Rock, Paper, Shotgun

“Gabe Confirms Episode 3 Cancelled”

By Kieron Gillen on March 30th, 2010 at 11:00 am.

This is a lot of photoshopping for a cheap gag.

No, don’t panic. Calm! Calm! That’s how Chris W’s friend informed him via tweet that there won’t be a third episode of the Penny Arcade games. Wot a bast! Anyway, despite Hothead previously saying they’ll do it despite sales of Episode 2 being a third of Episode 1. Hothead plan to concentrate on DeathSpank, but finish the actual narrative on their website. More info on Shacknews and Joystiq, who broke the story. All in all, a bit of a shame.

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132 Comments »

  1. 30/03/2010 at 11:02 Bobsy says:

    That is a shame, but kind of a foregone conclusion at this point. I did quite enjoy the PA games. Cheerful fun times.

  2. 30/03/2010 at 11:03 Jasper says:

    Crap, I just soiled myself. Thanks.

  3. 30/03/2010 at 11:05 Poltergeist says:

    Excuse me while I go have a heart attack.

  4. 30/03/2010 at 11:05 LionsInnards says:

    DON’T SCARE ME LIKE THAT! The title was just -asking- for heart attacks.

  5. 30/03/2010 at 11:08 Mike Arthur says:

    That headline almost made me eat my own heart when I saw it in the RSS reader. Be more careful with your potential for epic sadness :(

  6. 30/03/2010 at 11:10 Ender says:

    We are not amused! :P

  7. 30/03/2010 at 11:12 effbee says:

    Oh you bastard.

  8. 30/03/2010 at 11:13 lhzr says:

    wish it was the other way around.

    i had more fun with paa 1&2 than i had with hl ep1&2 :(

  9. 30/03/2010 at 11:13 grevpt says:

    That one almost killed me.

  10. 30/03/2010 at 11:16 BooleanBob says:

    Haha, excellent trolling, you bastard. (I nearly died.)

  11. 30/03/2010 at 11:16 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:

    Oh yeah…I’d prefer it the other way round as well…I’m simply quite untouched by the development of HL universe after the second one….

  12. 30/03/2010 at 11:17 lhzr says:

    is there any newer info about deathspank than this? http://www.bluesnews.com/s/108027/no-pc-deathspank

  13. 30/03/2010 at 11:20 qx says:

    Hey you! Don’t play with me, I got a bad heart. Ok, maybe not, but I do now.

  14. 30/03/2010 at 11:21 Lilliput King says:

    Not sure I really care about the HL episodes any more. Seems like it’s been so long since Ep2 that I no longer have any emotional investment in the story.

  15. 30/03/2010 at 11:25 Vitamin Powered says:

    If I had to put up with a near heart attack, the least I could do was share it everyone else.

    - Chris

  16. 30/03/2010 at 11:28 GT3000 says:

    I want to care but like Lilliput, I’ve lost emotional investment. All I remember is Zombines. I’ll have to replay when Episode 3 comes out.

    • 30/03/2010 at 12:20 Nickiepoo says:

      ‘Zombines’ made me unload every bullet I had into her stupid face even if it was all completely wasted.

      I played ep2 until she had her little accident then stopped because the game had, for me, reached it’s happy ending.

    • 30/03/2010 at 12:40 Grunt says:

      Same here. I think Valve lost the plot (literally) after HL1. I’m tired of Alyx, I’m tired of being asked to care about characters who keep getting in the way of a) the story and b) me. I gave up waiting for any kind of resolution long ago, simply because my heart wasn’t in it. Frankly, I don’t think even Valve know where the story is going, and I don’t think they’re telling it particularly well either. I’d be perfectly happy to do without HL2: ep 3 or even HL3 if it meant we might see something new from them.

    • 30/03/2010 at 13:53 Aftershock says:

      I was *this* close to crying at the end of episode 2.
      I can’t wait.

    • 30/03/2010 at 14:27 Grunt says:

      I bet you also cried at the end of Titanic. :P

    • 30/03/2010 at 14:38 AndrewC says:

      I cried at the end of Titanic, because Rose didn’t give in to grief but carried Jack in her heart as she went on to lead a full and beautiful life, treasuring that which matters most instead of the empty trinkets of wealth.

      • 18/03/2012 at 20:05 obsoletebossk says:

        I cried at the end of titanic because i wasted two hours of my life that i could have spent watching paint dry, or something more fun than that awful movie.

  17. 30/03/2010 at 11:30 AndrewC says:

    Oooooo, a third of the first game – harsh.

    How’s the RPS game release going?

  18. 30/03/2010 at 11:32 Anthony Damiani says:

    This is why episodic gaming sucks

  19. 30/03/2010 at 11:32 MJS says:

    First looked at the headline picture – took that in. penny arcade and half life, this, not this. Okay got that.

    Then read headline itself – Loose all rational thought and have a moment of sheer fright before regaining sense and remembering what I just read a second earlier and then wondering what sort of sad state I’m in to have such a reaction.

    Damn you, though it woke me up from my mid morning lull.

  21. 30/03/2010 at 11:41 Gassalasca says:

    But….. they were so awesome. :sob:

  22. 30/03/2010 at 11:44 Dawngreeter says:

    I was going to say that it’s a darn shame. But then I remembered I never played Episode 2. I meant to, I really did. I wonder why I didn’t.

  23. 30/03/2010 at 11:46 TooNu says:

    Shame this isn’t 2004 with a headline reading “George confirms episode 3 cancelled”

  24. 30/03/2010 at 11:46 rocketman71 says:

    God, Kieron, you insensitive sod. Guess you’re having a hard-on thinking of all of us freaking out after reading that title, uh? O_O

    About Hothead: no PC confirmation for Deathspank and now this?. Bastards.

  25. 30/03/2010 at 11:48 Aemony says:

    Holy shit, don’t scare me like that!

  26. 30/03/2010 at 11:49 Clovis says:

    Wow, you just about gave my grandpa a heart attack. After he explained to me what half-life was I typed this in for him.

    (Note to Valve: Please continue delaying Episode 3; it’s all he has to live for since the 50 state quarters thing wrapped up.)

  27. 30/03/2010 at 11:52 Farfarer says:

    That was evil, Gillen. Very evil. You evil man.

  28. 30/03/2010 at 11:57 kyrieee says:

    YOU GOT ME =(

  29. 30/03/2010 at 11:57 Lars Westergren says:

    Getting back to Penny Arcade, the second one was a great improvement on the first I think. It had great soundtrack, lots of charm in the animations, and a couple of decent adventure puzzle sections (where the first always consisted of – kill everything you see, the last enemy will drop the item you are looking for). It had a couple of laugh-out-loud moment too. The timing of the jokes was starting to get right, it felt like they had started to adapt their writing to the medium rather than just use the same punchlines as in the comic strip.

    The JRPG style turn-based fights turned into even more joyless grinds in the second game though. With the exception of the boss fights, they were way too easy, and didn’t have enough strategic variation – find the attack an enemy was weak against (items, special attacks, or ordinary attack), spam it until fight was over.

    I was looking forward to the third game. Shame it was cancelled.

  30. 30/03/2010 at 11:59 Vadermath says:

    I was already manically clicking my Steam forum bookmark, when I saw the Penny Arcade pic. That was probably the most evil thing you’ve done lately, Kieron.

  31. 30/03/2010 at 12:04 Mac says:

    Off topic: Where the fook is HL Ep3 in any case – I thought Episodic episodes were meant to decrease the development time not increase it?

    • 30/03/2010 at 12:15 Rich says:

      I guess they’ve been tied up playing with the engine to make it look prettier, finishing TF2, making L4D1 and 2 (bah!) and Portal 1 and 2 (yay!). If they’d not bothered with all that, then the HL story arc would probably have finished 4 years ago.

      Personally I like what they’ve done with the engine, though I hope they patch they update the previous episodes to the newest visuals, as they said they would. I couldn’t care less about L4D, and I’m not especially bothered with TF2. Portal was good. It’ll be even better if it ties in to the main HL storyline.

      Oh yes, I nearly forgot, ARGH MY HEART!

  32. 30/03/2010 at 12:04 devlocke says:

    I found this quite funny.

    Tried to get into PA:Ep1 and can’t bring myself to play it, so I don’t really mind that Ep3 is cancelled. Tried to get into HL, played 1-Ep2, and if it hadn’t been for the basically non-interactive tour of the Citadel in HL2, I would have been extremely mad at the amount of time trying to get into HL took, so I wouldn’t really mind if HL:Ep3 were cancelled.

    I don’t really like Valve games. I love what I know of the people, I like the interviews I’ve read, I like the fun promo-campaigny-things, but the games themselves just aren’t really any fun. With the sort-of exception of Portal, but I think Portal was only fun because I liked the sense of humor/vibe, and the basic mechanic, and that caused me to ignore that what I was doing was just playing another Valve game.

    I suppose that’s not really on-topic, and sort of kill-joyish, but if you guys can complain that you almost died because of the headline, I can note that the headline was more fun for me than the last couple of Valve games I played, can’t I? :)

    • 30/03/2010 at 20:22 august says:

      Yeah, Portal was just like all those other Valve games. Wait, what?

    • 31/03/2010 at 01:44 devlocke says:

      @august – it was basically on rails, like all the other Valve (single player) games. The only really substantive differences were that the game fiction justified the limitations of the game world, and there was a neat mechanic. Oh, and it was shorter. Design-philosophy-wise, it’s just another Valve game.

  33. 30/03/2010 at 12:04 Jarmo says:

    The only person having a fright at the subject line should be Valve’s accountant.

    I’d much rather see Valve expend their energy on something new than yet another Half-Life game. They are very good at creating interesting new things. It’s sad that they are beholden to using up years of their creative lives with treading such familiar ground.

    • 30/03/2010 at 12:20 Rich says:

      Bugger off! They’re not allowed to give up on the Half-Life series until after episode 3.

      I hold the HL series in the same regard as a damn good series of novels. You can’t just start reading into a major story arc and then have it end. You ever seen Misery???

    • 30/03/2010 at 12:28 Jarmo says:

      So you expect some kind of resolution to the story will be on offer in Half-Life 2 Episode 3? Interesting.

    • 30/03/2010 at 13:00 Rich says:

      I image there will be an open ending to a degree, but Valve have already said that Ep3 will be the end of the main HL story; spin-offs like Portal not withstanding.

    • 30/03/2010 at 20:15 august says:

      No, they’ve said Episode 3 will end the Half-Life 2 story arc, not the Half-Life saga.

  34. 30/03/2010 at 12:05 Out Reach says:

    Lol gave all my steam friends heart attacks with this link :D

  35. 30/03/2010 at 12:11 Shadrach says:

    Shame, I never really got into the PA games but always wanted to try them, looked pretty good and fun. Deathspank I’m really looking forward to though.

  36. 30/03/2010 at 12:16 D says:

    I read it as Gabe confirms Ep 3 NOT cancelled so I was unphased. My brain wins.

  37. 30/03/2010 at 12:17 Spacewalk says:

    I laughed until I threw up. Then I read the body of text.

  38. 30/03/2010 at 12:23 Morph says:

    I’ve kind of forgotten about HL Ep3 by now, though I’m sure when it comes along I’ll be squealing in excitement.

    Still, shame about the PA game. The first 2 were pretty ok, vaguely funny. Hard to get too excited about but good enough that I feel bad at there being no more of them.

  39. 30/03/2010 at 12:27 WTF says:

    …People still care about HL:EP3? How quaint…

  40. 30/03/2010 at 12:41 Nero says:

    Gaaaaaabe! Oh wait, not that Gabe.. Phew..

    Anyway, I did enjoy Episode 1 but for some reason the tapping “minigames” in combat in Episode 2 was really unresponsive and I many times missed the mark for no reason so I never bothered to finish that one.

  41. 30/03/2010 at 12:47 Subject 706 says:

    Phew, now I have to patch up my slit wrists…

    Theres just something about HL2 and its episodes which has managed to keep me interested, even though EP3s release date seems to drag on forever.

    It is also the only shooter were I can tolerate not having iron sights and not being able to lean.

  42. 30/03/2010 at 12:51 Fazer says:

    DAGNABIT! I thought you were talking about HL3 Episode 3! You did it on purpose, didn’t you?

  43. 30/03/2010 at 12:58 maykael says:

    You came very close to giving 2/3 or more of your readership a heart attack. Phew. To bad for the PA games, they were fun.

  44. 30/03/2010 at 13:02 enVy says:

    OMFG i bet i could see the light at the end of the tunnel after i’ve read the Title!! There was a voice that sound like Alyx who told me that i should read the whole article before i go to the end of the tunnel.

    Seriously never do that again RPS!!

  45. 30/03/2010 at 13:03 merc says:

    Oh you sneaky bastard. I nearly died!

    Well played, Kieron.

  46. 30/03/2010 at 13:08 Hodge says:

    Oh, you play with our feelings like a child with a pretty butterfly. WHICH IS BLEEDING AND IN MUCH PAIN.

  47. 30/03/2010 at 13:14 TheApplogist says:

    Not cool. Not cool at all…

  48. 30/03/2010 at 13:16 jokermatt999 says:

    You are bad, bad people for this title. Bad.

  49. 30/03/2010 at 13:20 LordCraigus says:

    I’m now laughing like I just escaped a nearly fatal accident.

  50. 30/03/2010 at 13:21 Sagan says:

    The Penny Arcade games are dirt cheap on Steam. Just wanted to announce that to everyone who has always been curious about them.

  51. 30/03/2010 at 13:24 WALTER says:

    My heart almost stopped you bastard!

  52. 30/03/2010 at 13:24 Jayt says:

    cheeky bastard

  53. 30/03/2010 at 13:33 Catastrophe says:

    What if you actually killed some of your readership but they can’t write a comment explaining this so we’ll never know.

    Evil.

  54. 30/03/2010 at 13:40 lhzr says:

    i’m curious .. why exactly did everyone think the article was about hl2? considering that the header picture explains everything and is visible on the main page..

  55. 30/03/2010 at 13:42 rupert says:

    zomg harsh :(

  56. 30/03/2010 at 13:52 Marar says:

    Brilliant, I pondered for about a minute whether to click the link and ruin the rest of my day or not, glad I did. You scared me half to death you evil man you.

  57. 30/03/2010 at 13:57 Daniel says:

    I was at PAX when Mike & Jerry confirmed this during a Q&A panel. In fact, they confirmed it twice – someone asked during the first panel, then someone else asked during the second as well. At the second, a whole lot of people in the audience went “awwww” right as the person asked the question.

    According to Jerry, though, he will be writing the ending to the story itself and it will be posted on the site. He seemed pretty excited to be writing pure fiction.

  58. 30/03/2010 at 13:58 holy_bazooka says:

    /stares
    /shakes head

    some things are sacred man!

  59. 30/03/2010 at 14:10 Doeke says:

    NOT. FUNNY. I nearly died of a heart attack.

  60. 30/03/2010 at 14:13 Sizematters says:

    I see wat u did thar. >_>

  61. 30/03/2010 at 14:13 Tworak says:

    !!!!!1111111

    I almost raged. hard.

  62. 30/03/2010 at 14:14 Vincent Avatar says:

    It is my firm belief that PA: Ep 2 would have sold better had it an end-theme by MC Frontalot as did Ep 1.

    I crack the whip.
    You play the game.

  63. 30/03/2010 at 14:15 jrr says:

    that was evil and also hilarious

  64. 30/03/2010 at 14:16 kadayi says:

    No surprise. I enjoyed the first one. But I thought they were reaching with their pricing for what they were.

  65. 30/03/2010 at 14:18 T-B0N3 says:

    scared the shit out of me :(

  66. 30/03/2010 at 14:22 Rahul says:

    I’m not a gamer myself, but I saw my friend lying dead on his keyboard with this article open in his browser window.

    You murderers.

  67. 30/03/2010 at 14:40 Gassalasca says:

    I forgot to add – Kieron got me too with the title, but when I realised we were being duped, I was like Kieron, you da man. So yeah. I think we need more of this kind of jesting around RPS.

  68. 30/03/2010 at 14:46 Leelad says:

    Please don’t ever ever ever ever do that again. EVER.

  69. 30/03/2010 at 14:48 Mad Doc MacRae says:

    BOOOOOOO

    I liked (and purchased at full price) both PE games.

    :(

  70. 30/03/2010 at 14:53 Henrik J says:

    I would much rather have a Penny Arcade episode 3 than Half Life Episode 3, especially after that huge stinker that was Half Life 2

  71. 30/03/2010 at 15:03 Reno Brainz says:

    Hell is full of people making jokes like this…

  72. 30/03/2010 at 15:24 Jad says:

    @Jarmo

    I’d much rather see Valve expend their energy on something new than yet another Half-Life game. They are very good at creating interesting new things. It’s sad that they are beholden to using up years of their creative lives with treading such familiar ground.

    I can’t say how much agree with this statement. And I consider Half-Life 1 my favorite game of all time.

    But Portal proved to me that Valve has an unbelievable ability to take a new, innovative idea and make a perfect game around it. As much as I love Valve’s prior games, I don’t want HL3 or Portal2. I want , with a mechanic that makes you scratch your head when you hear of it before it comes out, but when it is released makes you wonder why no one had ever done it before, its just so perfect. And then I want Valve to deny a sequel to that game, and make a totally new one. And again.

  73. 30/03/2010 at 15:28 ShadowNate says:

    At first I was like “Oh hell no!”
    and then I was like “Oh thank God, yes!”
    (not that I am partial to the penny arcade games’ episode. I m just thankful this wasn’t about Half life EP3)

  74. 30/03/2010 at 15:49 Skinlo says:

    Ok, just nearly passed out.

  75. 30/03/2010 at 15:51 LintMan says:

    I thought the PA Adventures were well-made and enjoyed the stories/humor, but the actual gameplay wasn’t my cup of tea. I still had planned to purchase the final two in the series, though, so this is unfortunate news.

    If they do end up making some illustrated novels to finish out the storyline, though, that’d be pretty cool. I’d buy ‘em.

  76. 30/03/2010 at 16:15 Sonic Goo says:

    If I were Valve, I would skip Ep. 3 and go directly to HL3. The series feels a bit tired and needs a big push forward. Adding another episode wouldn’t help that. So the headline was no surprise, really.

  77. 30/03/2010 at 16:16 Chris says:

    I felt a great disturbance in the Force… as if millions of voices suddenly cried out WTF? and were suddenly silenced trolled. Then posted about it on the forum.

    Is this your way of punishing those who use RSS readers – especially if they’re title-only? Nice one, anyway :o)

  78. 30/03/2010 at 16:16 Pijama says:

    Kieron, you evil bastard, you might get punched for crap like that. =D

    INTERNET IS SERIOUS BUSINESS

  79. 30/03/2010 at 16:25 Web Cole says:

    You attention whore Kieron :p

  80. 30/03/2010 at 16:42 matt says:

    Read the headline from an rss feed and almost had a heart attack

  82. 30/03/2010 at 17:02 Nick says:

    Well played, sir.

  83. 30/03/2010 at 17:22 Justin says:

    Aw. I really enjoyed the Penny Arcade games, once I figured out how it worked. They were unique and distinct, which you can’t always say about most games…

  84. 30/03/2010 at 17:37 Count Elmdor says:

    I feel kind of ashamed that, to me, “Gabe” just instantly means the guy from Penny Arcade when used in a gaming concept. I wasn’t duped for a second, though.

  85. 30/03/2010 at 18:29 deuterium. says:

    “NOT FUNNY NOT, EVEN ALITTLE BIT”

    A pox on you!

  86. 30/03/2010 at 18:54 Tei says:

    Obvious troll is obvious.

  87. 30/03/2010 at 19:05 Vanderdecken says:

    Jesus, flipped past this in GReader and my heart literally skipped a beat. Deep breaths… bastard RPS trolls.

  88. 30/03/2010 at 19:35 Levictus says:

    And Allah will punish the unbeliever for his blasphemy. Die Infidel! You will die a slow agonizing death in the pits of hell!

  89. 30/03/2010 at 20:45 sbs says:

    Too bad, loved the first 2 Episodes.

  90. 30/03/2010 at 20:53 Guhndahb says:

    I’d be laughing at the provocative title if the story weren’t still ultimately disappointing. I liked the PA games. :(

  91. 30/03/2010 at 22:05 x25killa says:

    I did enjoy the first 2 episodes of Penny Arcade Adventures game. Looking forward to the book…

  92. 30/03/2010 at 23:35 Deg says:

    You had me scared there for a second!

  93. 30/03/2010 at 23:52 Mario Figueiredo says:

    It was a very brief moment until I realized the hoax. Very brief. Maybe a couple of seconds. But it was a very brief moment of agonizing pain.

  94. 31/03/2010 at 00:37 brkl says:

    This makes me sad :(

  95. 31/03/2010 at 01:45 Spliter says:

    I pissed myself at the title
    SHIT!
    DON’T SCARE PEOPLE LIKE THAT DAMMIT!

  96. 31/03/2010 at 09:46 psyk says:

    Gamers have weak hearts.

  97. 31/03/2010 at 09:47 N.P. says:

    WOAH! I almost died there… the title’s very misleading <_<

  98. 31/03/2010 at 11:06 Hmm-Hmm. says:

    Heh.

    Also, probably a shame. I never got the second one because the demo was annoying enough that I didn’t feel it was worth the money at that time. I still vaguely intend to get it, though, since the first one was sufficiently entertaining and it’s available for the mac.

  99. 31/03/2010 at 12:21 SlappyBag says:

    Oh my god don’t do that!

  100. 31/03/2010 at 18:45 Arvind says:

    You very cruel person.

  101. 31/03/2010 at 20:48 Fazer says:

    The funny thing is, I bought PA Episode 2 a couple of days ago – and the day after this info came out. Couldn’t had better timing.

  102. 01/04/2010 at 02:44 MagnusGman says:

    I was scared when I saw the headline, but I’m am still sad to that game canceled.

    I enjoyed the Precipice of Darkness games :(

  103. 01/04/2010 at 04:32 gwog says:

    This is fucking bullshit. I was really looking forward to the next PA ep.

  105. 01/04/2010 at 10:59 derp says:

    APRIL FOOOLS!!!
    derp

  106. 01/04/2010 at 22:10 Nighthawk says:

    oh well if they’re not going to finish Half Life 2 might as well go kill* myself since there’s nothing more to live for.

    (*stop playing computer games)

  107. 02/04/2010 at 09:47 Enshu says:

    Damn, and here I was thinking “they decided to abandon all things episodic and make HL3 .__.

  108. 14/04/2010 at 18:48 Shaolin Dave says:

    I was actually looking forward to OTRSPOD ep 3 more that HL2 ep 3. Well, I guess this puts HL2 back at the top of my list.
    I’m very disappointed with everyone at Penny Arcade and HotHead. I want a refund for episodes one and two. If I go to work and only do half my job, I don’t get half paid, I get fired.
    Everyone at HotHead should consider new careers as well, obviously they don’t have what it takes to make games. Maybe they should look into fast food?

  109. 21/04/2010 at 15:06 Sunshine says:

    Well played, I laughed at your wicked trick, and the comments cursing you for it.

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