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Half-Life 3 is reportedly playable in its entirety and could be announced this year
(www.engadget.com)
this post was submitted on 04 May 2025
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Honestly HL3 shouldve been out a decade ago for me to care. If it ever does release then im just not all that interested anymore.
They literally didnt finish episode 3 because they felt they had nothing new to show, they said all this in the documentary. They didn't want to just make more of the same. If they are making Half Life 3 (highly doubt it, as Tyler McVicker just chats shit to try and stay relevant), it's because they finally have some new tech or ideas they want to play around with, like as you said with Alyx.
I'm not sure I believe that Valve ran out of ideas for HL3. That's clearly the image they want to project, and maybe even what they tell themselves, but judging from the ideas they did have for Episode 3 they showcased in that documentary, there was more than enough to justify releasing a game. Certainly there was as much or more new stuff than there was for either EP1 or 2. I think it's much more likely they simply decided their other projects at the time--CS:GO, DOTA 2, even TF2--had way more moneymaking potential. And I mean, they were right! They made a ton of money off of lootboxes and cosmetics for their multiplayer titles. I don't think Steam had totally taken over the market yet, so they were hedging their bets on multiplayer microtransactions.
I dunno. The whole "it needs to be new" philosophy they constantly espouse to hasn't really been true at least as far back as Portal 2. Even Alyx wasn't particularly revolutionary as far as VR titles go. Maybe doing that type of design was new to Valve, but the only standout features that distinguishes Alyx from other games are the graphics and the (genuinely very good) grabbity glove object pickup system. Pretty much everything else is several steps behind other VR shooter games in the name of Accessibility™, from movement to weapon selection to the painfully dumb AI.
They didn't run out of ideas. The movement FPS genre is alive and well for a reason, even today: there's lots to be done. They just lost interest in it themselves, and I believe the reason for that is primarily monetary.
There's plenty of "it doesnt need to be new" in the industry, I think it's refreshing Valve take a different approach. If none of them felt like they could continue the series without sacrificing quality or they just lost interest then there is nothing wrong with them stopping it. Yeah it sucks for fans who wanted more, but a good franchise being halted is better than one being milked.
I dont think they care about money at all, there's probably loads of projects started and stopped internally at Valve, it's how the company runs. They could print money by releasing a new Half Life game, they know that, it's just not something they want to work on right now.
They do often talk about "it needs to be new," but for the most part the things they release don't actually follow that philosophy. Artifact was trying to follow the likes of Hearthstone. CS2 is a glowup of CS:GO. DOTA2, League. Deadlock is the closest they've come to something genuinely innovative in at least a decade, but even that is still following on the heels of MOBA/FPS hybrids like OW and Paladins, just taking more elements from MOBAs.
And the "not caring about money" thing wasn't true in 2008. They were probably getting to that point around 2012, as Steam began to turn into a money printer and their microtransaction games took off, but that wouldn't have been until after HL3 had been cancelled at least once. At some point Valve talked about the difficulties in selling Portal 2 (I think it might have been in the dev commentary? Idk it's been years) and one of the points they bring up was how even a huge success like that game wasn't living up to their other titles. They tried to implement microtransactions with the co-op mode, but they learned lessons about how that model only worked in bigger multiplayer games. One of the big stories they tell in both the HL1 and HL2 documentaries were the troubles they ran into with funding, and I guarantee they were not looking to repeat those experiences by continuing work on a game that had far less potential for return on investment. Again, that might have changed by 2012, but by then the momentum was already gone.
I still haven't played Alyx, I am waiting for better and cheaper VR before playing it.
Better will happen. Cheaper than Meta selling the Quest 2/3s at a loss for $300 because they bank on the walled garden of the Oculus app store for profit? Rather unlikely.
Especially now that every VR headset seems to be a standalone and the simple "HDMI cable to a PC" doesn't really seem to exist any more, so you have to pay for the mandatory integrated gaming tablet as well.
Well, looks like I've got some upvotes and i got a reply from you so I'm guessing some people care. Tbh you just sound like a wet rag here and if you only want to hear about things you agree with then you can go talk to a mirror.
I'm fully aware some people are excited for HL3 whenever it comes out and some people are content to wait. I'm merely stating that the ship has sailed for me. Heaven forbid someone doesn't consider gabe a golden god.
I'm not complaining because you didn't agree with me. I'm pointing out that you cared enough to reply (despite asking who cares) and I'm also pointing out that saying who cares is a rude as fuck thing to open a conversation with.
You can disagree with me all you want, that's your right. If you want to be rude then don't be surprised when someone calls you out for it.
As Gaben put it in the recent valve doc, moving the story forward wasn't a good enough reason to put out a new Half Life. The series has always been about pushing technological innovations, and they just felt stumped on how HL3 was going to do that.
People like to claim valve doesn't do anything anymore, but I legitimately feel like PC gaming is the best deal for gaming right now, handily beating out console and mobile, and that is in large part due to valve.
Their flat internal structure hasn't been perfect, but on the bright side it didn't result in them pumping out what the gaming industry would have viewed in retrospect as yet another obligatory entry in an FPS series. Valve's intention was to let smart people solve hard problems in the gaming space, and IMO they have always done that, it just so far hasn't resulted in a HL3.
I've heard people say they won't make HL3 until the next big leap in gaming is here.
1 was with us into "true 3D" era
2 was with us into physics engines
Alyx was with us into VR gaming.
3 will be with us ...?*
I'm excited to find where we're going. Gaming has been pretty stale for a long time. Sure we've had plenty of games that have got very clever with what we have, but we haven't had a major leap in a long time, they've just been getting a bit more polish and shine each year. Short of deep-dive VR I honestly don't know what could be next.
*Possibly actual AI? A world filled with characters that are actually intelligently responsive rather than just following a set of predefined behaviour patterns? Vortigaunt teammate that learns from you? Thinking about where we're at technologically I have been wondering how long until AI is ready for implementation in games. Maybe this is it?
Will you get the itch after you start seeing trailers, praise and hear people talk about playing it?
Doubtful. I have played 30 hours of video games this past year (bloodborne after finally being able to play on PC)