Whatever occurred to Half-Life Three? The full saga thus far

Half-Life Three: the story thus far

What is Half-Life Three? That sounds a silly query, however over time there have been two solutions to that query. It’s both a group of three quick, episodic video games – two of which have already been launched – or it’s a full-length sequel to each Half-Life 2 and its expansions. 

2006 – 2010 – Half-Life Three or Episode Three?

Back in 2006, as Half-Life 2: Episode One launched, Valve boss Gabe Newell referred to Episodes 1-Three as being Half-Life Three. “Probably a better name for it would have been Half Life 3: Episode One,” he admitted throughout an interview with Eurogamer. He went on to elucidate that after the six yr watch for Half-Life 2, Valve didn’t need gamers to undergo one other comparable expertise. Instead, the following sport within the saga was to span three smaller episodes that will be launched with far larger frequency. 

“This is what we’re trying instead of the large monolithic release. Let’s take what we would ordinarily do and break it up into three pieces and see,” Newell mentioned. 

And the format labored, nearly. Half-Life 2: Episode One suffered a delay, however launched simply two years after Half-Life 2’s 2004 debut. Episode Two promptly arrived the next yr in 2007. And now, 9 years later, we’re nonetheless ready for Episode Three. It actually places the six yr watch for Half-Life 2 into perspective. 

Over these 9 years the overall opinion on Episode Three has modified. If Valve have been engaged on a Half-Life sport all this time, it is logical to presume that Episode Three is not any extra, and a full-size Half-Life Three sport is now what to anticipate. Valve couldn’t presumably launch a four-hour episode to an viewers that’s spent nearly a decade in ready, might they? 

To make the guessing sport nonetheless tougher, Valve have turn out to be more and more quiet. The dialogue popping out of the corporate is solely focussed on their current multiplayer video games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and the phrases ‘Half-Life’ appear as in the event that they’ve been banned from the lips of Valve staff for over half a decade. The video above reveals Newell’s change in method to discussing Half-Life Three, together with his 2007 enthusiasm having apparently fully evaporated three years later in 2010.

2012 – Half-Life Three idea artwork

Not that the radio silence has stored the world devoid of any Half-Life Three proof in any respect. 2012 noticed the leak of a sequence of idea artwork photographs reportedly drawn for Half-Life 2: Episode Three. Among them had been numerous drawings of Alyx Vance, males sporting chilly climate gear, and a return to Xen. The artwork was acquired by the fan web site ValveTime, who claimed the photographs had been from a 2008 mission. If they’re certainly actual idea sketches created by Valve, they counsel that work was actually underway on Episode Three. Concept artwork is mostly a part of the pre-production course of nevertheless, so it’s not a sign that the third episode ever even reached a greybox construct. Is that work persevering with as we speak? It appears nobody exterior of Valve’s internal sanctum is aware of the reply. 

2012 – 2015 – Half-Life 2: Episode Four – Return to Ravenholm

While the idea artwork leak helps maintain the candle of hope burning, the story of Return to Ravenholm gives an reverse viewpoint. Between 2006 and 2008 Arkane – the studio behind Dishonored – had been growing Half-Life 2: Episode Four. Entitled ‘Return to Ravenholm’, it was to place the participant answerable for a brand new character and revisit the zombie-infested titular city throughout a interval earlier than Episode Two’s conclusion.

Valve pulled the plug on it, although. A report from ValveTime explains that the corporate felt the episode couldn’t introduce something new because of the setting constraints, however is that this cancellation half of a bigger image? Have all Half-Life tasks been deserted? 

2017 – “There’s no such thing as Half-Life 3”

In the opening month of 2017, Game Informer recorded a podcast and revealed an article containing some revealing info from a single, nameless supply inside Valve. By this level within the story you received’t be too stunned to learn the phrases “There is no such thing as Half-Life 3,” however that’s precisely what was mentioned by GI’s informant.  

Valve has a ‘flat’ construction, which means there’s no actual administration, only a few influencing personalities. Among them is corporate co-founder and president Gabe Newell. Game Informer’s supply appears to counsel that Newell is just not fascinated with making Half-Life Three. 

“Every time a Half-Life project gets some gravity and then collapses, it becomes harder for the next one to start up,” mentioned the informant. 

Over the years there have been some Half-Life 3 prototypes, and the supply says they’ve been extra ingenious than you’d think about. According to the Game Informer podcast, one was an RTS, whereas one other was a riff on journey video games, achieved with reside motion actors. 

But these tasks look like a factor of the previous now. Game Informer’s government editor Andrew Reiner mentioned on the podcast “I reached out to ten to fifteen people who worked for the company and they just didn’t want to talk about it all. Dead end after dead end after dead end.” He advised that Valve are actually fed up of being requested about it. 

2017 – Warren Spector’s misplaced Half-Life episode

In March, web site ValveTime released images from a leaked set of information that had been made for the Half-Life 2 episodes. Among them had been photographs of a snow-covered Ravenholm map that included puzzles, scripted sequences, and fights. ValveTime famous that this wintery degree was not associated to Arkane’s Episode Four, however was a part of another cancelled episode that was being developed by Junction Point Studios in late 2005.

The map implies that the participant would have crashed right into a warehouse in a gondola. When awaking from the incident, two new characters – Duncan and Scooter – would have aided them. Rebels and Combine troopers can be preventing within the streets. The episode would have included a brand new physics weapon – the Magnet Gun – and objects within the map have magnetic fields. 

The kicker of this story is that Junction Point had been headed up by legendary designer Warren Spector, the person behind Deus Ex. The now-closed studio was began by ex-Ion Storm staff, together with Spector and Art Min. Alas, we are able to solely guess on the type of Half-Life sport such minds would have made.  

2017 – Half-Life 2: Episode Three’s cliffhanger

Valve’s long-term author Marc Laidlaw left the corporate in January 2017, and several other months after his departure gave an interview to Arcade Attack. Discussing Half-Life Three, Laidlaw defined that the sport would seemingly have ended on a thriller in a lot the identical method as Episode 2. “I’ll say that I anticipated each instalment would finish with out decision, eternally and ever…” he mentioned. 

Discussing particularly Episode Three (it might seem that internally Valve had been nonetheless contemplating the following sport as a part of the Half-Life 2 saga and never a recent sport), Laidlaw mentioned: “My intention was that Ep3 would merely tie up the plot threads that had been explicit to HL2. But it might nonetheless finish like HL1 and HL2, with Gordon in an indeterminate house, on maintain, ready for the following sport to start. So one cliffhanger after one other.” 

Is Half-Life Three even doable?

There’s an much more urgent query than if any Half-Life tasks are being labored on, although. Is Half-Life Three even doable anymore? The Valve we all know as we speak is a really totally different firm to the one who launched Half-Life 2. In an interview with Develop in 2011, Newell mentioned: “With episodes, I believe we accelerated the mannequin and shortened improvement cycles with it. If you take a look at Team Fortress 2, that’s what we now assume is the most effective mannequin for what we’ve been doing. Our updates and launch mannequin retains on getting shorter and shorter.” 

That’s an replace system properly suited to the likes of multiplayer video games CS:GO and Dota 2. But what about narrative campaigns? It’s tough to ascertain how an replace patch-based method might work. 

And that’s the Half-Life Three story thus far. As every year goes by, a sequel to arguably probably the most iconic FPS in videogaming appears much less and fewer seemingly. Yet, regardless of that, the urge for food for a brand new Half-Life by no means appears to decrease, so its industrial prospects will all the time be robust. 

Half-Life Three launch date

Until the phrases ‘Half-Life 3 confirmed’ cease being a meme, a launch date for the sport is nothing however a pipe dream. 

You might have an informed guess, nevertheless. 2018 will mark the 20th anniversary of the unique Half-Life’s launch, and a great window to launch a long-awaited sequel. But by that very same logic, 2028 can be an equally appropriate date. When higher to have fun three many years of Gordon Freeman than with a 3rd sport?

The different logical reply is ‘never’. In an interview with journalist and presenter Geoff Keighley, Gabe Newell mentioned: “The solely purpose we would return and do like an excellent traditional type of product is that if a complete bunch of individuals simply internally at Valve mentioned they wished to do it and had an inexpensive clarification for why [they did],” 

“But you realize if you wish to do one other Half-Life sport and also you wish to ignore every little thing we have discovered in transport Portal 2 and in transport all of the updates on the multiplayer aspect, that looks as if a foul selection. So we’ll maintain shifting ahead. But that does not essentially all the time imply what individuals are apprehensive that it would imply.”

Half-Life Three VR

Each Half-Life has seen one thing revolutionary launched into gaming. The first title provided beforehand unseen ranges of narrative immersion, whereas the sequel pioneered lifelike bodily object behaviour, empowering the participant to make use of physics as a puzzle-solving machine and a weapon. Following that sample, it appears believable that Half-Life Three might be developed for VR.

Valve had been closely concerned within the improvement of the HTC Vive, which is now just about the Steam VR headset in all however identify. Such dedication to the platform suggests Valve have massive concepts for VR. Could they contain Black Mesa?

Possibly. Back in 2015, HTC told the BBC that they were “co-operating with Half-Life”. Later the corporate went on to make clear that they meant Valve reasonably than Half-Life, however was that simply protecting up a slip of the tongue?

Half-Life Three story

Episode Two ended on a cliffhanger for the ages. After destroying the Combine’s tremendous portal, Gordon, Alyx, and Eli plan to hunt out the Borealis: an Aperture Science analysis vessel that mysteriously disappeared. Before the trio can board a helicopter and embark on their search, a pair of Combine Advisors assault them and kill Eli. The display screen fades to black as Alyx sobs into her father’s corpse. 

Half-Life Three would presumably proceed Gordon and Alyx’s quest to seek out the Borealis. The footage of the ship seen in Episode Two was flecked with snowflakes, suggesting an arctic location. The leaked concept art backs this up, with photographs of a crashed helicopter on a frozen panorama, and drawings of assorted characters in chilly climate gear. 

With the Borealis being an Aperture Science ship, it might appear that Half-Life Three would discover the connections between the Half-Life and Portal video games. Easter eggs aplenty appear seemingly. 

The artwork additionally accommodates just a few work of alien-like imagery, suggesting the story might take Gordon again to Xen. Hopefully the ultimate boss can be extra thrilling than an enormous floating child this time round. 

Half-Life Three gameplay

With no official info launched by Valve, there’s no method we are able to touch upon what Half-Life Three’s gameplay can be like. It would appear logical to anticipate an enormous new innovation on the dimensions of the Gravity Gun, and that’s backed up by Gabe Newell’s personal feedback. “There’s stuff [in Episode Three] that’s visually never been in games before, and there’s certainly a bunch of game elements on the order of Portal that have never been done before,” he mentioned in an interview with Geoff Keighley in February 2008. He went on to trace that Valve had created one thing extra progressive than the Portal Gun.

At this level, although, we’d hesitate to even say it’s going to undoubtedly be an FPS. Half-Life Three might genuinely be something. 

The solely actual phrase on the web relating to how the sport will play comes from a Pastebin document, shared in January 2016. The nameless person who posted the doc means that they’re a part of the sport’s improvement workforce, and divulges just a few tidbits. 

“The sport is fabricated to be VERY reactive to participant selection and determination making,” the file reads.

“There are not any pressured cutscenes that break the tempo of the sport and put you to a cease. Instead you possibly can nonetheless freely do as you please and absolutely work together with every little thing that goes on story smart and cinematically.”

The final level appears pretty apparent, because the sequence has by no means made use of cutscenes. Combined with the marginally iffy sentence building, it feels as if this can be a hoax. If not although, we’re advised to anticipate elective physics puzzles which can be generated primarily based in your selections. 

Your guess is nearly as good as ours. When will it launch? What will the story be? Tell us your Half-Life Three theories within the feedback.