Gabe Newell Discusses Possibility Of Half-Life 3

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Gabe Newell once again dances around the question about the possibility of Half-Life 3. :(

"But you know if you want to do another Half-Life game and you want to ignore everything we've learned in shipping Portal 2 and in shipping all the updates on the multiplayer side, that seems like a bad choice," Newell continued. "So we'll keep moving forward. But that doesn't necessarily always mean what people are worried that it might mean."
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To me the headline should read "Gabe discusses why HL3 will never happen"
Not in the pipeline, and this is the right time to resurrect Gordon Freeman if they are not even remotely thinking about it then forget it.
 
Oh please, this has gotten old and ridiculous already. What is Gabe waiting for? The generation that will appreciate HL3 are in their 40s and will probably have moved on from gaming due to other life commitments. Valve should have struck while the iron was hot...
 
He could be hinting with his "super classic kind of product" comment that HL3 will be VR only. That would rock.
 
Based on the leak of the Valve employee handbook a while back I'd have to guess that there just isn't enough internal support to create HL3. As much as I'd love to get my hands on it I suppose it's better to have nothing released rather than get a half-assed effort like Duke Nukem Forever.
 
Valve has absolutely no financial incentive to invest the money it would take to make a quality Half Life 3. The property is 2 decades old from a time when most every other shooter was 6-weapons and a rats maze pretending to be a "moon base" or a....sewer.

Today it would be just another shooter, as shooters themselves have become just more refined (occasionally) versions of their previous lives....not only is Half Life 3 a bad idea, it will more than likely underwhelm upon release.

Now, if any company could pull it off, it would be Valve....but look at their direction. They sell STEAM, they make money on STEAM. They have evolved as a company, the games they make are relatively simple, not the big budget powerhouse blockbusters that EA, Activision and Ubisoft have to keep cranking out to hopefully stay relevant.......
 
Story as old as time, creator makes something, gets bored half way through, and never finishes. At least the game lived up to its name, as it only got half a life.

Reminds me of the Battle Chasers comic.
 
I believe they attempted to finish it but couldn't come up with a final episode / story line that was worthy of all the hopes and dreams that we HL fans have been waiting for.
 
Nvidia_ATI said:
Oh please, this has gotten old and ridiculous already. What is Gabe waiting for? The generation that will appreciate HL3 are in their 40s and will probably have moved on from gaming due to other life commitments. Valve should have struck while the iron was hot...
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Pretty much this. The people who would appreciate HL3 are now in their 30s and 40s and have moved on with life. The teenagers and early 20 somethings who are heavily into gaming now have probably never heard of Half-Life, considering HL2 Episode 2 came out almost a decade ago. Valve waited too long.
 
Right, because kids these days have no interest in Star Wars :rolleyes:
 
This is almost as interesting as the time that Gabe Newell discussed the possibility of going on a diet.
 
Reading that was sad, its like he's finally getting tired of trolling us and just admitted the game isn't happening. I salute the Gaben for his decade long troll. It was fun while it lasted.
 
Youn said:
He could be hinting with his "super classic kind of product" comment that HL3 will be VR only. That would rock.
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That would suck. Because then we'd all need to buy a gimmick device just to play a game.
 
Cmdrmonkey said:
Pretty much this. The people who would appreciate HL3 are now in their 30s...
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Like me. I was holding out hope, but now I know. Have sort of known in the back of my head. Fuck Gaben with a broken broomstick (because I strongly believe you should finish what you start). They are dead to me as far as a game dev is concerned.
 
He's such a bullshitter. Valve has done nothing innovative for years now. Just desperately trying to leech off Occulus Rift first and now HTC
 
I think it would be cool to troll valve by some group releasing an unofficial HL3.

I could care less if the graphics are the same as HL2.. I just want to finish the story, I don't care who writes it as long as it is a good finish to the series.
 
Valve is a F2P company. They make hats, skins and simple DirectX 9 titles that can be run on a wide variety of hardware. Listen to what their CEO is saying. He's saying that a HL without crates and multiplayer doesn't make sense for them.

You will never see a HL3. It's not over, it never existed in the first place. The only HL product you have a chance of seeing is a F2P shooter with Gordon Freeman, Vortigaunts and cosmetic monitization.
Youn said:
He could be hinting with his "super classic kind of product" comment that HL3 will be VR only. That would rock.
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Valve is going to create the most desired and hyped PC game in a decade, then restrict it's compatibility to only that small niche of gamers who have a VR capable rig and a 15x15 foot area in their living room in which to set up laser sensors and run around in?

That makes about as much sense as making HL3 Linux only.

Anyone who's expecting Valve to ship revolutionary, GLnext VR titles is living in a dream world. Valve can't move their products onto a new engine, they need to remain viable in Russia, China, Brazil and other countries where WinXP, x1900s and Internet cafes are the standard and wages are low. They also need to remain viable to those western consumers with low powered PCs and laptops. Half of the Steam users who opt in to the hardware survey have GPUs with 1 GB or less VRAM. You can't profit from VR games when most of your consumers are running HD 4000s and 5850s.

The next iteration of Source will be one that "increases creator productivity". IE, makes it easier for people to create hats. We're not going to see a VR engine, we're not going to see a next-gen engine. We're going to see a hat engine.
 
The article also shows that Valve is not into making quality games anymore, and is focused on creating mass appeal social media style games/services. I think most of us have known this for years now, but I think there were a few holding out thinking that Valve was anything but the Google of gaming. :p

Ironically, you'll see people bash EA/Ubi when Valve (as a game developer) is even deeper into the microtransactions/social media aspect. Just compare Origin to Steam and see which has more unnecessary Facebook/social media inspired fluff.
 
not surprised at all actually, all they care about is steam, they profit a lot from steam...
 
crusty_juggler said:
Listen to what their CEO is saying. He's saying that a HL without crates and multiplayer doesn't make sense for them.
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This. For Valve, there is no reason to make a traditional game (sell it for $60 and be done with it) anymore. Tasteless pink tiger camo guns, out of place hats and other cosmetic stuff is how they want to milk customers (even if it isn't necessary). Even Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Rogue doesn't have multiplayer just to give a perspective.
 
Or maybe Valve realizes that VR could use a killer app, and HL3 would be that killer app.
 
cyclone3d said:
I think it would be cool to troll valve by some group releasing an unofficial HL3.

I could care less if the graphics are the same as HL2.. I just want to finish the story, I don't care who writes it as long as it is a good finish to the series.
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While it would be nice to have an actual game with great game play, it really is only the story I care about at this point. If they wrapped it up with nothing more than an officially licensed graphic novel I'd be happy.
 
DPI said:
Or maybe Valve realizes that VR could use a killer app, and HL3 would be that killer app.
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That sort of seems like what he was referencing. Ill hold out a small glimmer of hope! They make enough money I would think..
 
How on Earth could someone read,
"If you want to do another Half-Life game and you want to ignore everything we've learned in shipping Portal 2 and in shipping all the updates on the multiplayer side, that seems like a bad choice"
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and interpret that as meaning virtual reality?
 
Flogger23m said:
The article also shows that Valve is not into making quality games anymore, and is focused on creating mass appeal social media style games/services. I think most of us have known this for years now, but I think there were a few holding out thinking that Valve was anything but the Google of gaming. :p
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If you don't think the Portal series is quality then I have nothing nice to say to you.
 
convexion said:
If you don't think the Portal series is quality then I have nothing nice to say to you.
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You realize it is almost a four year old game using a then very out dated engine? Portal 2 was released in the middle of a transition period at Valve. Even then, it still has the social media features I already mentioned (hats and unfitting other crap, poor match making system). But it was a good game. Hopefully not the last, but I do have a feeling it was the last good game we'll see from Valve.
 
I don't understand why this is so hard. HL3 is the most anticipated title in all of gaming of all time...unless they did a REDUX of Quake 1 with modern physics and modern graphics.

Why the mystery and drama?
 
This is why I stopped playing Team Fortress 2. It went from being a great game to a social experiment in psychological manipulation when hats and trading came along. When the sheople started throwing their money at it - that's when Episode 3/Half-Life 3 went to the chopping block. Valve realized they had a monopoly on distribution, and that they could make money the easy way, so why bother with creativity when you can just sell virtual hats to a bunch of idiots willing to pay for them?

At least Duke finally got a game. R.I.P, Gordon Freeman. We hardly knew you.
 
Flogger23m said:
You realize it is almost a four year old game using a then very out dated engine? Portal 2 was released in the middle of a transition period at Valve. Even then, it still has the social media features I already mentioned (hats and unfitting other crap, poor match making system). But it was a good game. Hopefully not the last, but I do have a feeling it was the last good game we'll see from Valve.
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I doubt that it's the last good game we'll see from Valve. I'm sure they'll make something intriguing for Source 2 whether it's Portal, CS, L4D, etc. And 4 years doesn't mean anything to me, I'm a GOG addict. :p
 
crusty_juggler said:
Valve is a F2P company. They make hats, skins and simple DirectX 9 titles that can be run on a wide variety of hardware. Listen to what their CEO is saying. He's saying that a HL without crates and multiplayer doesn't make sense for them.
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Yep. Valve is pretty much out of the game-making business and all-in on Steam and the virtual economy. Not sure how well that's going to work out long-term, as Steam itself is just mostly an online distribution store which could easily be replaced by some other company coming along and doing the same thing better. Especially considering just how out of touch Valve is. That's always the first sign that doom is on the horizon.
 
If Gaben actually means here that there is no or little momentum inside Valve to work on HL2E3 or HL3, then it's the only video game related place on the planet where that's true.

Why not let someone else make HL content? Blue Shift and OpFor were good.
 
It's pretty apparent now that their whole SteamOS / Steam Machines foray was only designed to keep MS in check and keep their cash cow (Steam) protected.
 
jwcalla said:
Yep. Valve is pretty much out of the game-making business and all-in on Steam and the virtual economy. Not sure how well that's going to work out long-term, as Steam itself is just mostly an online distribution store which could easily be replaced by some other company coming along and doing the same thing better. Especially considering just how out of touch Valve is. That's always the first sign that doom is on the horizon.
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I completely disagree with that. Steam has a huge user base, Valve would have to catastrophically fuck up before anyone else could take their place. It's not like other companies haven't been trying but Origin, Uplay, and whatever else just can't hold a candle to Valve's platform.

The closest competition in my eyes is GOG but even they don't have the market share or library that Steam has. The last figure I saw a while back had all online PC game purchases at around 70% acquired through Steam, that's a huge obstacle to overcome for any competitors.
 
Valve has proven able to do things quickly. The time between L4D and L4D2 was short.

This is my predicted timeline:
-HL2 Ep.2 is released as part of the Orange Box.
-Gabe realizes that episodic gaming isn't the future.
-Valve realizes that Source engine is aging and needs big update (Source 2) before more Half-life can be made.
-Portal is unexpected hit in Orange Box.
-Portal 2 is worked on. Major updates to Source engine included. Lots of new tech developed makes game amazing (Final Hours of P2 book and in-game commentary reveal this).
-Motion capture makes cinematic quality of games incredible, but doesn't work well with Valve's "no cutscenes" rule. Motion capture combined with tracking the character as they walk about proves to be hard, takes longer than expected.
- Halflife coming together as a Source 2 game when the VR hints begin. Valve gets on board and starts adapting current Halfife 3 game for VR.

So at this point either Valve is giving up on Halflife 3 because it won't work in VR the way they want, or we will see something very different for Halflife 3 as a VR focused experience, with the possibility for standard play as a secondary experience.
 
crusty_juggler said:
How on Earth could someone read, and interpret that as meaning virtual reality?
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Referencing Portal 2??? Virtual reality confirmed!
Referencing a false glimmer of hope??? Half-Life 3 confirmed!
Gabe Newell discussing possibility of Half-Life 3??? TROLLOLOLOLOLOL

:D :D :D
 
Youn said:
Right, because kids these days have no interest in Star Wars :rolleyes:
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This except without the cute little rolleyes smiley thing-y. Younger generations grew up with motion pictures and television as a has-been form of non-interactive entertainment. Now that we're taking the world and claming it (plus all the problems old people left for us with the excess and greed that we get to fix...SUVs ugh) as our own, we might take a glance at what is a dying thing like Star Wars or, if we're bothering to play silly games, HL3, we've all got better, more intelligent things to do with our time like twerking at each other, making Gangnam spoofs, and turning selfies into a thing that even derelict 40+ year old geezers try to emulate to look like they're trendy and young still.
 
If I could boycott Steam because they refuse to make the most anticipated game ever I would. They have enough money 100 times over to make the best quality game you can. If nobody in the company is on-board for making this then maybe they are in the wrong field. I mean how can you work for Valve and not be?
 
Terpfen said:
If Gaben actually means here that there is no or little momentum inside Valve to work on HL2E3 or HL3, then it's the only video game related place on the planet where that's true.
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Gives you an idea of just how far out of touch Valve corp. is, doesn't it? They're of the belief that what gamers really want are crates, hats, Linux and touchpads. Not like, games or anything like that. Shit like this happens when you take your business guidance from teenage Reddit posters. This is how I imagine high-level business decisions are made over at Valve:

"Mr. Newell, we want to start producing home consoles that run Linux and use bizarre touchpad controllers. Also, more hats".

"What do our consumers think about this?"

"Well sir, they've produced several dank memes about you, spammed some dongers and floated various conspiracy theories regarding Microsoft and their presumed plan to destroy Steam and close off PC gaming."

"Good, we will proceed with our plans then."
 
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