I’d love to see Xen imagined as a surreal, not-quite-right area; more like a borderworld made by stuff leaking in from the worlds it linked, rather than being a distinct world in it’s own right.
Not related to Half-Life, but I actually was working on a Quake level sort of like that, parts of it were like a base but then they’d just break away to be one of the architectural styles from one of the other “dimensions” of the game. Never finished it though.
The artwork pics of xen are amazing,
mmhh how the sky boxes of Xen would look? I mean BM-XEN
Maybe Valve and the BM team are working together to make the Xen in BM as close to the Xen they’re using in HL3 as possible :retard: .
I’d highly doubt that the BMS team and Valve are working together on hl3. More likely is that Valve won’t mention that they gave up on HL3 because no one would buy anything from steam if they admit that.
I, as many, would love to see more of the super-charged Gravity Gun. That would be a fine weapon against advisors, along with energy-balls (hehe) from the AR2. Now, there will obviously be achievements. No idea which ones, though.
I hope not D: If they are to make a full fledged game and not an episode they should definitely get rid of the old weapons and introduce some new ones. Assuming, of course that the “Half-Life 3 is an open-world rpg” rumour is false. 
What is this, Call of duty?
Personally, the thing I look forward to perhaps most, is seeing how they pull off multiplayer (assuming the game ever releases). After all, valve has said they are done with purely single player games, yes? Most of the time, it really does add a lot to the lifespan of a game when it is multiplayer. Valve seems to really be trying to add longevity to their games. Look at what they did with portal 2. The comination of workshop and co op modes provides all that any portal fanatic could want. With the half life games so far, you play them once or twice, and that’s it. You’ve had the experience. You know what to expect.
So I’m wondering, would it be a deathmatch sort of deal, separate from the single player game, where you just shoot at other players on a little map? Co op? If it is indeed open world, playing co op actually sounds kinda terrific. Playing co op on a map that is essentially a line just isn’t as appealing to me. Giving the player freedom can really give a game a longer life. Just look at the success of minecraft.
No. That’s not what they meant at all.
They’re not going to bring back the Super-Gravity Gun because it’s too powerful. Against the Advisors it wouldn’t make much of a difference unless you could punt them to death(which would suck) or just make it so you could throw combine soldiers at them. (you might as well just use a metal barrel)
Yeah, that’s just what the OP chose to name it. That’s not somehow definitive proof of the fact that it’s going to be an episode.
My point is we’re not talking about it as HL3, this thread is for discussing it as EP3.
Even if that weren’t the case, why would they abandon the Gravity Gun & AR2? Plot-wise they’d still be there, considering it’s continuing where EP2 left off.
https://kotaku.com/5795355/valve-probably-done-with-single+player-games
but, yeah, that was not entirely what I meant to say
I meant pure single player games, like all current half life games (besides deathmatch and such) and portal 1.
I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t think valve will make any more games without multiplayer elements, rather than valve replacing all singleplayer with multiplayer.
To put it nice and clear: I think future valve games will have some aspect of multiplayer, similar to portal 2.
Why would we discuss it as EP3 when Gabe has clearly said they are passed making episodic content?
https://www.develop-online.net/news/37625/Newell-Weve-moved-beyond-the-episodic-model
My prediction for EP3/HL3
-Arctic battles
-Snow
-Ice Caves
-Chopper crashes in the mountains, Alyx and Gordon make their way to the Borealis on foot
-Use Gravity Gun to throw ice blocks at combine soldiers
-Use Ice Axe to destroy weak ice walls to caves, similar to antlion cave
-Combine Soldiers wearing winter camo suits
-Sniper Rifle, long range engagements with combine
-Crossbow useless at long range, bolts freeze up and fall faster from added weight
-A new combine enemy that attacks from the icy water
-A segment where you must defend Alyx against this new water creature
-New boat to reach the Borealis
-Alyx wants revenge, plans to use the Borealis to get back at the Combine
-Gman wants the Borealis, willing to kill Alyx to get it
-Gordon kills Gman, but now has to take his place to keep the universe from exploding
-The game ends with Gordon in a pitch black room, he walks up to a desk with a suitcase, picks it up, and then walks into a bright white doorway
This, lol. Valve as well refer to it as HL3 as of late, hell there really is an official HL3 shit.
Maybe HL3 will have actual dynamic snow unlike Skyrim 
.
That, and of course… DMM, Deferred lighting, cloth simulation, ‘proper’ multi-core support, gasp RT global illumination, DX11 support, Hammer update and level data streaming. Then I’m happy! 
Wow, the levels of durr are strong in this thread.
I’m not entirely sure why people are taking those pictures as real.
Valvetime said that they received them from an undisclosed source. So basically it could have just been some talented artist who wanted to get his concept work out for the world to see.
It really doesn’t look like concept art at all to me. I mean, the drawings which were supposed to be Alyx really didn’t look legit at all. But people seem to assume that Valvetime have secret undercover agents deep inside Valve and that all this shit is real.
You’re assuming that this is Xen. Has it occurred to you that it might be A] Fan made. B] Not even of Half Life at all.
Floating platforms are not unique to the half life world you know.