It wouldn’t work on the 360.
Hasn’t it already been decided that what Valve meant by this is that Portal 2 is the last game they’ll do that doesn’t have you isolated from everyone else? Like in Portal 2, the majority of the game is you by yourself, broken up by voices over an intercom. In HL2 and the episodes you run into people all the time and have Alyx as a companion a lot as well as the rebels.
The fans should make Episode Three themselves.
And nothing of value was lost.
Let me put it this way, my computer is crap and I own a 360. And I STILL agree with you.
Okay, so I decided to write down a longer post on what I think has been happening at Valve and sort of explain what I think HL3 really is, or is going to be:
Let’s start after Episode 1. Valve broke HL into two groups. Episode 2, and Episode 3. Both were announced and were being worked on. So what we all kind of assume to have happened is that sometime shortly before EP3 was to be released, Gabe, or any combination or Erik Wolpaw, Marc Laidlaw, and Chet Faliszek, and Gabe, basically told everyone to stop what they were working on. According to what Valve’s said, the episodic model hasn’t quite worked out the way they wanted it to and they wanted to return to one big game and as said in the quote earlier, update it as much as they want. But that posed a problem.
Episode 1, 2, and 3 were built on one plot that expanded on another game. So the ending of EP2 was meant to fit into EP3. Which meant that the plot for a HL3 wouldn’t work. Which brings us to the fact that HL3 had to be rewritten from the ground up. I think it’s pretty obvious that the story went through many phases and probably even restarted a couple of times. And to add to the trouble, they now introduced Portal and Aperture Science into the equation which just adds to the trouble.
To tie in with this, Valve most likely felt like the episodes weren’t innovating anything. After all, they pretty much used the same character models, enemies, etc. I believe that Valve also probably wanted to highly update Source, or go straight onto Source 2 or whatever you’d like to call it. Which takes a lot of time. On top of that, Valve really seems to be hinting at that they wanted to change the gameplay as well.
So they’ve got HL3 the story, the new engine, plus the gameplay for the game. All three of these things have to be worked on simultaneously to ensure they all work with each other.
So where does that leave us? Well, Valve has had a bunch of new games they’ve been working on in the past few years, as well as their lack of structure and scheduling with employees moving across different projects as they want, I think it’s safe to say that the game’s been in development for quite awhile and it’s just a really tough game to develop due to what series it is and the wall they accidentally drove themselves into with the episodes.
I think there’s a possibility that it may not even be HL3 at all. I remember Ellen Mclaine or someone saying that they were working on a “Half-Life: Episode 3”. That could be just a screw up and most likely is, but it’s still a possibility. Or it could even be Half-Life 4 since Gabe’s said that the episodes were essentially HL3.
Either way, I think we’ll here something about it within the next year or so. DotA 2 and CS:GO should both be out by the end of 2012 and then Valve will have nothing left to work on except for hats, HL3 or whatever it’ll be, and SOB if that’s still a thing.
Keep dreaming.
I don’t think they’ve ever remotely hinted at anything like that. What’s your source on this?
I was basing it off the fact that 1.) They said even way back in 2007-ish that Episode 3 was to be very different from the rest of the series. And also from what Gabe Newell said about turning single player games into “single player plus”. And Half-Life seems like the only single player game to come after Portal 2 (unless something new is introduced) as DotA 2 and CS:GO are multiplayer. Maybe “hinted at” wasn’t the correct phrasing. But I think it still got the point across.
Plus, Gabe mentioned he wanted to get Half-Life back into “genuinely scaring the player.”
Tl;Dr: I’m interesting in how they’re going to implement the style and feel of Half Life into the next game, especially with plans of adding a lot to the experience.
Half Life 1 was a very fast-paced action shooter with a lot of action-based epic moments, sometimes very eerie moments (Surface Tension Mountain Side, Unforeseen Consequences, Tentacles, Nihilanth, etc) and visual story-telling done solely by the environment. But most importantly, the game stressed the feeling of Science. Whether it was the scientific names of the chapters; the fact that you were a scientist playing around with lazors and fighting aliens; the computery techno music; the HEV suit’s environmental hazard symbols that would show up when near toxic waste; or the stereotypical giant science facility in the desert; the game really made you feel at one with science in the most thrilling way possible. All the way to the game’s epic conclusion, you still don’t understand what happened or why, but you had a great affect on it, making you feel responsible.
Half Life 2 changed a lot of this, which threw off a lot of fans. Half Life 2 featured a more gritty and real look, opposed to the almost-cartoony style of Half Life – things had realistic proportions and dimensions now. This symbolized the arrival of something new -the Combine- and how the world was affected by your actions at Black Mesa; that last part about the world being affected by your actions directly relates to one of the last feelings gamers had when you killed Nihilanth - responsibility. Moving on, the feeling of Science wasn’t initially prominent, but it began to increase as you progressed through the game, as if you were bringing it back to life. This time around, the story is told more verbally and less visually, but there is an equal balance where environment sells the story you were told by other characters. Anyways, the game’s structure was very similar in gameplay and foundation – even in story, obviously. Yet with all this the same, they managed to make the game look and feel completely different at the same time, which is really impressive.
Half Life 3 interests me. I’m curious to see how they maintain the game’s core feeling, yet add plenty of fun new features and mechanics. I remember Maxey mentioning a Stealth aspect, which is interesting. My main fear -as far as a sequel goes- is how much they tie in Alyx and this supposed “non-confined” environment. Because most of the feeling of Half-Life is when you’re alone, figuring shit out, and kicking ass at your own pace, and not having to wait on Alyx, or other players. Half Life 2 was rather wise about this and made Alyx get separated from you often (Eli’s Lab, Alyx capture on Rooftop, Red Letter-day) letting you get back in the control seat. I just hope Half-Life 2’s genius transformation wasn’t an accident and will be used as an example in the future. Because if you add too much stuff and take too much away, it won’t feel like Half Life anymore – which is the most important thing of all.
…and don’t even get me started on story.
I’m not really worried about EP3’s gameplay… That whole thing about single-player plus, or different kinds of gameplay, or whatever- I get the feeling it’s not really applicable to HL. Valve knows that it’s fans like HL’s gameplay, and they aren’t going to make radical changes to it in EP3/HL3. It just wouldn’t be Half Life anymore if they did and they know it.
As for adding new things, like in P2, that I would expect. (Maybe a new weapon or device Dr. Kleiner has in the closet somewhere at White Forest.)
I also would place my bets on it being EP3, and not HL3. EP2’s ending doesn’t really wrap things up, and it seems hardly the place to jump into HL3. If HL was a TV show (just an analogy, folks), it’s the sort of ending where you’d expect a “tune in next episode for the exciting conclusion!” message. It’s also very sad- it’s certainly not the tone in which I’d expect HL2 to end. That tone would be either something scary/creepy, or something right after a disaster. Considering that mystery device on the Borealis, I’d expect the disaster ending for EP3.
Now, maybe I’m wrong- maybe it’s been long enough (and the graphics will be different enough) to justifiably be called HL3… goodness Valve. I could go in an endless loop here.
My point is that HL’s going to be HL as we know it, and I don’t think we should be worried about some weird drastic change. Maybe Valve’s other games will be different, but not HL. They know better…
The way I was thinking about this I got interested in other games with a combined singleplayer/coop experience such as Mass Effect 3 whereby the better performance by you in the coop component was supposed to provide you with a better singleplayer ending. Off course that ultimately fell flat when it turned out a majority of players found the end more or less underwhelming, any way you accomplished it.
And then there is the upcoming game, Black Ops 2. In the game you have side missions that you undertake that, depending on the outcome, determines the kind of feedback you receive in the story. Apparently for example, if you are tasked in assasinating a target in one of those side missions, but you fail in doing so, that target will appear in the end game as a threat.
I have a feeling Half Life may take the same root as the two above. Gman has always mocked the player about choice being an illusion. With Gordon Freeman (player) that may be the case. But what about resistance members? Does Gman consider their presence to be a hindrance or an asset to Gmans and Gordon’s plans, does he even consider the advantages or disadvantages of the choices they make on a daily basis?
What if Coop players take control of Resistance soldiers, with a seperate story that takes place 24+ hours before the singleplayer game takes place. The choice they take (Choice: Protect a weapons cache or Assault a Combine stronghold) will effect how the story plays out in Singleplayer. Every player will have access to the core singleplayer experience, however if the player wants a unique singleplayer each time, they can unlock a part of the story through coop as an ‘unlockable’ achievement. Whenever they play a new game, they have a choice to plug in those unlockable achievement to access subtle or aven advantagous changes to the singleplayer experience.
I’m still partial to the stealth element idea which was presented in another HL3 related thread. I thought it’d be cool to sneak up on a combine and choke them out with the crowbar.
Not in fantasy land, no. In real life land, Valve is typically a company that releases flagship games across all platforms. Even after the TF2 funk they’ve been releasing every title to the 360.
Plus, you know damn well they’d be missing out monetarily if they skipped a console.
I don’t understand the jump in logic from, “They haven’t shown the public anything” to "They must not be working consistently on it.
I guarantee that the next Half-Life installment is not some side-project they think about whenever they get a chance. They have enough people employed to be working on several things at once. It has been their development choice from the very beginning to keep silent about the next Half-Life game. This doesn’t mean they have nothing done.
I didn’t mean for there to be a connection between the two points. I’m not basing my idea that they’re doing nothing on the fact that they haven’t communicated, I’m just saying I don’t think they’re doing anything – and it is a fact that neither of us really know anything.
I guarantee.
That time, there was a wink, tooth sparkle, AND a finger gun, so you KNOW you’re getting a good deal!
What ARE you talking about?
= good deal
dumbass
More likely they would only use the universe-hopping to explain why there is suddenly another Gordon fighting beside you when someone joins your game (as well as a plot point for why you need to take the Borealis from the Combine). Though, don’t get me wrong, Sliders: The Videogame sounds kind of cool.