Half Life 3 probably never coming out

[MHR]

They made portal 2, and there's rumors of portal 3.

Portal 2 alone should demonstrate that they still want to make standalone games in some way. It was very closed-ended and had a strong single-player story focus. There was no multiplayer garbage there to sell hats (the one they had was trash and doesn't count.)

I believe they'll come out with HL3. I'm certain they have some assets and storyboards tucked away tightly, they're just waiting for Source 2 to get up-and-running, and then it will be about 1.5 years in my estimation before we actually see it. For all I know I could be dead and buried in order to leave a beautiful young corpse, so I'm not getting excited for it, I'm just optimistic that it can happen.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

So Half-Life 3 is on life support eh? So I guess you could say it's only half alive then.

Ehhh, as much as I like Half-Life, I just don't care anymore. And I can't really blame Valve either. If I was a massively successful retired rockstar who still had cash flowing in from doors and windows alike from my former hits, and knew that even the slightest attempt at a comeback would have massively high expectations, I wouldn't bother with it either. I just feel sad for the gamers who will play HL2 in the future, and then discover that the story was never finished. Maybe Valve will eventually go the Shenmue 3 route and just go "fuck it, you guys want it so bad, then pay for it too" and then release the game as a 3-hour adventure game.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Nah it will come out Valve will do what they always do sit on their arses wait for everyone to get bored and make their own HL3 via a mod then they will buy it up and release it because they seem to have no internal creativity or passion for making games.

I still havent finished HL2 I got to episode 2 and stopped I really should finish it some day I did not feel it was to bad except they looked like they were running out of idea in episode 1 and had repeats of tricks I had already seen which were not really strong enough to carry beyond a single showing imo.

Despite my personal not giving a shit attitude towards HL3 I do feel sorry from people who want it as I know what its like to want a game really bad have it foreshadowed teased even and then nothing. It would be better if they gave a definitive answer i.e it will be out within X amount of years or its never going to happen except possibly in the distant future.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

QUIET HERETIC

YOU ARE ALL WEAK AND DO NOT FEEL THE GLOW OF FREEMAN ENLIGHTEN YOUR HEART

WHEN THE VELOCIRAPTURE COMES, I SHALL BE SAVED AND YOU SHALL FOREVER BURN IN SODOM

FOR I BELIEVE IN THE LORD GABEN AND HIS HOLY APOSTLES

OP: The thing about ME3 is that when you think about it, it's bad all over. The ending was just the final straw.

Valve can still make good games, and as long as they can, they can always just rake in all the money by announcing it. I mean, people forget how long Team Fortress 2 took vis a vis development. Yeah, it's a bit foolish, but The Last Guardian lives, so I can stretch a bit to possibly believe in miracles.

Imho, I'd still want it to come out, especially since Source 2 is on the horizon. However, that's the sort of "nice if it happens/meh if it doesn't attitude".

 

[Artina89]

To be honest, I would be more surprised if it did eventually get released, but then again, I am more looking forward to finally seeing The Last Guardian but I wouldn't be surprised if that got canned at the very last second either. Whatever happens will happen. Half life 3 will either get released or it won't but I wouldn't try and hype it up that much, as that sort of thing tends to breed disappointment.

 

[Doom972]

At this point, I'm sure no one is holding his breath waiting for it. It'll probably never get made, but it would be a nice surprise if it will.

 

[babinro]

At the end of the day Valve is a business with bills to pay and mouths to feed. They are sitting on an IP that's guaranteed to bring in a ton of revenue REGARDLESS OF THE GAMES QUALITY. The nature of business means you can never say never.

Valve may make this game out of financial desperation some day. They may go under, sell the rights to another company who then makes the game. I'm sure it'll happen but just not any time soon (and probably not in my lifetime given the companies lasting success).

 

[Arqus_Zed]

It will come out one day after the last person who cares about it dies. Because for some reason Valve wants to troll us all.

I honestly feel like its not coming out because Valve...doesn't really know what made Half Life good. Like listening to Gabe and other devs talk about it, they always seem...befuddled? Like the fact people enjoyed Half Life just seems like a fluke; something they couldn't explain.

Same with Portal and Team Fortress 2, come to think of it. Hell, even Left 4 Dead! They always seem surprised people actually like the games.
I can just imagine a developer meeting, Gabe asks "So what was good in Half Life 2 we can use again in Half Life 3?"
And he just gets crickets, because no one can really explain why it was good, just that it was.

The physics engine.
The gravity gun.
The half-lambert lighting technique.
The setting, atmosphere and set pieces.
The pacing and continuous introduction of new gameplay features.

I mean, read a review, read 'Raising The Bar', people know why it was good. It's just that shooters are one of the least timeless genres out there - the most timeless would be puzzlers and RPGs - because a lot of what makes a shooter good depends on processing power: better physics engine, more enemies on screen at the same time, destructable environment, more realistic shaders, more tris in models, bigger & better scripted events, etc.

A lot of the stuff they did that made HF 1 & 2 such landmarks have now been done to death by other developers.

Also, apparently Half-Life 2's last 10 months before it's release were a living hell. People working constantly in crunch mode, the whole thing about the source code that got stolen and leaked, etc. So that might also be something for the senior developers to say: "No thanks, bad memories".

 

[Shiftygiant]

Because Valve can't count to 3.

Really has there been any indication they're making a Half Life 3?

There was a leak of concept art for some scenery that Valve was suggesting came from them back in 2007/8, several non-subtle hints the game was in some form of development cycle (concept) back in 2009, and suggestions from valve itself of a deaf character following the release of a series focus test video's (here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2LnP3JgbM0)

 

[The Harkinator]

Half Life was a major event in gaming, some of the things in it helped influence plenty of games that came after it. It didn't exactly re-define a genre, but it codified several things for subsequent games to use down the line. The impact of Half Life on the way we play games was massive.

Half Life 2 was much the same, and possibly had even more of an effect on gaming. This was a double-whammy, Half Life became that game series that revolutionised the genre with each major installment and that creates a tough act to follow. The first two were landmarks, by which you could track the progress of gaming, if the third one was bad or merely "good enough" it wouldn't measure up to its predecessors. Enough time passed that Half Life 3 became hyped by absence. The years long wait was building expectations, and such is the impact of Half Life that people still care about the games despite it being years since Episode 2. It would take something truly ground-breaking to avoid being a let down.

So Valve don't bother with it. They've got Steam, and a few other games they might work on or publish for the cash. Their reputation is really strong for a developer/publisher and Half Life 3 would represent a big gamble on their part. They're better off letting HL3 become that game that will never be made, rather than trying to create the next game that innovates gaming.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Something something source 2 still being worked on or something.
There was a tech demo on youtube for what was called "swarm physics" which claimed to be a part of half life 3. Though what it was really for, is hard to say. Nonetheless, it was impressive...so there are still a few creative ways of raising the bar, so to speak.
Personally, I think valve are still figuring out how to innovate as well as they did before. That is a difficult place for a developer to be in. They are cornered by their own success.

 

[Poetic Nova]

I think people would already be content with a Episode 3 that resolves the bloody cliffhanger we are left with.

 

[JohnZ117]

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.

 

[Strelok]

Looks like more nonsense from The Guess, The Troll, The Know, they might want to come up with a more appropriate name.

Marc Laidlaw (Half Life writer)

 

[Evonisia]

Honestly I don't think anybody is hyped for it anymore, or even would be if they actually announced it. I very much doubt Half-Life 3 could even cause controversy if it was bad apart from irrelevant "lol it's the new DNF" jokes.

But I want to hear an excuse for no Team Fortress 3, Portal 3 or Left 4 Dead 3.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

Seriously, that video in the OP is really stupid. They put way too much stock into a loose rumor by an anonymous source, and, as shown in the first post on this very page, the fact that Marc Laidlaw would gladly and readily debunk the rumor when asked by email by an average Joe pretty much proves that they didn't bother to ask Valve for a comment. And what has the the backlash against Mass Effect 3 to do with anything? Its inclusion seems more or less arbitrary, and comes across like they needed a convenient "villain" to kind of, sort of pin the blame on.

That video is pure speculation at best, and shit-stirring clickbait at worst.

 

[irishda]

I honestly feel like its not coming out because Valve...doesn't really know what made Half Life good. Like listening to Gabe and other devs talk about it, they always seem...befuddled? Like the fact people enjoyed Half Life just seems like a fluke; something they couldn't explain.

Same with Portal and Team Fortress 2, come to think of it. Hell, even Left 4 Dead! They always seem surprised people actually like the games.
I can just imagine a developer meeting, Gabe asks "So what was good in Half Life 2 we can use again in Half Life 3?"
And he just gets crickets, because no one can really explain why it was good, just that it was.

I didn't play half-life 1 when it was first released. I played it years later after I got more involved with games media and everyone wouldn't shut up about it. I gotta say, even to this day, I don't get the love. The story's better than a lot of other FPS games, but then that's like saying Rambo II has a better story than Commando. Quake II was more popular with the crowds I was hanging out with (the guns are more imaginative), so I never really saw why everyone hailed the mute nobody who apparently snuck in weapons training in between physics lessons.

When CS rolled out, I was playing Quake III and then Tribes II, and my experience with HL1 just made me apathetic to HL2, so I've never felt a particular attachment to Valve games. The fact that no one can explain why their flagship game is the best ever hasn't helped sway me.

 

[Vigormortis]

snip

"It gets worse, believe it or not. Our source tells us that Valve's management isn't invested in the game coming out at all, and have even moved developers and resources away from the project."

And that, folks, is absolute confirmation that this "news" story and it's "anonymous source" are absolute bullshit.

Valve has no set managers and any given project has it's resources allocated and dictated by those working on the project.

These "insightful" people at The Know either got trolled hard by their "source" or are too stupid or lazy to look into how Valve operates.

Nothing to see here, people. Move along.

snip

Heh. Even Marc Laidlaw confirms the source is bunk.

Hilarious. But please, don't let that stop the hate from flowing. I never tire of seeing people endlessly post about how they don't care anymore. They don't care so much that they waste their time posting about it.

Also hilarious.

Really has there been any indication they're making a Half Life 3?

Numerous, actually. Some even from as little as two years ago.

 

[omega 616]

As somebody who not only didn't mind mass effect 3's ending nor do I like the half life series, my face when I heard about this was something like =D

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.

I am also pleased that all the PC elitists can't get the next game in their god child series. Pc gamers, I feel a little sorry for but too often I see PC elitists waving their bits around and looking down their noses from their ivory towers at other gamers, that this is so nice to read.

I play games on PC and console, so I'm not on either side but it's nice to take elitists down a peg or ten.

 

[Silvanus]

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.