Will there be a Half-Life 3?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Will there be a Half-Life 3?

RaimioGor: Feb 1, 2022

Alright, everyone knows Half-Life but will there be a Half-Life 3? If you think there will be say why, if you don't think there will be also say why.

# ? Feb 8, 2022 18:53

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# ? May 8, 2024 20:51

Overbite: Jan 24, 2004; I'm a vtuber expert

No because valve has no reason to make it. Alyx was only made to show off their VR.

# ? Feb 8, 2022 19:10

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

I think the past 14 years have been strong evidence that the answer is No, OP

# ? Feb 8, 2022 19:15

Kaiju Cage Match: Nov 5, 2012

They're busy working people in the DOTA and CSGO mines.

# ? Feb 8, 2022 19:15

grieving for Gandalf: Apr 22, 2008

no because everyone involved with that project is long gone and there's no interest within the studio or company at large

# ? Feb 8, 2022 19:15

CaptainCaveman: Apr 16, 2005; Always searching for North.

Every once in a while I get the idea of making a List for Half-Life 3 (or Half-Life 2 Episode 3), like the one for Duke Nukem Forever that shows all the things that happened during its development. Except the list for Half-Life 3 will just have one item on it: "Duke Nukem Forever was released."

# ? Feb 8, 2022 19:23

Mordja: Apr 26, 2014; Hell Gem

RaimioGor posted:

Alright, everyone knows Half-Life but will there be a Half-Life 3? If you think there will be say why, if you don't think there will be also say why.

Yes, it's being worked on right now. Can't wait!

# ? Feb 8, 2022 19:25

Entorwellian: Jun 30, 2006; ~~Northern Flicker~~
Anna's Hummingbird

Sorry, but the people have spoken.

There are some upcoming mods that let you play half life alyx without a vr headset (at a cost to some of the hand manipulation parts).

# ? Feb 8, 2022 19:51

Good soup!: Nov 2, 2010

The ending to Alyx is an annoying tease, but I don't think it will happen anytime soon

It's a great game though, turned me into a VR convert tbh

# ? Feb 8, 2022 19:55

ErrEff: Feb 13, 2012

In Robin Walker's own words:

Robin Walker, Valve Software posted:

Half-Life products have always started with some opportunity or some technology that we felt were really interesting, in terms of the way we could use it to create some new experience for the player. If you go back to the first Half-Life, we were looking at first-person shooters at the time. They were fun to play, but very focused on combat. We thought there was a real opportunity in that medium for being a way to deliver stories that perhaps hadn�t really been done before. Less perhaps a focus on the story itself, but the way that you can tell stories in that medium.

Then you go forward to Half-Life 2, and there were a couple of opportunities there, as well. We really thought that there was an opportunity around the way we were representing characters, people, in video games and in those sorts of narrative approaches that we�d started in the first game. So we worked on the technology there, and at the same time, it was the birth of the sort of physics engines that eventually went on to become things like Havok. We thought there were real opportunities for gameplay with those kinds of technologies.

I think one of the problems over the years after Half-Life 2�s episodes is that we were always searching for that next opportunity. It�s a hard thing to work on a product � you want to think about the word �intimidating� � it�s really intimidating to work on something that people want to be Half-Life 3, but you�re just searching for that opportunity.

It�s hard to start writing code on that today. It�s hard to create art on that today. You have to accept the very real possibility that you do that for six months or a year and at the end, still have nothing. That�s really scary.

The name Half-Life 3 carries enormous baggage and with every passing year it only gets heavier. Alyx sort of skipped that, still for new hardware and using new technologies but it doesn't have a number in the title. Everyone at Valve seems to be deathly afraid of pitching or talking about a potential sequel, because the consensus is that anything they create can't live up to people's expectations.

Never say never... but I'm not holding my breath. Why take the risk?

# ? Feb 8, 2022 19:58

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

That certainly makes sense. The biggest aspect of Half-Life and Half-Life 2 were that they introduced new techniques to gaming. Alyx, Portal, and Portal 2 had that as well. There was a very real wow factor. But without having that new approach to explore, I think that it would be very challenging to attempt a finale sequel. They don't want to make a mere reiteration like Opposing Force. VR might hold some promise for Half-Life 3, but I think that with Alyx they recognized that while the hardware is developing it still isn't ready for a premium game. The market isn't there yet, and players are still limited in what they can do and how long they can realistically play before getting eye strain. At a guess, I'd say that they won't make another sequel until something begins to shift.

# ? Feb 8, 2022 20:14

SeANMcBAY: Jun 28, 2006; Look on the bright side.

I think it'll happen someday but not in the immediate future.

# ? Feb 8, 2022 20:26

organburner: Apr 10, 2011; This avatar helped buy Lowtax a new skeleton.

There already was a half-life 3.

I will not expand upon this, figure it out.

# ? Feb 9, 2022 11:58

MUSCULAR BEAVER: Dec 26, 2014; HENDO! HENDO!

Gordon Freeman will be in a Fortnite event before Half-Life 3 releases

# ? Feb 13, 2022 11:51

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

a couple of years ago there was that one former story lead or whatever who posted the plot of what would have been HL3 and it was dumb as hell, I'm glad we never got "the sequel that just sets up even more sequels"

# ? Feb 13, 2022 12:25

Animal-Mother: Feb 14, 2012; RABBIT RABBIT
RABBIT RABBIT

I'd settle for a Half-Life: G-Man where you play as the G-Man travelling around the universe recruiting mute scientists who happen to be real handy with firearms.

# ? Feb 14, 2022 01:19

Heavy Metal: Sep 1, 2014; America's $1 Funnyman

I always believe in Half-Life 3. And yes, it is a bit like "always bet on Duke", a slogan from my youth. DNF is underrated in my book, but I digress.

Everybody would play it, people want it, why not. Even if Valve never gets together a big in-house team to do it, they could outsource it to a hungry team or two while still producing it.

Plus, never is a long time. Even if it happens 30 years later, I still think it's more likely than not. Huge franchise gets ignored, despite guaranteed money? It's gotta happen. And more importantly, I personally need it to happen. Can't leave Gordon like that!

Alyx happening would seem to up the odds even more than before I'd think as well.

# ? Feb 14, 2022 05:49

Gnome de plume: Sep 5, 2006; Hell.
Fucking.
Yes.

They should have doubled down on what they did in 2 and bring Gordon out further in time and everyone he knew is gone but there are still people around who insist they know him from Black Mesa

# ? Feb 15, 2022 05:14

punk rebel ecks: Dec 11, 2010; A shitty post? This calls for a dance of deduction.

Half-Life has always been used as a bridge way for Valve's next big project.

The initial was there venture into gaming as a new studio.

The sequel was the trojan horse to launch Steam.

The episodes were to push for episodic content.

Alyx was to bring attention to VR.

Following the series trajectory another entry would likely occur if Valve made another big venture into something. Like if they were playing on launching their version of Gamepass or bringing back Steam Machines after a huge success from Steam Deck (I don't think either of these things will happen, just using them as examples).

# ? Feb 15, 2022 06:56

SlothfulCobra: Mar 27, 2011

I don't think Valve is interested in being a game developer in general, so even if there's still some forgotten alcove in their offices where people fool around with game design, unless they can make something that can boost their online store, that's gonna stay locked up.

# ? Feb 15, 2022 19:06

Rosalie_A: Oct 30, 2011

There will be, if only as Valve's "Break Glass In Case Of Emergency" button.

# ? Feb 15, 2022 19:40

That Dang Dad: Apr 23, 2003; Well I am
over-fucking-whelmed...; Young Orc

I feel like ~Game Culture~ has kind of moved on from Half-Life as a property (Alyx being a landmark VR game notwithstanding).

That said, I feel like in 10 years it will show up as a surprise to set the game world a-talkin' about Valve's new ValveStation X game console or whatever.

# ? Feb 15, 2022 19:57

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# ? May 8, 2024 20:51

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

quote:

Dearest Playa,

I hope this letter finds you well. I can hear your complaint already, �Gertie Fremont, we have not heard from you in ages!� Well, if you care to hear excuses, I have plenty, the greatest of them being I�ve been in other dimensions and whatnot, unable to reach you by the usual means. This was the case until eighteen months ago, when I experienced a critical change in my circumstances, and was redeposited on these shores. In the time since, I have been able to think occasionally about how best to describe the intervening years, my years of silence. I do first apologize for the wait, and that done, hasten to finally explain (albeit briefly, quickly, and in very little detail) events following those described in my previous letter (referred to herewith as Epistle 2).

To begin with, as you may recall from the closing paragraphs of my previous missive, the death of Elly Vaunt shook us all. The Research & Rebellion team was traumatized, unable to be sure how much of our plan might be compromised, and whether it made any sense to go on at all as we had intended. And yet, once Elly had been buried, we found the strength and courage to regroup. It was the strong belief of her brave son, the feisty Alex Vaunt, that we should continue on as his mother had wished. We had the Antarctic coordinates, transmitted by Elly�s long-time assistant, Dr. Jerry Maas, which we believed to mark the location of the lost luxury liner Hyperborea. Elly had felt strongly that the Hyperborea should be destroyed rather than allow it to fall into the hands of the Disparate. Others on our team disagreed, believing that the Hyperborea might hold the secret to the revolution�s success. Either way, the arguments were moot until we found the vessel. Therefore, immediately after the service for Dr. Vaunt, Alex and I boarded a seaplane and set off for the Antarctic; a much larger support team, mainly militia, was to follow by separate transport.

It is still unclear to me exactly what brought down our little aircraft. The following hours spent traversing the frigid waste in a blizzard are also a jumbled blur, ill-remembered and poorly defined. The next thing I clearly recall is our final approach to the coordinates Dr. Maas had provided, and where we expected to find the Hyperborea. What we found instead was a complex fortified installation, showing all the hallmarks of sinister Disparate technology. It surrounded a large open field of ice. Of the Hyperborea itself there was no sign�or not at first. But as we stealthily infiltrated the Disparate installation, we noticed a recurent, strangely coherent auroral effect�as of a vast hologram fading in and out of view. This bizarre phenomenon initially seemed an effect caused by an immense Disparate lensing system, Alex and I soon realized that what we were actually seeing was the luxury liner Hyperborea itself, phasing in and out of existence at the focus of the Disparate devices. The aliens had erected their compound to study and seize the ship whenever it materialized. What Dr. Maas had provided were not coordinates for where the sub was located, but instead for where it was predicted to arrive. The liner was oscillating in and out of our reality, its pulses were gradually steadying, but there was no guarantee it would settle into place for long�or at all. We determined that we must put ourselves into position to board it at the instant it became completely physical.

At this point we were briefly detained�not captured by the Disparate, as we feared at first, but by minions of our former nemesis, the conniving and duplicitous Wanda Bree. Dr. Bree was not as we had last seen her�which is to say, she was not dead. At some point, the Disparate had saved out an earlier version of her consciousness, and upon her physical demise, they had imprinted the back-up personality into a biological blank resembling an enormous slug. The Bree-Slug, despite occupying a position of relative power in the Disparate hierarchy, seemed nervous and frightened of me in particular. Wanda did not know how her previous incarnation, the original Dr. Bree, had died. She knew only that I was responsible. Therefore the slug treated us with great caution. Still, she soon confessed (never able to keep quiet for long) that she was herself a prisoner of the Disparate. She took no pleasure from her current grotesque existence, and pleaded with us to end her life. Alex believed that a quick death was more than Wanda Bree deserved, but for my part, I felt a modicum of pity and compassion. Out of Alex�s sight, I might have done something to hasten the slug�s demise before we proceeded.

Not far from where we had been detained by Dr. Bree, we found Jerry Maas being held in a Disparate interrogation cell. Things were tense between Jerry and Alex, as might be imagined. Alex blamed Jerry for his mother�s death�news of which, Jerry was devastated to hear for the first time. Jerry tried to convince Alex that he had been a double agent serving the resistance all along, doing only what Elly had asked of him, even though he knew it meant he risked being seen by his peers�by all of us�as a traitor. I was convinced; Alex less so. But from a pragmatic point of view, we depended on Dr. Maas; for along with the Hyperborea coordinates, he possessed resonance keys which would be necessary to bring the liner fully into our plane of existence.

We skirmished with Disparate soldiers protecting a Dispar research post, then Dr. Maas attuned the Hyperborea to precisely the frequencies needed to bring it into (brief) coherence. In the short time available to us, we scrambled aboard the ship, with an unknown number of Disparate agents close behind. The ship cohered for only a short time, and then its oscillations resume. It was too late for our own military support, which arrived and joined the Disparate forces in battle just as we rebounded between universes, once again unmoored.

What happened next is even harder to explain. Alex Vaunt, Dr. Maas and myself sought control of the ship�its power source, its control room, its navigation center. The liner�s history proved nonlinear. Years before, during the Disparate invasion, various members of an earlier science team, working in the hull of a dry-docked liner situated at the Tocsin Island Research Base in Lake Huron, had assembled what they called the Bootstrap Device. If it worked as intended, it would emit a field large enough to surround the ship. This field would then itself travel instantaneously to any chosen destination without having to cover the intervening space. There was no need for entry or exit portals, or any other devices; it was entirely self-contained. Unfortunately, the device had never been tested. As the Disparate pushed Earth into the Nine Hour Armageddon, the aliens seized control of our most important research facilities. The staff of the Hyperborea, with no other wish than to keep the ship out of Disparate hands, acted in desperation. The switched on the field and flung the Hyperborea toward the most distant destination they could target: Antarctica. What they did not realize was that the Bootstrap Device travelled in time as well as space. Nor was it limited to one time or one location. The Hyperborea, and the moment of its activation, were stretched across space and time, between the nearly forgotten Lake Huron of the Nine Hour Armageddon and the present day Antarctic; it was pulled taut as an elastic band, vibrating, except where at certain points along its length one could find still points, like the harmonic spots along a vibrating guitar string. One of these harmonics was where we boarded, but the string ran forward and back, in both time and space, and we were soon pulled in every direction ourselves.

Time grew confused. Looking from the bridge, we could see the drydocks of Tocsin Island at the moment of teleportation, just as the Disparate forces closed in from land, sea and air. At the same time, we could see the Antarctic wastelands, where our friends were fighting to make their way to the protean Hyperborea; and in addition, glimpses of other worlds, somewhere in the future perhaps, or even in the past. Alex grew convinced we were seeing one of the Disparate�s central staging areas for invading other worlds�such as our own. We meanwhile fought a running battle throughout the ship, pursued by Disparate forces. We struggled to understand our stiuation, and to agree on our course of action. Could we alter the course of the Hyperborea? Should we run it aground in the Antarctic, giving our peers the chance to study it? Should we destroy it with all hands aboard, our own included? It was impossible to hold a coherent thought, given the baffling and paradoxical timeloops, which passed through the ship like bubbles. I felt I was going mad, that we all were, confronting myriad versions of ourselves, in that ship that was half ghost-ship, half nightmare funhouse.

What it came down to, at last, was a choice. Jerry Maas argued, reasonably, that we should save the Hyperborea and deliver it to the resistance, that our intelligent peers might study and harness its power. But Alex reminded me had sworn he would honor his mother�s demand that we destroy the ship. He hatched a plan to set the Hyperborea to self-destruct, while riding it into the heart of the Disparate�s invasion nexus. Jerry and Alex argued. Jerry overpowered Alex and brought the Hyperborea area, preparing to shut off the Bootstrap Device and settle the ship on the ice. Then I heard a shot, and Jerry fell. Alex had decided for all of us, or his weapon had. With Dr. Maas dead, we were committed to the suicide plunge. Grimly, Alex and I armed the Hyperborea, creating a time-travelling missile, and steered it for the heart of the Disparate�s command center.

At this point, as you will no doubt be unsurprised to hear, a Certain Sinister Figure appeared, in the form of that sneering trickster, Mrs. X. For once she appeared not to me, but to Alex Vaunt. Alex had not seen the cryptical schoolmarm since childhood, but he recognized her instantly. �Come along with me now, we�ve places to do and things to be,� said Mrs. X, and Alex acquiesced. He followed the strange grey lady out of the Hyperborea, out of our reality. For me, there was no convenient door held open; only a snicker and a sideways glance. I was left alone, riding the weaponized luxury liner into the heart of a Disparate world. An immense light blazed. I caught a cosmic view of a brilliantly glittering Dyson sphere. The vastness of the Disparate�s power, the futility of our struggle, blossomed briefly in my awareness. I saw everything. Mainly I saw how the Hyperborea, our most powerful weapon, would register as less than a fizzling matchhead as it blew itself apart. And what remained of me would be even less than that.

Just then, as you have surely already foreseen, the Ghastlyhaunts parted their own checkered curtains of reality, reached in as they have on prior occasions, plucked me out, and set me aside. I barely got to see the fireworks begin.

And here we are. I spoke of my return to this shore. It has been a circuitous path to lands I once knew, and surprising to see how much the terrain has changed. Enough time has passed that few remember me, or what I was saying when last I spoke, or what precisely we hoped to accomplish. At this point, the resistance will have failed or succeeded, no thanks to me. Old friends have been silenced, or fallen by the wayside. I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to it. Expect no further correspondence from me regarding these matters; this is my final epistle.

Yours in infinite finality,

Gertrude Fremont, Ph.D.

be thankful they never made this

Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Feb 15, 2022

# ? Feb 15, 2022 23:23

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