husk of Ravenholm. I remember trying to stay off the sand on my way to rescue Eli. And most of all, I remember the G-Man, and the words he shared with me atop the Citadel, damning any hope that mistakes could be resolved, and reminding me of ever-present forces that are beyond my control. Half Life 2 may have taken six years for Valve to make, but that is not what it is remembered for.

Just remember that the lengthy period of silence we are enduring is a comforting reminder that when Half Life 3 is finally revealed... It will be worth the wait.

 

[Cavan]

Why would you make a thread like this as if half like three was just around the corner just stop caring and then if there is an announcement you can anticipate it then and you won't feel as bad as if you had spent a decade sitting and waiting for something that never happened the fact that you have to sit and reassure yourself about something like this periodically worries me and I hope that you don't genuinely do something like sit and check if there have been any more announcements on the game or start buying in to the conspiracy theory like little references people make to troll each other I can guarantee you will be disappointed every time and you'd do better to save the brain space.

Mandatory lack of punctuation.

 

[Lionsfan]

Is that all? I thought you had some info about the game, not just a "well hold on guys" post

 

[tippy2k2]

No, it will not be worth the wait. I'd like them to finish the series that they are on before they decide to make the next one.

Maybe I'm abnormal but I couldn't give a flying fuck about Gordon Freeman anymore. Vale ends their game on an "Empire Strikes Back"-level of giant cliffhangers and decide that they have more important things to do than to finish the game series that they started.

It's been five years....five years for their "Episodic" game to come out and no release in site.

Piss off Valve, I'm out. I'm done playing your waiting game and will hopefully have the willpower to not purchase it when it does come out in 2057.

 

[Zhukov]

Well, at least it wasn't one of those "My burnt toast kinda has a lambda on it. Possible evidence of HL3?" threads.

 

[Joseph Harrison]

That's right everyone Half Life 3 is safely in my hands. I know, I know, this was a controversial decision by Valve, but we really fell that this is a necessary step towards making a great game. My first order of business is to rename the game Twice Death 1/3. Secondly I'm changing the game from a FPS to a RTS Puzzle game. I know these may seem drastic unwarranted changes but I assure you that this will lead to the greatest game our generation has seen. Thank you very much for listening.

Sincerely,
Who Really Gives a Fuck Anymore

 

[J. Mazarin]

It's been 8 years since HL2.

5 years since HL2:E2.

The 15th year anniversary of the original HL is next year. Doubting we'll see anything before then.

 

[xefaros]

Im not saying that the game wont be worth it but staying far from its predecessors will simply make the game change more than it should and recent games under long development show that either they gonna fail or change to comply with new age gamers which often drive the hardcore funs away from the series

 

[Able Seacat]

Spoiler

Maybe it's like a watched pot never boils. People need to stop asking it for and then maybe they'll make it. Besides as already mentioned expectations are gonna be way up there.

 

[o_O]

The thing about the HL1-2 gap is that the story was rather wrapped up and only had potential to go somewhere. Gordon stopped the Xen invasion then was put in stasis. Big open door for another game, but ended the current story. This gap from Ep2-3/HL3 is far more egregious since the story isn't wrapped up and ended on one HELL of a cliffhanger.

It has the interesting effect of inducing apathy to the story and the game as a whole when you outright stop on a cliffhanger. This is just idiotic from a storytellers perspective. Dunno what Valve was thinking. Shoulda just held off the final scene until the next game if they weren't planning on doing a timely Ep3. Wouldn't have opened so many cans of worms or pissed off so many people.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Seriously? A "hold on" thread? What the fuck do you think we've been doing so far? It's not like we can hop in a time machine and travel to when the game is being released once we get tired of waiting. We know the game is coming, and we know all we can do is wait.

 

[Kae]

I was too busy not remembering that existed until you brought it up, I have no idea why anyone would need to hear that, but from the title I thought you were going to say something about they changing developers, or that the original team wasn't working HL3 or something like that, not well nothing, I guess I'll go back to not thinking about it as I do with everything I wait for, like The Hobbit! I don't think about constantly and then whenever something comes up I remember oh yeah that's coming out on December! And then proceed to forget about it until something else reminds me off it which happens not really too often.

 

[gideonkain]

Seriously? I'm a huge fan of Half-life and I don't believe anything can live up to the expectations that fans have self generated for it.

Besides, all signs point to Half-life 3 at least partially taking place in a frozen wasteland looking for the Borealis.

Snow worlds have kinda been done to death in the last few years from Lost Planet to Skyrim to the upcoming franchise killer, Dead Space 3 (coop, exactly what you need in a horror game, sheesh.)

 

[Goregasm]

What I remember most about Half-life 2:

"God damn it, when will this stupid airboat part be over?!"

 

[hazabaza1]

Let me have it, I'll keep it safe.
[sub]Nice and safe behind this shed.[/sub]
[sub][sub]With two barrels to the face.[/sub][/sub]

 

[theriddlen]

No, it will not be worth the wait. I'd like them to finish the series that they are on before they decide to make the next one.

Maybe I'm abnormal but I couldn't give a flying fuck about Gordon Freeman anymore. Vale ends the ir game on an "Empire Strikes Back"-level of giant cliffhangers and decide that they have more important things to do than to finish the game series that they started.

It's been five years....five years for their "Episodic" game to come out and no release in site.

Piss off Valve, I'm out. I'm done playing your waiting game and will hopefully have the willpower to not purchase it when it does come out in 2057.

First of all, Valve has dropped the idea of episodic games - the next HL is HL3, a full sized ending chapter of HL trilogy. Secondly, Valve is not taking this long just to piss you off - quite the opposite, because they want to make sure that the game will fully satisfy its fans, and make up for the time it took to finish it. Of course, you can hate them for it, and refuse to buy their games, but personally I think that Valve's approach to game development is brilliant, and their games are more than worth the wait.

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

Unless the game comes with a complimentary time machine so you can go back and play it in the past, the game probably won't be worth the wait. The only reason people will like it is because of Nostalgia, or because they are desperately trying to convince themselves the unreasonable wait time wasn't for nothing.

Even if this game is good, a lot of people are going to dislike it purely because whatever they release cannot possibly live up to the expectations people have for this game. This won't just be "Oh Half Life 3 has been released", it will be "Oh my god, the game Valve spent years and years making has finally been released, this is going to be so epic!!!".

I have to wonder if Valve actually cancelled this game a long time ago, but knows they'll be in for a massive shit storm if they ever actually revealed it.

 

[CorsairX]

... Just remember that the lengthy period of silence we are enduring is a comforting reminder that when Half Life 3 is finally revealed... It will be worth the wait.

No, it won't. Literally. There's only so much further they can take the engine without rebuilding from scratch and by the time it does get released we'll probably already seen whatever graphical tricks it has already implemented in the new Unreal and ID Tech engines, so technology-wise... meh.

Sure there's the story but in the same time it's taken for this 'episode' to be produce; we've had (for example) two complete releases of the Mass Effect series (ME2, ME3, not to mention DLC), arguably games with a much heavier story focus. HL2:EP2 came out in 2007, while ME2 came out in 2010 and ME3 in 2012.

Ep3 should not have taken this long to be produced and there's a distinct whiff of Duke Nukem Forever about it... and we all know how that ended.

 

[tippy2k2]

First of all, Valve has dropped the idea of episodic games - the next HL is HL3, a full sized ending chapter of HL trilogy. Secondly, Valve is not taking this long just to piss you off - quite the opposite, because they want to make sure that the game will fully satisfy its fans, and make up for the time it took to finish it. Of course, you can hate them for it, and refuse to buy their games, but personally I think that Valve's approach to game development is brilliant, and their games are more than worth the wait.

Not that I don't believe you but do you have a source on the episodic thing? I've seen news pieces [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108821-Valve-Says-Hang-In-There-For-Half-Life-2-Episode-3] on this very site that talked about Episode 3 and HL3 as two separate beings. I suppose it really doesn't affect much (unless they decided to just drop the whole "What is going to happen after the MASSIVE cliffhanger).

This might just be my own taste (in fact, I can almost guarantee that I'm going to be with a very small minority) but I would take Activision's "Let's release the series once every year and drive it into the ground" over what Valve is doing. At least this way we could see what the hell happened.

...actually, you know what? If you do show me something that demonstrates that Valve hasn't just abandoned the damn project (something concrete, not these "We're totally working on it Guys" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114889-Half-Life-3-Logo-Appears-on-Mystery-Website]-quotes from Gabe that they seem to release once every six months), I will take back my "not buying" stance. I'm starting to wonder when we'll start to see "Gabe Newell is about to make you his *****" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikatana] campaign).

Frankly, the sitting here while Valve pretends to throw a ball and laughs at us while we look around for it is what has soured me so much on Valve. I don't mind a company taking it's time; I mind a company that constantly teases it's fan base.