So the original half-life came out in 1998. Half-Life 2 launched in 2004. That was 6 years apart and felt like a lifetime. Now we are sitting in the present.. 2015. 11 years. What is going on at valve? I know people still care about the franchise.. but the fanbase of half-life is starting to age into a time where they don't even care anymore. Is valve even considered a game developer anymore? All of their current business ventures are pointing elsewhere. Steam platform, steam hardware, etc. Their current legit titles are questionable at best. Counter-Strike GO --> Proven but then we get to.. DOTA2 --> acquired IP from elsewhere TF2 --> 8 years old Then the titles they released that were great but without the replayability life of the above mentioned.. L4D & L4D2 Portal & Portal 2 Alien Swarm
Gabe Newell got grilled by the gaming press about the long development of Half-Life 2. They promptly stfu when they saw how amazing the game was. After taking so much crap, I doubt we would hear about HL3 even if it is in development. It would probably be announced within a few months of release. It could be in development now and they're just being quiet about it. At this point though, many of the people who would be into HL3 are in their 30s and 40s. Many of them don't play games any longer, or are now just occassional gamers. If Valve had release a new Half-Life game 5 years ago, the market would have been huge. Now I just don't know. And people in their teens and early 20s who buy a lot of games may have never even heard of Half-Life. They were toddlers when Half-Life was thing. 11 years is a long time.
Valve was facing a lot of criticism for becoming a developer, publisher, and distributor. I think that is what spurred the sudden rise in popularity of all the other digital distributors like Origin and Uplay. Valve had too much control over the industry and others feared them. So I've suspected they've slowed down their development plans just to prevent a total boycott of their distribution service. They also stated backing a lot of Indy games which makes them look like a good guy again. But in regards the HL3 they have a huge problem. The bar is set so high they will have a hard time meeting peoples expectations. Every HL game and episode was revolutionary for it's time. How do they top what has been coming out for the last 11 years? The old rail shooter system might not do so well. If it does come out I suspect we'll see something that hasn't been done before. At least that is what I'm hoping for.
Yeah that's the other thing. Many people consider HL2 to be literally the best video game ever made. Its visual style and atmosphere even had a huge impact on Hollywood films. Look at dystopian films from that time period like Children of Men and War of the Worlds, and they were clearly inspired by HL2. I think Spielberg even admitted it was one of his inspirations. Even console gamers respect it as one of the best games ever. How could HL3 ever live up to expectations?
The port of HL2 to the 360 was technically horrible, but I still played through it. It was reasonably fresh at that point, but there have been so many dystopian future games made since that time that I would expect that's part of the barrier for making HL3.
It's the other way around: HL2 was influenced by War of the Worlds and 1984. That illustration is from 1906.
HL2 updated the look of War of the Worlds, mainly the huge walkers. The Stephen Spielberg movie borrowed its look from HL2. Anyway, basically every single player shooter borrows ideas heavily from Half-Life and Half-Life 2. They were revolutionary and changed everything. Unless Valve can deliver something that's a complete game changer like the two previous games, it will just be seen as a disappointment. In which case they probably figure its better to not release a game at all.
Right. The Portal gun and puzzles were revolutionary as well. Many thought that game was just a teaser for what was to come in HL3 but the wow factor has since worn off. I suspect they could still use it but maybe it would have to cross time and dimensions to be impressive. Perhaps that's how Gordon could finally confront the G-Man who appears to have similar abilities.