Half Life 3

As most of you know, HL3 is pretty much the most popular “vaporware” game out there. Something always rumored and in development, but never heard again after a certain point.

What I don’t understand is why Gabens refusal to expand on the halted development of this game, it would’ve smashed sales absolutely and be the shining example in the modern gaming scene.

It just doesn’t make sense, you’d think a games firm would be smacking it’s lip ready for another full plate of gamers wallets.

Is it because the hype train is dangerous? Does Gaben prefer steam sales more?

What are your thoughts!

caut_R,

Valve isn‘t publicly traded (AFAIK) so they don‘t have to squeeze every last penny if they don‘t want to. And Steam revenue alone can fund anything gabeN wants to do. They don‘t have any ideas for HL3 they‘re satisfied with so they don‘t make it. And I respect that a lot TBH.

bigmclargehuge,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

The reason no one is making HL3 is because no one wants to, at least not long term.

Idk if you know much about how Valve is structured as a game studio, but it’s a bit atypical. It’s not like Gabe Newell comes in and says “today everybody starts working on HL3”, projects get greenlit and then whichever employees want to work on them are free to do so, and if they decide they’re uninterested, for whatever reason, they can leave the project.

What this means, is that if a project starts to pick up steam (no pun intended) within the company, more and more people join in, and this creates a passionate team. Various Half-Life projects since Ep2 have been started, none were finished (until Alyx), not because they were decisively axed for more corporate reasons like many other games, but because for one reason or another, the devs became uninterested or burned out, and went to work on other things they actually wanted to work on.

I think at this point, the only way we’ll ever see HL3 is if a team comes up with something completely groundbreaking and is absolutely dedicated to getting it done. Apparently, there just hasn’t been that winning combo yet. I can’t blame them, because if they half assed any aspect of it, they’d never hear the end of it.

NocturnalMorning,

That description of how the teams are structured sounds completely made up. They’d never get a game finished if the company was actually structured that way. I’ve personally never worked for a company that would just let me project hop when I felt like it.

You’d be starting over constantly.

MurrayL,

And yet that’s exactly how they operate!

Valve: How going boss-free empowered the games-maker

… But you’re right that it is often considered the cause of many of their problems: Valve’s unusual corporate structure causes its problems, report suggests

billiam0202,

… But you’re right that it is often considered the cause of many of their problems: Valve’s unusual corporate structure causes its problems, report suggests

If you look at the list of games developed by Valve it kinda becomes apparent that the only reason Valve is still around (or operates in such a free-flow manner) is because Steam is so profitable. Their release of notable titles is spotty, at best:

  • CS 2, 2023
  • HL:Alyx, 2020
  • DOTA: Underlords 2020
  • Artifact (RIP) 2018
  • DOTA 2 2013
witx,

I think HL3 will only happen to push some frontier in gaming, like they did with Alyx and VR. It’s the only safe move with that franchise and all the hype

Hawk,

Gabe has always said he’ll make HL3, “when the technology is there”.

No idea what it means, but it seems he at least has a vision for what the game should be.

KingThrillgore,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

Alyx used PBR a technology already dated compared to Raytracing and it looks better than most games with Raytracing. We’re there, man.

Zahille7,

I mean at least Source 1 is still being used to develop games (or at least was before Source 2 code and all was released). Valve made a game engine so tough and versatile you can make it do anything you want.

GMod took that engine, and has done absolutely wild things with it. Hell, even just the modders for Half-Life have done crazy things with it, like make it into an isometric RTS game with Lambda Wars.

Hubi,
@Hubi@lemmy.world avatar

This is exactly it. Most of their major titles utilize some new tech or groundbreaking feature and whatever they have planned for HL3 is just not ready yet.

Thorry84,

Half Life was always about pushing the boundaries of gaming. The first Half Life with their combination of story telling in a 3D shooter environment was absolutely at the sharp end of the field at that time. If you’ve seen the Black Mesa documentary you’ll know why HL2 was such a hit and how it was revolutionary at that time. After that they did some DLC, but Valve wasn’t happy with what they were doing. It wasn’t groundbreaking, it was just creating content for the sake of content. As they didn’t need any more money from creating games, they opted to not create HL3. It wasn’t till VR became more mainstream they again tried to do something at the sharp end of the field, by creating HL Alyx.

I don’t know what would prompt them to ever make a HL3 if such a thing even exists.

Omegamanthethird,
@Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world avatar

Episodic gaming as a format was the groundbreaking feature. It was supposed to be the future of gaming.

gaylord_fartmaster,

It was, devs just realized they don’t have to break the content up into episodes or actually complete the first part they release, and can call it early access instead.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

The real problem is that you can’t create content fast enough to reach the cadence that you’d want with episodic content. Even a lot of TV shows have shifted away from predictable scheduling since Valve tried this experiment (and TV, largely, got better since then too).

Starkstruck,

If Valve does ever make HL3, it’s going to have to be ground breaking. Every Half Life game redefines what gaming is capable of. Eg HL: Alyx was an insane demonstration of what VR can do. I do think it’ll happen eventually, and may even partially be in development right now. But I don’t think we’ll hear anything about it for a very long time.

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

HL3 is cool but it will never be better than Polybius, IMO.

BmeBenji,

I can’t think of a game that Valve has released just to make money except for Artifact which totally flopped.

From what I understand, Valve has a non-hierarchical internal personnel structure and projects are started because someone has an idea that other people at the company like and want to work on.

Half-Life 3 won’t get traction inside Valve unless it has something to push the envelope like the other main-line games had. Half-Life had unrivaled first person storytelling. Half-Life 2 has unrivaled physics to play with. Half-Life Alyx had an interactive environment unlike anything else that exists even still. My money says if Valve can’t think of something gameplay-wise that’s as enticing right now as any of the previous games had when they were released, they don’t care that the story is still on a cliffhanger.

Zahille7,

Like Gaben has also said, if they did release it it probably wouldn’t live up to all the impossible expectations.

DaddleDew, (edited )

What you are asking for is for Valve to start behaving like developers like EA and Activision, who keep milking the crap out of their franchises with one bland generic release after the other for a quick cash grab.

The fact that Gaben doesn’t force his employees to work on the game just to make money is the reason why Half-Life games are of such good quality. The employees at Valve work on what they are motivated to work on at the moment. They aren’t being given arbitrary deadlines from overhead either. This is how we got amazing games like Team Fortress 2 and the Portal games too. Both Half-Life games were major milestones in video game history by pushing the envelope. And currently, no Valve employees believe that the conditions are currently set for this to happen with a new Half-Life 3. It would never meet the hype if they tried right now and it would be a huge disappointment.

Half-Life 3 isn’t vaporware either as Valve openly admits that they are not working on it at the moment.

Just accept that great things can’t happen as often as we wished they did.

Speaking of Team Fortress 2 and Portal, I have been around to witness other attempted iterations of what TF2 could have been been, only to be abandoned by Valve because it wasn’t good enough. Then Valve finally got their vision for what the game ultimately ended up being and then suddenly everyone was motivated to work on the game. The first Portal game was also an experiment that motivated Valve employees to work on the sequel. Hopefully one day there will be a lightbulb moment in Valve and everyone will be motivated on working on Half-Life 3 and the resulting product will surely be worthy of the name. But you can’t force it to happen.

Hopefully it will happen while Gaben is still in control of Valve though because there is no telling what will happen to the company’s unique culture and philosophy after that.

EarMaster,

My theory is that it already has been released on Steam years ago, but not as a Valve title. It has sold millions of copies in a Humble Bundle, but nobody has ever played it.

Aquila,

Valve used to make games, now they make money

summerof69,

And that’s why they can afford investing in VR and in games like HL: Alyx. I enjoyed it very, very much.

catalyst,
@catalyst@lemmy.world avatar

I think it’s 100% that steam makes so much money on its own. Valve stopped being a game developer once steam really took off and became the behemoth it is. Valve is in the e-commerce business, period.

I loved Alyx too for what it’s worth but my expectations for the future are dim.

Sabata11792,
Sabata11792 avatar

I think at this point, no one can ever live up to the expectations for the game and Valve is too afraid to fuck it up.

limitedduck,

I believe Gaben said this specifically at some point

sag,

Valve can’t count to 3

sirico,
@sirico@feddit.uk avatar

It’s a tough one as it’s on such a pedestal now

warmaster,

If Valve can’t do something that will push their business and the whole industry forward, they’ll just do some other thing that will.

Doing sequels after sequels will only stagnate the franchise, making Valve lose time. For that, they rely on publishers like Activision, EA, and Ubisoft among others.

FluorideMind,

You mean sequel? Valve doesn’t do “sequels”

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