Can you think about a Dark Souls-meets-Monster Hunter RPG made by Valve? I feel I’d’ve beloved that. Unfortunately, it’s on an inventory of Valve’s games that have been by no means meant to be. Of course, Half-Life Three is sat up on that shelf, too, together with Left 4 Dead 3, and one other Half-Life-themed shooter that will’ve seemed very totally different to what we bought with Alyx. It’s all been revealed as a part of the Half-Life: Alyx – Final Hours documentary, and there’s a great deal of juicy information on what Valve have scrapped over the past 10 years.
Valve’s first roleplaying game by no means truly left the conceptual stage, so it by no means even bought a reputation – they merely seek advice from it as “RPG”. It was impressed by games together with Monster Hunter, Dark Souls, and The Elder Scrolls, and so they wished it to be a game they may frequently add options and content material to over time. Devs briefly experimented with making it a Dota-themed RPG ultimately. It would have been a singleplayer expertise starring Axe. Alas, it wasn’t to be.
There are a pair extra acquainted titles that have been scrapped after Valve realised their Source 2 engine wasn’t fairly as much as snuff to tackle extra bold games. The likes of Left 4 Dead 3, which might have been an open world zombie-fest set in Morocco.
Then, in fact, there’s Half-Life 3, which is thought to have bounced around for years. The documentary says one model went by means of over a 12 months of prototyping round 2013-2014 earlier than hopping up on that shelf. It would have had procedurally-generated story sections, so each time you replayed it you’d have a barely totally different expertise. They even bought as far as scanning the face of the G-Man’s actor, Frank Sheldon (who confirmed as much as the session in a full swimsuit and tie, what a man).
We even may have had a Half-Life-themed VR shooter that seemed fairly totally different from Half-Life: Alyx. Much like RPG, this one was merely codenamed Shooter, and was designed to be used in Valve’s VR expertise, The Lab, although wasn’t completed in time for it. It used preexisting Half-Life belongings in “an arcade-style shoot-em-up”, the place you performed as an unknown member of the resistance in a load of various gun-fights.
This then impressed a brand new Half-Life universe VR game, Borealis, which, as you may anticipate, befell on the Borealis, the Aperture Science analysis ship talked about in Half-Life 2. We would’ve gotten to discover the ship because it travelled backwards and forwards in time by means of Half-Life’s varied wars, however but once more, the prototype was shelved.
Next up was a “fun, light-hearted” game referred to as A.R.T.I. internally. It transported gamers to a world stuffed with destructible and constructible stuff, one thing a bit like Minecraft however with Portal’s tone and humour. An early demo truly existed of this one, too. It featured a personality named King Kevin that gamers needed to escape of jail by destroying partitions, constructing bridges and shrinking issues.
The final couple of little games that we don’t get a lot information on included one codenamed Hotdog. Named so followers wouldn’t know what it was if it leaked on the web, it was truly a brand new tackle Left 4 Dead. While particulars on this are scarce, it was one thing totally different to their deliberate Left 4 Dead 3.
The different was one other VR game. Named SimTrek, it was created by a number of former Kerbal Space Program builders who joined Valve, however was cancelled when Alyx’s growth bought correctly underway.
It appears we’ve got Half-Life: Alyx itself in charge for a number of of those cancellations, then. Though maybe blame is simply too sturdy a phrase – ultimately, these games have been shelved to make method for a bloody good instalment of Half-Life. Don’t take my phrase for it, although, in keeping with Graham’s Half-Life: Alyx review, “it’s the Half-Life game you’ve been waiting for, even if it’s not the one you were expecting.”
If you’re ready, the documentary is value trying out on Steam. It prices £7.19/€8.19/$9.99, and provides entry to a bunch of growth tales, Half-Life impressed puzzles, and even an interactive audio mixer that lets you concoct bespoke alien screams.
