Half-Life 3 to be open world?

Half-Life Series
#21

I like this. While I don’t believe the rumor holds any water at all, it does make total sense that future HL games will be way more open.

#22

I wouldn’t mind if they added a few elements of open world games into HL3, like bigger, more open levels and alternate routes but making a straight open world game with quests and whatnot would be too much of a sudden change to the formula.

Like I previously said, it would work in a spin-off game.

Better yet, a brand new Valve property. DOTA 2 might be their biggest departure from their usual genre yet, but it’s based on an already existing property.

#23

A hub based open world HL would work. Something ODST/ Spyro The Dragon-esque.

#24

I could see it go with some RPG elements but not all of them.

An open world RPG like Skyrim would be something where you are able to choose you’re own path and become what you want to become. Since the protagonist in Half-Life is Gordon and not some unknown hero like the Dragonborn, I don’t see this coming.

But the ability to talk with NPCs and get quests you can do alongside the main quest for rewards that can make you stronger, I can see that. Though of course, the world can’t be as linear as Half-Life, yet it can’t be as unlinear as Skyrim either.

There is just one thing that makes me scratch my head now…

How will Gordon speak with the NPCs?[/SIZE]

#25

E.

Oh god damn. I just imagined every time Gordon talks to someone, he just walks up to them and shouts “EH!”.

#26

Well, Link can talk to NPCs without talking to them (wait, what?).
I do admit that it would look kinda dumb if they did it like in The Legend of Zelda…

Anyway, I’d like to see Half-Life going more open, but like it’s already been said, it would never turn into a full RPG.

#27

Hmmm… I’m not sure why you associate ‘open-world’ with the cliches of fantasy RPGs… what about GTA, Saints Row, inFamous, Just Cause, STALKER etc? And while we are on the subject of RPGs, what about Fallout 3/New Vegas, Borderlands, Mass Effect, Alpha Protocol, Deus Ex etc? Not a magic’n’dungeon’n’dragon-filled castle in sight :wink:

I could imagine that the Half-Life setting and lore could easily be adapted into an open-world RPG shooter. Whether I would want to see Half-Life 3 be such a thing is another matter… Oh god no. Just imagine if it ended up like Far Cry 2 or Wolfenstein (2009). It’d be awful.

Whatever happens to Half-Life 3, I think they will definitely stick to the current formula for Half-Life 2: Episode 3… if that ever gets beyond the realm of myth and legend.

#28

I think it would be awful honestly. It would be an amazing game sure, but playing 1 and 2 and then suddenly oh rpg quest land! just no.

#29

So it needs to be an absolute? Again with this shit?

#30

Please no.

#31

Would I be the only one not disappointed if you didn’t play Gordon at all in the next game?

One of the Epic games big-wigs was talking about how his dream reboot of Unreal would be a skyrim-esque experience. Not that I think either is going to happen, but an open world RPG set in the Unreal universe and another set in the Half Life universe would be too much awesome for words.

#32

Well, a direct sequel would be all about Gordon. So as Maxey said, playing someone else in a Half-Life RPG world should be an off-spring game.

#33

I said next game, not necessarily direct sequel.

“Half Life 3” (as opposed to Half Life: Episode 3") is not bound by name to be a direct sequel. The only thing preventing that would be the mass waves of butthurt that would explode all over the internet like a giant zit. Hence, why I do not believe the next game is going to be open world.

#34

That’s an extremely interesting observation. Another thing is is at the beginning of HL 1 & 2 you’re on the tram/train, and at the
beginning of Ep 2 the train has crashed. And I agree with your whole post :slight_smile:

I’m not worried at all with whatever they’re planning for the next one, when they came out with Portal 2, not only did they meet my
expectations of the game but they faaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrr exceeded it and I’ve not been disappointed yet. So I figure the chances are
that whatever they chose to do with it they’ll probably do it extremely well :slight_smile:

#35

lol

#36

Half-Life was designed to be a linear game.
An open-world Half-Life game wouldn’t be Half-Life anymore.

Gordon, I say, was always the guy who does all the work in one-two days, going through different places and back, fighting all kinds of enemies, thinking smart on his way, caring lots of weapons at the same time, all without eating, drinking and sleeping

#37

I have a gut feeling thats just not on Valve’s mind right now. It’s too radical for Half Life, even for an fps.

#38

551×548 117 KB

Just kidding, I dont like an open world on Half Life either, buuuuut valve never disappointed me so far, so we will see…

And its 99% a troll :smiley:

#39

Oh god no… making an open-world game would be so unoriginal, and Valve likes making revolutionary games. They make fresh games that always present a completely new concept of gaming. For me it’s unimaginable to have a non linear half-life. It just seems wrong.

#40

I don’t really see that it would make all that much difference, having it open world. It’s just instead of having a long snake of levels, you have a circle or square. As for quests, well, half life pretty much had those already, just without lots of bits of text and quest screens and things. Blow up x amount of striders with magnussons. Throw the ball at dog. Defend Alyx from combines while she works on whatever machinery.

My only concern would be how they put it together. If they do it right, it could work. Quests should have some impact on the story. It becomes a bit difficult when the player can choose which one to do. As long as they don’t have tons of stupid, meaningless quests that don’t advance the story and aren’t interesting, I’ll be happy.

As for the whole question over the legitimacy of the thing, well, I can’t really see why not. It all sounds fairly reasonable to me. I guess to me, it just doesn’t seem like something a troll would make up. I would expect a troll to give more meaty information, whereas this is all very general stuff and doesn’t actually tell us a huge amount. Also that fact that the article spent a lot of time talking about the reasons for delay.

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