Half- Life 3 will never be released...or will it?

Every year as we wait for E3 exhibition, we wait for the rumour come true. Could this be the year? Will Valve finally announce to us what we have all been waiting for?

Will we finally get to find out the mystery behind G-Man? Might we finally get to see Half-life 3? But no.

Every year our expectations are blown by Valve Corporation.

A time has reached where we should just stop anticipating for the impossible. Until the words ‘Half-Life 3 confirmed’ stop being a meme, a release date for the game is nothing but a dream.

There will be no Half-life 3, ever, and these are the reasons why we should just quit hoping for it.

10. The Hype Is Too Damn High

It is no secret to that the amount of hype Half-Life 3 has is too high. Is this high good for the game? No! Recall the release of Mass effect 3 back in 2012, at that time, it was the most hyped game, and gamers everywhere jizzed their pants when EA announced the game.  We all know what went down. Mass Effect 3’s ending was a complete disappointment.

This what Valve Corporation might be fearing: Creating a game that doesn’t meet our expectations.

Half-Life 2 was also a highly hyped game but it went on to exceed all expectations, so why can’t valve also do the same with Half-life 3? The main reason is that the gaming community of 2004 is different from the gaming community today. These are different gaming communities and what pleased gamers in 2004 might not please the modern gamer.

This is especially a tricky challenge for the Half-life franchise, as what made half-life 2 the best game of all time, might not necessarily work. The mechanics and gameplay for half-life 2 is perfect so it is almost impossible to add new mechanics to a future Half-life instalment… unless they increase gore and make Gordon Freeman talk.

9. The Main Writer Retired

Marc Lailaw - the main Half-Life writer

Four of the organization's principle creators – the virtuoso story writers behind the Half-Life and Portal franchises – have left the building. Marc Laidlaw, the main writer retired in January 2016. Erik Wolpaw, a principle writer in both Half-Life and Portal, went in the following month. Chet Faliszek, a major contributor to this wonderful half-life universe, left on April 2016. Half-Life artist and designer, Harry Teasley had already left a long time ago.

These four people were like the backbone of the Half-Life games and them leaving brings about a lot of uncertainty to the future of Half-Life. This is not to say that new writers might spoil the game if they take the mantle. What I am trying to say is that Half-Life 3 might not have the same charm as the previous Half-life instalments. These core contributors to the Half-Life franchise are the ones responsible for Half-Life 1&2 being named game of the year almost 90 times by different reviewers and critics. Therefore, it goes without doubt that Half-life 3 might not reach the height that its predecessors reached.

8. Internal Conflict

Valve Corporation manages their employees in a rather unorthodox manner. The employees are rather dynamic in the way they choose projects and this consequently contributes to Half-Life 3 never getting finished. The game developers and other team members literally ‘take their desk and move it to whatever project interests them the most.’

Sources have stated that Half-life 3 has been in development since 2005. But due to this management system at Valve, the game can have 30 people working on it or even just two people. "Some people—I don't want to name names—were excited about their projects. They've had some different thoughts about what it should be. Every time a Half-Life project gets some gravity and then collapses, it becomes harder for the next one to start up." It is evident that with this system, employees might simply conspire to abandon the project altogether, and that will be just alright. If the team member lose interest in the game during development, they can as well just abandon the project.

7. Valve Corporation Does Not Make New Games Anymore

The game that Valve has created and developed from the beginning was the Half-life series. This game was responsible for the fame of Valve. Other games like Left for dead series, Team Fortress, Portal Series and Counter-strike all began as mods which Valve would eventually acquire. The last game Valve released was DOTA2 almost five years ago. A genius is not required to deduce the pattern here; Valve is not serious about making new games, at least not now. Although Valve recently confirmed that they are working on three new VR games, it is very unlikely that one of them will be Half-Life 3.

6. We Do Not Want Half-life 3

A former game tester from Valve recently leaked information about Valve and development on Half-life 3. He said that Half-life 3 is not looking good at all. On Reddit, the anonymous source claimed that Half-life 3 does not look well and that the developers on the game have not realised any new builds to the game. He went on to say bad things about Valve, things like Valve is not the good company it used to be. That former game tester was allegedly fired and he harboured deep resentment for the termination of his work.

5. They Are Busy On Other Projects

DOTA 2 - a video game released by Valve in 2012

 It is very evident that Valve has been busy on other projects, such as its Steam (more on it later) platform and the other two money machines namely, DOTA 2 and Counter Strike Global Offensive. In 2015, DOTA 2 as an e-sport game, made $18 million every month. In 2016, HLTV.org calculated the amount of money that CS: GO by mid-2016 was are $356 million. Therefore, Valve does not need to make Half-life 3 to make more money.

4. Gabe Newell Does Not Want Half-life 3 To Be Made

On January 17 2017, Gabe Newell, Valve President, took part in an Ask Me Anything interaction on Reddit and he responded to many questions from the fans. He went on to reveal some information on the projects in the works at the company, and on a rather broad range of issues. When he was asked about Half-life 3 and Half-life 2 episode 3, Newell responded:

“The number 3 must not be said”.

When asked about which was his favourite Valve Game, he responded by saying:

“The issue with Half-Life for me is that I was involved in a much higher percentage of the decisions about the games, so it’s hard for me to look at them as anything other than a series of things I regret. There’s no information in my response about what we’ll do in the future. It’s simply easier for me to be a fan of things that in which I was less directive.”

I am pretty sure that this means that we should just simply cut our hopes on a Half-life instalment.

3. They Are Making a Half-life Movie?

Fan-made Half-Life movie poster

During that same session that our Lord and Saviour Gabe Newell had on Reddit, he confirmed that the movie(s) based on the Half-life universe that will be produced by J.J Abrams.

Half-life games have set milestones in the gaming industry and they have also won many awards…basically, Half-Life games are the epitome of games in the gaming universe. However, this does not necessarily translate to an equal reception in the movie world. We have had a couple of movies based on video games and they have been TERRIBLE!

Let us take a look at 2016’s Assassin’s Creed movie. It was a highly anticipated movie and it was thought that it would set the road to other video game movie adaptations, but it did not go well. Valve are treading on dangerous grounds but we hope that the movie will not be a bad adaptation as what we have been getting. So will the Half-life 3 game appear before the movie? My guess is as good as yours.

2. Valve is Working on A New IP?

Earlier on this year, GabeN hinted that a new IP taking place in the Half-life universe is a possibility. Will it be the new Half-life 3? Will it be the new Portal 3? No one knows, we can only wait and see. But this proves that there’s a possibility that there will be no Half-Life 3.

1. Steam

Steam - a digital marketplace for PC games

Steam is making Valve a lot of money, GabeN is now like Scrooge McDuck swimming in gold. In 2015, a market data firm said that Valve made $730 million in 2014. This projections covered Steam’s top games: CS: GO, Dota2 and Team Fortress 2. The three games had brought in an estimated amount of about $400 million. This is an insanely huge lot of money.

A question was asked on Quora and Tyler Sigman, who publishes multiple games on Steam, responded by:

“I can't comment directly, as that would violate our publishing agreement with Valve. However, I can say that industry standard for digital game storefronts is a 30% cut for the platform.  Some additional deductions get made for taxes (e.g. European prices include VAT, whereas North American sales taxes get added separately.)”

Considering that almost all major video games publishers like Activision still publish their games on steam, Valve makes a lot of money! So basically, Valve makes a lot of money by selling other games. So, do you think it is a good business idea to spend money making your own game, when you can sell other games and make a very huge sum of money? I thought so.

So there they are, the ten biggest reason why Valve is not realising Half-life 3 any time soon. But we still wonder they have not officially confirmed that they are not making half-life 3 yet. Do they want to kill the hype then suddenly release it when no one is expecting? Your guess is as good as mine. All we can do now is just to hope for the best (and pray G-man does not kill GabeN before the game is released)

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