By Jim Rossignol on April 26th, 2011 at 8:15 am.
Hmm! Examine this quote: “Portal 2 will probably be Valve’s last game with an isolated single-player experience,” writes Geoff Keighley in his The Final Hours Of Portal 2. “What this all means is something Newell is still trying to figure out.” Ooh! That’s a cheeky one. It’s also far too vague to call the meaning of. It could simply mean that the next Valve shooter has a permanent co-op option, a la Gears Of War, which probably makes sense, given how things have been going in the world of games.
So should my headline have been “Co-Op Campaign For Half-Life 3 Confirmed!”? Haha, sorry. That’s impossibly speculative. OR IS IT? Yes.
26/04/2011 at 08:22 trjp says:
I realised today why there’s been no Half Life – they’re waiting for me to finish HL2!!
I didn’t start early either – first savegame is 23/8/2006 (2 PCs ago – thanks to Steam I still have all the saves tho!!) and I’ve played a chapter-or-2 roughly once a year since.
This year’s stint is ongoing right now (as Portal 2 is done) – currently on Follow Freeman’ – I have to say that the squad AI is the only thing which dates the game BUT I’m getting bored again – another room – another turret – another team of badguys…
Might be another year folks ;)
26/04/2011 at 09:45 Pop says:
Ah, you’re to blame! I’ve been religiously replaying the HL2 games until I force Valve to release HL2:Ep3, but now I find out you’re holding things up!
I gotta disagree with you though: love the squad AI compared to modern shooters. I actually get to open the doors! I actually get to be in control! And what’s more, the game doesn’t end if any of them die!
It’s a bit annoying if you actively try to keep them alive (particularly in narrow corridors), but much better than what I’ve heard about Home Front or Medal of Honour.
Anyway! Persevere! I love the battle to take down the surpression field, and the fight against two striders on top of the ruins.
26/04/2011 at 18:19 Shih Tzu says:
Ooh, I was in almost exactly your same situation — I got to that part (after several other hiatuses), got bored of the repetition in the squad section, and set it aside for another ten months. Cheer up, it’s probably 30 to 60 more minutes of this stuff, and then they go away and the game does something completely different.
If anything, it’s all probably my fault for not completing Episode 2. I liked it a fair amount, and then the game started to set up a climactic battle and I was like “That sounds hard,” and then I didn’t touch it for a year and a half. Now I can’t remember what I was supposed to do. Last night I started over and decided I might as well take the gnome with me. We’ll see if he can reverse my fortunes…
27/04/2011 at 00:10 Iskariot says:
Half Live 2?
I vaguely seem to remember such a game.
I think it was a good game…if I remember correctly.
27/04/2011 at 00:11 Iskariot says:
I even spelled it wrong.
It was such a long time ago.
26/04/2011 at 08:24 ado says:
Wow that’s really vague.
It’s a bummer if this means no more singleplayer from Valve though. Portal 2 is one of the best SP experiences ever in my opinion.
26/04/2011 at 14:36 woodsey says:
Of course they’ll still do single-player; they’re too good at it, and have too much of a following from it not to.
This could mean anything from, “we’ll have multiplayer and/or co op in all of our games from now on”, to, “better Steam community features to show your progress during single-player”.
26/04/2011 at 16:20 Grygus says:
That doesn’t make sense, though; if they simply intended to still do single player with a multiplayer or co-op component, then Portal 2 would be an example of the new way, and not the last of the old. Since whatever is coming has multiplayer and is different from Portal 2, it sounds to me like the single player content will not be around in the future. Seems foolish to me; surely not every game needs to be, or even profits from, multiplayer. Then again, Gabe Newell perches on a towering throne made of cash and dreams so perhaps that judgment is premature.
26/04/2011 at 21:24 woodsey says:
Yes, well, we don’t know how much Geoff Keighley has simply made up and what Valve have ACTUALLY said to him. Ever seen the guy in an interview? He just makes wild guesses left and right until he hits on a feature that’s actually in a game.
It makes far less sense for Valve to stop doing single-player.
26/04/2011 at 08:24 Jonathan says:
I think I disapprove. Yes, I do. Boo to Valve. Pitchforks out, folks!
26/04/2011 at 09:41 BAReFOOt says:
What has Gearbox to do with anything?
But I agree. Banish him!
26/04/2011 at 09:57 Mattressi says:
I think he’s saying that Randy came out of the closet? Good for him, I say!
Anyway, I’m unsure of my opinion on this – I think I was leaning more toward being positive, but I can’t pass up on a good mobbing. Let’s get him/them, guys!
26/04/2011 at 08:25 Aemony says:
I… really hope this means that the story/gameplay is configured to both work with a single player experience as well as a cooperative experience. Because all things considerate, Valves games are the most fun in the SP mode.
26/04/2011 at 08:25 ostolero says:
SINGLEPLAYER
MULTIPLAYER
CROSSSSSSSPLAYER
26/04/2011 at 08:47 markcocjin says:
I like how they said that with an annoying voice over. Back then, that was the gist of The Crossing. It really had nothing else to offer beyond that.
Nowadays, many games have taken that idea and either expanded or made a derivative of it. In a way, I think Left 4 Dead somewhat gives a nod towards The Crossing with its built in drop in, drop out features.
I have a suspicion that going in as a random thug in someone’s ongoing campaign might be not as fun as envisioned.
26/04/2011 at 08:28 Wyrm says:
Valve’s singleplayer games are without doubt some of the best gaming experiences I have ever had, and to say that they will be no more is a horrible loss to gaming. DON’T DO IT.
26/04/2011 at 08:29 Ecto says:
This has the potential to be one of the most tragic news stories in the history of gaming journalism. But then, probably not. I’d be very surprised if Valve make any kind of serious misstep.
26/04/2011 at 13:06 Legionary says:
It’s not like they’ve got previous (Steam bans) or (Portal 2′s abortive ARG) anything (microtransactions).
26/04/2011 at 08:31 DSR says:
Why waste time on singleplayer content and story when you can sell half baked multipayer games with few maps(See TF2 at launch) and earn millions by selling imaginary hats to players who enjoy doing same mundane thing for eons?
26/04/2011 at 10:22 Loix says:
The recent addition of stores to TF2 and Portal 2 gives me a huge case of cognitive dissonance… or at least a mindfuck.
On one hand, if you’re stupid enough to pay real money for in-game items, then you deserve to be taken advantage of. On the other hand, I’m disappointed they’re actually taking advantages of these idiots.
26/04/2011 at 10:26 RakeShark says:
“… when you can sell half baked multipayer games with few maps…”
Even from a not-fan’s point of view, I don’t think you could call TF2 a half-baked product at launch.
“…earn millions by selling imaginary hats to players who enjoy doing same mundane thing for eons?”
You do know that TF2 is probably the second most varied online multiplayer game ever made (first being Tribes 2)? Community-made maps, alternate game modes, and plenty of depth and options for each class to do things differently. The Battlefield/CoD/Zombie games are really the current games that do the same thing for eons, putting bullets in the heads of men in large/small spaces.
TF2 I can switch from regular play to Prophunt, Pyro Tennis, Arena, Rocket Jump HORSE, Zombie Survival, and Saxon Hale to name a few.
I’m not saying you’re wrong for not liking TF2, but saying TF2 is a shallow product is far from true.
As for that hat store, Valve did something smart and tap into a Sims-esque market of “I need that, because that looks good, and I will pay money because I think it looks good.”
26/04/2011 at 10:32 subedii says:
QQ some more?
I mean TF2 was worth its asking price on launch, and they’ve only given it three freaking years of completely solid and free updates, free game modes, free maps, and free class updates.
In order to fund continuing development of this game that long ago reached saturation, they recently allowed people to buy completely cosmetic items. Which players can still make for themselves regardless. And the proceeds of which also go back to their community creators.
Yes, such a travesty. You’ll forgive me if I’m having a hard time shedding the required bitter, bitter crimson tears over Valve’s utterly heinous betrayal of its community.
EDIT: Haha, prop hunt. Man I remember that, mod was a blast.
26/04/2011 at 10:43 MikoSquiz says:
Personally, I buy stuff from the TF2 Hat Store because I only paid a tenner for TF2, and as such I feel that I have basically pulled off the scam of the century and at any minute the police could come and arrest me for obtaining.. false.. pecuniary.. something. I’ve basically got a gut feeling that I still owe Valve about £90, basically, and it’ll still be a stunningly cheap game per hours played.
26/04/2011 at 12:09 Deano2099 says:
Valve could easily have saved up all the TF2 updates, released them in a bundle three-years on as TF3 and charged £20, and everyone would be gushing over how awesome it is.
Instead you get it for free, and it’s funded by people with more money than you that really want hats. I personally approve of this “get other people to pay for our games” approach.
26/04/2011 at 12:50 Tatourmi says:
First: @rake shark: Nope. It is not. That would probably be garry’s mod, which also has most of the mods you talked about and a lot more.
Second: That is only my opinion but what I dislike with the recent updates are not the “pay per hat” but simply the overall sillyness of all the updates. There used to be a sort of grim cartoony coherence to TF2, half serious, half joke, and for me it all went down with the updates that focused more and more on the silly aspect of the game, leaving everything behind. When you play a game of TF2 now it is almost impossible to be grasped by the universe. Yes, it is pretty funny, but… Just… That doesn’t feel right. The metagame is now too important and the game in itself looks a bit like shit to my eyes.
Well, anyway…
26/04/2011 at 13:31 malkav11 says:
Don’t get me wrong, TF2 is probably the best competitive multiplayer game that I have ever played (in that I would actually be willing to play more of it at some point), but the nature of competitive multiplayer games is that you are essentially playing the same game over and over with relatively minor variations of map, ruleset, and opposition. I’ve always been rather surprised that this sort of thing was so popular with game developers, because successful competitive multiplayer games have the potential to be played for years on end, obviating any real need for the aficionado to buy more games. Meanwhile, someone like me who’s tended to vastly prefer singleplayer campaigns with story and a finite ending can easily be talked into a few dozen game purchases a year, if not more.
26/04/2011 at 08:31 Flint says:
Bah. Boo. :(
26/04/2011 at 08:31 bitbof says:
When will we plebs who don’t own an iPad be able to read that article? I honestly don’t care about the gimmicky interactive elements the author put in there.
26/04/2011 at 08:33 Re2deemer says:
Please no, Source games hate my router. I can barely play any of Valve’s multiplayer games.
26/04/2011 at 08:39 trjp says:
In fairness it’s upto you to chuck your crappy hardware in the bin – not Valve to stop making good multiplayer games…
26/04/2011 at 14:17 Archonsod says:
In fairness, it would also require Valve start making good multiplayer games too. I’d even settle for good games personally …
26/04/2011 at 21:49 P3RF3CT D3ATH says:
Valve does make good multiplayer games. Your point is moot.
26/04/2011 at 08:38 Thermal Ions says:
’tis a sad, sad day if this has any truth. Not every single player experience translates well to co-op, and I’d rather not have my single player games limited to what will only work in co-op.
26/04/2011 at 08:42 trjp says:
I agree with that wholeheartedly – co-op is game-specific and, whatever people might say, I suspect it actually only represents a small amount of people’s playtime (glancing over global achievement stats seems to backs that up).
A GOOD co-op experience is a unique creation – you can’t just put 2 people into a single-player game and expect it to work – you have to create separate SP, MP and CP campaigns and that’s a lot of work…
26/04/2011 at 08:41 lurkalisk says:
What a shame.
26/04/2011 at 09:04 JiminyJickers says:
Indeed, what a shame.
26/04/2011 at 08:41 konrad_ha says:
Today I’m giving up on Episode 3. I think it’s time for me to move on. Thanks for everything Valve, I loved all your games and the original Half Life is still the pinnacle of games design for me.
26/04/2011 at 09:31 Tomm says:
Yay for melodrama.
26/04/2011 at 10:59 SuperNashwanPower says:
I love the smell of histrionics in the morning
26/04/2011 at 11:01 Spakkenkhrist says:
I am boycotting breathing until Valve release episode 3 and pay me to play it.
26/04/2011 at 13:26 Stompywitch says:
I’m boycotting the next Half-Life game, whatever it is, until a pre-order page is available.
26/04/2011 at 13:58 bwion says:
I am boycotting the next Half-Life game until I become interested in Half-Life games.
It, er, may be a while.
26/04/2011 at 08:42 bill says:
Valve dropping singleplayer would surely be a pitchforks moment. (at least if they do it before they finish half-life)
Can’t see it happening though.
26/04/2011 at 08:43 kikito says:
But Valve! What about Half Life 3? :(
26/04/2011 at 10:12 Teddy Leach says:
It’s going to be the next DNF. When it’s finally near release in 2072, there’ll be trailers where Alyx gets her boobs out. Gordon will speak and make jokes about ‘alien babes’.
EDIT: It’s also going to have a hat shop, a beard shop, and a spectacle shop. You will be able to put decals on your crowbar.
26/04/2011 at 08:46 Hunam says:
I just read it as no more SP games where you’re a character entirely alone away from all other characters. Hence the use of the word isolated.
26/04/2011 at 09:30 Tomm says:
That’s a good point. Damn Valve and their vagueness.
26/04/2011 at 10:08 rei says:
Probably. It’s too bad they feel the need to rile people up with trolling.
26/04/2011 at 10:31 Devenger says:
This seems like a very logical interpretation, yes.
26/04/2011 at 13:37 Wulf says:
That would make more sense than anything else, especially considering that this is true of Portal 2 as well, where you’re rarely ever alone. But then, that was also true of Portal 1 in a way. Perhaps that was the eye-opener for them?
26/04/2011 at 14:56 Memph says:
That’s how i read it. Less no singleplayer, more every singleplayer game will have an Alyx, co-op controllable or not, the player just won’t be alone.
26/04/2011 at 16:20 kalidanthepalidan says:
That’s how I interpret it as well. A good portion of Half-Life 2 and its episodes have you partnered up with Alyx orsome other AI character(s) (resistance, ant lions, the father in Ravenholm). L4D and Portal 2 are obviously not isoloated experiences. And I’d argue even Portal isn’t an isolated experience as you constantly have Glados talking to you.
Having another character present, whether physically or simply through voice communication, really fleshes out the world and experience. It helps to alleviate the lone super-shooty-soldier effect. And when it is done well, as Valve has consistently demonstrated they are capable of doing, it makes a world of difference.
26/04/2011 at 08:48 Avenger says:
I have seen this in news feed inside Steam.
So I think, it is an official statement now?
26/04/2011 at 11:04 MasterBoo says:
Steam automatically puts news from Kotaku, RPS, PCGamer and a few other websites. For example, the Dragon Age II page contains all the bad reviews from these sites.
So no :P
26/04/2011 at 11:08 Lewie Procter says:
Which is extra fun because I get to promote buying direct from indies from inside of Steam.
26/04/2011 at 08:52 Mistabashi says:
To be honest, it just sounds like a quote taken out of context to me. That whole page of text actually consists of nothing but that one quote and a load of padding, so you can’t really draw any conclusions from it at all.
Edit: it’s a second-hand quote too.
26/04/2011 at 08:58 passingstranger says:
Hmm. Well. Hmm. I feel this might have been a poor quote to put out on Valve’s part, given the historically reactionary nature of PC gamers.
As usual, though, I put my faith in Valve entirely. They have always made fantastic games and they have shown zero signs of stopping. Portal 2 was their first foray into this type of cooperative gaming (which is distinctly different from L4D) and they blew it out of the water. I had more a more memorable and fun experience playing Portal 2 with a friend than I have in recent gaming memory.
I don’t understand what they mean, and I wonder if they really wanted to phrase it like that, but I would trust them with my life.
26/04/2011 at 08:59 Rii says:
The quote is so vague it’s a waste of time even speculating as to what it could mean. And for my part, I could care less whether Valve ever releases HL3 or not. So here’s my take:
(1) Valve will probably release more games in the future.
(2) They will probably be good.
26/04/2011 at 09:03 Davie says:
Regardless of the actual meaning behind that statement, I predict apocalyptic levels of nerd rage from all fronts.
26/04/2011 at 09:04 enshak says:
No more single player no more money from me. I’am still only halfway through Left4dead and I proberly won’t touch portal 2 coop. Who going to put up playing with me when it took me 20hrs to complete the SP campaign.
26/04/2011 at 11:06 SuperNashwanPower says:
Awww :( **Offers friendly hug**
26/04/2011 at 09:07 DeepSleeper says:
Portal 2 will probably be Valve’s last game I purchase, in that case. Don’t do multiplayer, never will.
26/04/2011 at 09:07 adonf says:
I personally have no interest at all in multi-player gaming, if I want to interact with people I will interact with real people, not online avatars. I understand that Valve is not going to stop making games that can be played offline, just that all their games will have some sort of online component, but still I think it’s a bad trend that’s been going on for a little more than 10 years and I blame it all on ID and Quake 3…
26/04/2011 at 11:08 Rii says:
You think those are real people you’re talking to?
26/04/2011 at 09:09 Ertard says:
After Portal 2 I’m confident Valve can do pretty much anything with anything, and it will be one of the best games ever. As long as there’s still room for narrative I’m happy, as their writers really are the best in the business by quite a margin. I laughed pretty much non-stop in Portal 2, and I was afraid it was going to be all uber-nerdy and CAKE IS LIE LOL-bullshit. Instead it was actually intelligent and hilarious.
Therefore, they have my axe.
26/04/2011 at 13:20 Loopy says:
… and my sword.
26/04/2011 at 09:11 JackShandy says:
You know, I was looking at a past RPS interview with Eric Wolpaw just before and it had a spam comment that went “One of the great attributes of the puzzle game Portal, is that it’s intricately narrative-driven.”
What happened to those days, spam-bot? When did you lose the magic?
EDIT: ah, deleted.
26/04/2011 at 09:16 edit says:
Seriously, they’re not about to throw away the ‘immersive cinematic story experiences’ that they’re so good at. It’s their schtick. I’m sure all it means is that the next Half-Life-style story-driven game will feature the option to play the campaign cooperatively. I’d certainly have no qualms if I could play through the next Half-Life installment myself before jumping into another playthrough with friends controlling alyx and\or barney.. It just wouldn’t be Half-Life though if there weren’t chances for you to snoop around creepy areas alone.
They’ll say “it’s better with a friend!” and that may even be true, but I’m sure we will still be able to play future Valve games solo. It would be a real shame if we couldn’t.
26/04/2011 at 09:18 JackShandy says:
I guess once you’ve defined single-player FPS storytelling, you start to itch for more worlds to conquer. This’ll just end with Valve seeing the breadth of their domain and weeping, mark my worlds.
26/04/2011 at 09:25 Tomm says:
I think a lot of people are interpreting this wrong, it doesn’t mean they’re going to stop doing single player games completely, just there will probably be the option for co-op in their future games, which is nothing to worry about really.
26/04/2011 at 21:57 P3RF3CT D3ATH says:
I;m sorry but have you ever played any of the Left 4 Dead games by yourself? It’s really boring unless you’re with other people. Coop is good but only when it’s dedicated coop like in Portal 2. A game that can go between single and coop through the same levels just plain sucks.
26/04/2011 at 21:57 P3RF3CT D3ATH says:
I’m sorry but have you ever played any of the Left 4 Dead games by yourself? It’s really boring unless you’re with other people. Coop is good but only when it’s dedicated coop like in Portal 2. A game that can go between single and coop through the same levels just plain sucks.
26/04/2011 at 09:32 DanPryce says:
It probably just means that they’re going to make every main campaign co-op from now on. Which makes me happy, because they’re quite good at it.
26/04/2011 at 09:34 Metonymy says:
A casual examination of what Valve has done recently explains the quote perfectly.
L4D is a single player experience, it just isn’t an isolated single-player experience. You can play alone, and you can play with others. They don’t feel like doing any more ‘isolated’ single player games anymore, and who can blame them? There’s no need for that anymore. They are just interactive movies. We’ve all known the basics of FPS games since Doom1, and anyone who missed that gets a new manshoot ever month.
Income increases when players need the online service (and the full, non-pirated game) to get the complete experience. Fun also increases, of course. People were saying years ago that good multi-player is the only consistent anti-piracy measure. (example: WoW)
26/04/2011 at 09:37 MrMud says:
Saying that L4D is a single player experience is like saying that Quake 3 Arena is a single player experience because you can play with bots.
26/04/2011 at 13:13 jon_hill987 says:
No. The bots in QIII were fun to play against, the L4D ones are not.
L4D single player is ruined by the bots and in multi-player any story they might have put in the game is ruined by other people going at their own speed.
26/04/2011 at 13:34 malkav11 says:
L4D bots are literally incapable of performing any of the tasks required to complete a level, nor will they ever go ahead of you and draw off infected so that you can perform those tasks safely. This means you’re alone with a few automated turrets following behind you. The game is not in any way balanced for this.
26/04/2011 at 16:49 karry says:
“Saying that L4D is a single player experience is like saying that Quake 3 Arena is a single player experience because you can play with bots.”
Unreal Tournament is a great single player experience because you can play with bots. Q3…not so much.
27/04/2011 at 02:45 djtim says:
Believe it or not, outside of your isolated little world, there are actually people out there that like playing single player games. I personally do not want to rely on anyone else to dictate my gaming experiences – and I’m certain I am not alone.
I also don’t get what’s wrong with the same old FPS mechanics being used over and over again to create a scripted single-player experience. What is it with games that makes them different in this regard to, say, books?
Books have been unchanged for decades and they are essentially the same media and same base stories rehashed over and over again with slightly different settings and characters. No one complains that a good paperback needs more pictures or would be better with another person turning the pages for you and reading every second line.
26/04/2011 at 09:40 Corrupt_Tiki says:
I will disregard this quote as it just seems like tripe tbh.
But, I am also giving up on HL Ep 3. Sorry valve, I waited a while, but, no, there are other things now, sorry babe xoxo. Thanks for everything.
26/04/2011 at 09:41 killmachine says:
some of you need to read the quote a bit more careful and think about it a bit further. its quoted “isolated singleplayer”. theres also another big word there, “probably”.
so, theres A LOT of room to speculate, as mentioned above. this probably means that the singleplayer experiences we know will be no more. it will be something different.
it will be more than the, lets say, campaign of half-life2 with 2 (or more) player coop. it must be designed completely different.
im fairly sure, if newell worked out how this will work, that we will see some sort of “full drop in drop out” support. means, you play the campaign, a buddy comes online and is able to join you.
but what if i am in level 4 and my buddy only level 2. will he be able to join me in level 4? does he have to skip the story from level 3? those (and other) questions come up. so. im curious how this will be realized.
btw. its about damn time half-life3 will be announced. not the team fortress fan and portal is also something completely different. giiiiive half-life3.
oh, one other thing. many many years ago, before the release of half-life1, i read an article in a german pc magazine. it was a preview with an interview about half-life1 with gabe newell. i remember a big quote by gabe that said: “half-life will be the best game of all time.” looking back, memorizing the experience i had in the campaign, i think he was right. there are a lot of really great singleplayer experiences out there, but half-life is really something.
26/04/2011 at 09:43 MaxwellKraft says:
I hope Half Life 3 is an amalgamation of all previous Valve games. Four player co-op set in the Half-Life universe with the Portal gun. And a hat store.
26/04/2011 at 20:15 Hammurabi says:
. . . and an AI director that controls zombies and Head-crabs and the portals can be charged with gravity from the zero point energy gun and bring back the long jump module! That’s all I want. I want to long jump again.
26/04/2011 at 09:45 Froibo says:
Shame I always felt that valve was one of the few companies that could do FPS single player correctly. Now what?
26/04/2011 at 09:45 jon_hill987 says:
Co-op sucks. You are relying on other people to have fun (far more than in a competitive MP game) and most people on the internet seem to want to ruin it for you.
26/04/2011 at 17:29 Pointless Puppies says:
Here’s an idea: get friends who aren’t jackasses.
SHOCKER, I KNOW.
26/04/2011 at 17:35 Mman says:
“Here’s an idea: get friends who aren’t jackasses.”
Except that’s just one part of the potential issues with co-op focus; for example, with an SP game when you want to play you can just boot it straight up and go, to play a co-op game (without 95% douchbags/idiots) you need to get multiple people together every time, potentially for an extended period of time (and that’s before factoring in stuff like if one is having hardware issues or something).
26/04/2011 at 20:32 Hammurabi says:
Its amazing, I know, but some of us gamers have reached an age where we have things like jobs and responsibilities. Oddly enough, this coincides with my friends reaching a similar age and level of responsibility. It can be surprisingly difficult for enough of us to have free time that coincides to make it worthwhile for a good multiplayer session. So for me, and most my friends, single player comprises an overwhelming majority of game time.
26/04/2011 at 20:38 Vinraith says:
What Hammurabi said. I quite enjoy playing co-op with friends, but actually orchestrating a time when we can all find a free hour or two, let alone a series of such times, is quite a challenge.
26/04/2011 at 23:49 malkav11 says:
I love coop, but ultimately coop is an experience I can get offline with a cooperative boardgame or tabletop RPG. Computers are pretty fundamental to anything approaching a meaningful singleplayer experience (that is, there are solo gamebooks and boardgames but they don’t live up to anything more than the most basic computer games). If I had to dump one or the other from videogames, it would be coop. Of course, personally I’d cheerfully jettison competitive multi and stick with SP and coop, but that’s me.
26/04/2011 at 09:46 Teddy Leach says:
You gits.
… What a shame.
26/04/2011 at 09:58 Quxxy says:
Valve make the best single player experiences, period.
If what they mean is that they’ll be making games that can be played co-op, then I’m all for it. But only if I can still play with myself whenever I want. I don’t always have time to go and find someone to play with; sometimes, I have an urge to satisfy and it’s easier to do by myself.
Please don’t take away my single-player, Gabe. I only have three people on my friends list… and one of them is my mum. :’(
26/04/2011 at 13:49 jon_hill987 says:
“sometimes, I have an urge to satisfy and it’s easier to do by myself.”
Indeed, girlfriends are hard work. ;)
26/04/2011 at 10:09 AlexW says:
Since hearing this quote I’ve been thinking about what the contextual meaning could be, and I just find it really difficult to believe that Valve would actually stop making single-player campaigns with storytelling mechanisms like Half-Life (in the sense of having sections of the game without any NPCs around) in favour of co-op. Yes, co-op can be entertaining, but one thing you can say for sure about Valve is that they’re artisans. Their created worlds are exquisitely crafted, with details and hidden-away spots for perusal, and co-op just destroys the player’s tendency to see everything Valve has made. There’s always the nagging thought that the other player is waiting for you to finish admiring the game and get to the next part, and that is anathema to what must be one of the Valve art crew’s favourite things to hear (“Hey, did anyone else see the chair with the booze next to all the ammo overlooking the zombie-infested muck? That was brilliant, and it really made me think about the unknown other parts of the Resistance trying to make their world a little more hospitable again!”)
On top of that, co-op’s gogogo attitude and unending jokes about the game doesn’t mesh well with serious games trying to strike an emotional chord with the player. I know I certainly wouldn’t have found the ending to Ep2 (also, confirm Ep3 you tossers!) as enjoyable if there’d been another person next to me chatting in my ear. Even in Portal 2′s test chamber ending voice-over clips GLaDOS was struggling to compete with ongoing conversations and the unsaid urge to go start the next chamber, and P2 is a hilarious game with superb writing. What chance does a serious game have against the tide of disinterest and inappropriate jokes?
Any future game trying to do anything other than comedy would be destroyed along with the isolated single-player experience, so I can’t believe that Valve would actually discard them.
26/04/2011 at 10:17 Sacrificer says:
I don’t have time to read through all the comments, you guys need to learn what Isolated means if you haven’t figured it out in previous comments.
Hopefully I’m correct, for this is the most obvious thing to me:
Valve means that there will be no more Single Player campaigns where you are all alone. No, this does not necessarily mean Co-Op, but that’s not being denied anywhere.
All in all: Valve doesn’t want us to feel isolated from the rest of the world in Single Player.
26/04/2011 at 10:25 Juiceman says:
Well I hope that isn’t the case. Part of what made Half-Life great was the “you against the world” vibe.
26/04/2011 at 10:29 Milky1985 says:
Yeah what if the game involves you being all alone, hell in fallout3 its kinda you against the world.
26/04/2011 at 10:35 JackShandy says:
“Isolated Single Player”, to me, means that the single player campaign is isolated from the co-op campaign; IE, having a co-op campaign that follows a different story to the main game.
If they meant “This is the last game where you’ll feel alone” they chose a really odd way to word it (Especially seeing as Portal 2 didn’t actually make you feel alone for most of the game).
26/04/2011 at 10:36 Spakkenkhrist says:
That’s awfully sweet of them.
26/04/2011 at 10:44 Chris D says:
I think most people understand what isolated means, the question is what does it apply to in this instance. Is it short for isolated single player mode? Or is it that you feel alone in the game, which technically would be an isolated single character experience instead.
26/04/2011 at 10:24 Milky1985 says:
““Portal 2 will probably be Valve’s last game with an isolated single-player experience,””
I hope this is untrue otherwise i will not be isolating any more of my money to go to any valve products :/ I would not have got team fortress 2 by itself, i got it as part of hte orange box, same for CS:Source (part of the episode 2 pack i believe). A decent single player experience is essential for me for a game, i don’t mind multiplayer as an extra, just not as the onyl bit.
Guess this is hte final nail in the Ep3 coffin then, maybe they should just do what hte penny arcade people are doing with relation to thier games, they are not releasing the last 2 games in the planned 4 parter so they are releasing the story bit by bit, maybe valve shoudl just accept that they are not going to get it done (unless they follow the 3d realms route) and just release the story so the fans can see the ending.
26/04/2011 at 10:29 magnus says:
This really is going to be a facepalm moment. The unstopable bullshit-train driven by Portal 2/Diablo 3/L4D2 detractors will roll on!
And it’s just one man’s interpretation of anothers words, that’s all!
26/04/2011 at 10:30 edit says:
Hmm, how about some kind of failed experiment leading to a multiverse rift which causes Gordons from alternate universes to spontaneously appear and disappear. 32-Gordon advisor-hunting party! Or not.
26/04/2011 at 10:33 magnus says:
Or this could be just a CVG flavoured fanboy baiting article.
I’ve just checked that particular pile of garbage, and suprise suprise it’s there, told you!
O.K. maybe it didn’t start there but it’s fanboy baiting all the same and it’s a slow news day.
26/04/2011 at 10:47 stahlwerk says:
I must have mistuned RAEG glands today, because all I can think of right now is all the fun I had when running through Quake 1 Episode 1 with a bunch of friends in 1997.
SHAMBLER!!
26/04/2011 at 10:49 Cooper says:
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I have yet to play a game designed for both single player and co-op or multiplayer experiences that does not have problems when actually played as one person.
I don’t think it’s possible either, they have totally different design requirements. No matter how good your companion AI is.
26/04/2011 at 11:08 SuperNashwanPower says:
Have you played Borderlands? Personally I found that really good playing alone, even though designed for co-op. That said I have never played it in co-op, so I dont know how different it would be – just saying that the SP experience was very enjoyable IMO.
26/04/2011 at 12:52 edit says:
Borderlands is a good example… except that I played it solo first (siren focusing on sniper rifles) and had a decent time. Then I jumped into co-op and hated it. It really cheapened the experience to me to see dudes jumping around punching enemies and acting ridiculously. When playing it alone I was able to suspend some disbelief and immerse myself a bit (although the game is not the most immersive anyway..), but with other people it suddenly felt arcadey and killed much of what I had enjoyed.
26/04/2011 at 10:50 vanilla bear says:
I wager that there’s been a word comprehension failure somewhere here, and all it means is that Valve doubt they’ll ever release another game that only has single player (i.e. Portal). In future their titles will usually have a coop mode, in whatever form works for the game (for Portal 2, that meant a separate coop campaign). Jim might be right though, maybe HL3 will be drop-in coop with Alyx and Gordon together all the way through (or if you want to play single player, Alyx will be AI as before).
26/04/2011 at 11:00 sakmidrai says:
Portal 2 is isolated because the player is totally alone in a huge facility with no other human beings or anything trully alive. HL games are not isolated…
Maybe someone already said that.
26/04/2011 at 11:08 JohnnyMaverik says:
Bah… I like isolated single player experiences.
26/04/2011 at 11:28 Urael says:
As do I.
PS: Kudos for the G’kar love.
26/04/2011 at 11:43 Vinraith says:
Indeed. Worse, Valve has enough clout within the industry to usher in a wave of anti-SP sentiment, which is the absolute last thing gaming needs.
Thank goodness for (non-multi-billion-dollar) indies.
26/04/2011 at 12:05 JohnnyMaverik says:
I know… and just as it looked like SP was starting to come back in as a viable “we’re doing this and only this” option (if your not making a modern military man-shoot).
28/04/2011 at 02:51 MrEvilGuy says:
I love games with a mixture of isolated gameplay and societally-integrated gameplay… Stalker for a quick example is successful at this.
26/04/2011 at 11:23 Urael says:
You know, sometime I think Valve unofficially squirt these kinds of vague, non-committal statements into the aether as a way of gauging fan response before they do anything officially, them being the game business scientists that they are. All I see are teams of Dr Kleiner-a-likes pouring over boards and forums, analysing our comments with incomprehensible science-widgets before feeding this data into the huge, gleaming databanks of their digital deity, GabeOs.
26/04/2011 at 11:24 frenz0rz says:
WHAT?!
A shame.
26/04/2011 at 11:50 dangermouse76 says:
Are Valve not developing a new engine. I thought I read they were making one called Black Mesa. And that episode 3 was coming on that.
I bloody hope so the loading screens on…..well most of their games are getting a bit immersion breaking for me.
26/04/2011 at 11:51 skinlo says:
Nope, don’t know where you heard that from.
26/04/2011 at 11:54 dangermouse76 says:
My dreams maybe ….? Well source sure needs an update for me it’s looking a bit tired.
Oh an my memory is bad it was this I had running through my head http://m.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a144179/diy-developing-the-black-mesa-project.html
A remake of HL1 by mod fans.
26/04/2011 at 11:58 skinlo says:
Really? I thought Portal 2 was looking reasonably good.
You have to remember the Source is engine is updated every game that comes out, the engine in Portal 2 is not the same as the engine in HL2.
Ah yes, I remember when they were first talking about that in 2004/5. Still hasn’t come out though.
26/04/2011 at 12:01 CMaster says:
Honestly, I still think that Source looks fine. Sure, some other engines look better, but the difference isn’t so much as to really jump out at me. But it’s fallen well behind its rivals in terms of ease of development and possibility. When Source came out, it was leading the way in open spaces, but now the scope of Source levels looks tiny compared to UE3 or Cryengine 2/3. It’s very pre-compile heavy as well, which isn’t good for iterating.
26/04/2011 at 12:05 dangermouse76 says:
I think Portal 2′s graphics are fine but is the loading screen part of the engine design. I seem to hit loading screens more often in Valve games.
Some were not at the lifts but going through a corridor once outside the test chambers. It’s not killing the game, but a company based so much on the power of the narrative it would seem a important thing to try to limit.
@cmaster
Read an interesting article suggesting that Modding on source although not dead by a long way is in decline because the SDK’s for UDK and cryengine, Unity etc are getting easier to use.
Basically people can make their own games from scratch easier now with these engines it is argued. I have no experience with them so cant say.
26/04/2011 at 12:53 killmachine says:
theres still quake1 code in source, which i find incredibly awsome. :D
26/04/2011 at 17:07 subedii says:
IIRC there’s still Quake 1 code in the Modern Warfare engine as well.
26/04/2011 at 20:07 ResonanceCascade says:
I think you’re confusing this with a semi-recent interview where Newell said that Valve’s primary focus at the moment was on new tools.
That, to me, hints that we’re going to see some major overhauls of Source post-Dota 2, but I don’t think we’ll see a legitimately new engine.
26/04/2011 at 21:30 Dervish says:
@CMaster
“When Source came out, it was leading the way in open spaces, but now the scope of Source levels looks tiny compared to UE3 or Cryengine 2/3″
You know Far Cry (and CryEngine 1) came out before HL2, right?
26/04/2011 at 21:32 CMaster says:
Far cry hadn’t particular occurred to me. Stuff like say, Delta Force etc had however.
The thing is that no 3rd parties ever used these engines, they were more made for a particular game.
26/04/2011 at 21:48 dangermouse76 says:
@ resonancecascade
I do remember that interview it was not that. It’s more likely that I confused a very old article about the Black Mesa MOD ( game ) that I put in my other post.
Scouring the net turns up nothing either. Source is a nice engine, but I am interested in where they are taking it in terms of usability given how essentially whole game creation SDK’s are getting closer and closer.
There is a near future where we can all build our own games with these engines. I find that very exciting. Like cameras going digital, creativity is being put into more and more hands.
That can only be a good thing.
26/04/2011 at 11:52 programmdude says:
If it is serious, then this is an end of me playing valve games.
26/04/2011 at 12:13 dangermouse76 says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulEisLcFEl4
You are rewarded with MGS2 game over.
26/04/2011 at 11:56 CMaster says:
Note that he does not say “definitely” just “probably”.
Also note that he says “isolated single player experience”. That could mean so many things, from Spore/Demons Souls style “massively single player”, through to designing all games to be coop-compatible but working single player á la Arcen Games, to featuring an online hat store in their SP games. Remember as well that despite the hopelessness that was L4D bots (and the further hopelessness that was L4D2), Valve have been putting a lot of work into better AI, mostly through TF2. I’ve been playing Swat 4 recently, and that’s a good example of a game that works well as SP, but can easily be expanded to coop (also, why-oh-why is the new XCOM based off Bioshock and not Swat 4? From the irrational back cataluge, one is so much a better match than the other) – and this is the line that Valve have been going down ever since Ep1 – away from the “lone wolf” FPS to having a or multiple buddies, AI or otherwise along for the ride.
26/04/2011 at 11:57 Dominic White says:
Wow, so many knees jerking in this comment thread, we could rival Stomp. Just gotta get that rhythm going!
It seems VERY highly unlikely that Valve are giving up singleplayer, story-based games, given that they’ve almost exclusively found success through them to this day, and are one of the things they’re most praised for. What seems most plausible is that they’re adding co-op elements to their future games so you can play through the campaign with a buddy, and it’ll likely acknowledge their presence in the story, too.
26/04/2011 at 14:20 Nalano says:
Tightly-tweaked level design is Valve’s bread and butter. Which is cause enough for alarm because, to put it quite simply:
Co-op play requires different level design than single play. Scripted events have to be looser, spaces have to be wider, puzzles have to be designed with two player in mind and pacing has to be made a lot faster. You can’t expect people to stop and smell the roses as much.
I understand that Valve could pull off co-op quite well. I see half of Portal 2, L4D, and Alien Swarm, and all their multiplayer games like CSS and TF2. But I don’t play the co-op half of Portal 2 and I got sick of all those games a while ago.
Of course, all told, I don’t see how this is such a big surprise to anybody, considering their last SP-only games were way back in 2007 and everybody’s been waiting since then like dogs for their masters to come home for the sequels.
26/04/2011 at 16:46 Soon says:
It’s not even necessarily co-op. “Un-isolating” the single player game could even mean your single player campaign is having some sort of effect on somebody else’s. You could be wandering around a game world being changed and suffering the impact of a deathmatch without interacting with those players directly. Maybe a sort of persistent world, only experienced individually, but affected by each player’s actions. Somebody assassinated the space emperor; he’s now dead in your game. That sort of thing.
Or be as simple as user-generated content in game, a la spore.
Half Life 3, could be an MMO. Who knows. Obviously, all speculation.
Coincidentally, these things mean piracy will seriously affect your game experience.
26/04/2011 at 17:34 Nalano says:
But how would that work for a game where you’re essentially the hero?
“Oh, sorry, the Big Bad is gone because some random douchebag from California beat him five hours after the game came out.”
26/04/2011 at 18:31 Soon says:
That’s for them to work out.
26/04/2011 at 18:45 Nalano says:
I can imagine the same principle applied to all sorts of games:
“No, your Simcity will not grow because the global economy is depressed. Try again in 20 years.”
26/04/2011 at 12:07 Stardog says:
The scariest part is that the 360 will probably be the lead platform. I wouldn’t mind if they just ended the HL series so they don’t taint it.
26/04/2011 at 12:11 Dominic White says:
Amazing how you’ve managed to infer that Valve are abandoning PC gaming and/or the Half-Life series from this comment. There’s a lot of very bizarre theories launching here.
26/04/2011 at 12:07 Subjective Effect says:
This is vague enough that we really shouldn’t read anything into it until we get more information.
I’d be happy for more co-op games on PC. Portal to MP was a blast. Co-op HL3 would be great – Gordon and Barney/Alyx. Yes!
26/04/2011 at 12:19 Monchberter says:
This sounds incredibly spurious, but i’m willing to hear Valve out on this.
If the intention is that a traditionally single player experience (such as Half-Life or Portal 2) will no longer be provided, then they will have their reasons. Mostly I imagine because there’s limited mileage in providing an experience that takes tens of thousands of man hours to put together only for most player to breeze through in under ten hours, complain and then never touch again.
Many series have died on their arse because the single player wasn’t strong enough an offer (hello Mirror’s Edge) as putting that much time and effort into something that doesn’t give you much return, or is just scathingly thrown back in your face is really not going to keep you afloat.
As for multi-player, it makes sense for them to concentrate on what people will play. I love the Half-Life series, and Portal AND Left4Dead and most of all Team Fortress 2. I have perhaps put about 100 hours max into playing through the ENTIRE Half-Life Series and it’s expansions. But i’ve put in over SEVEN HUNDRED HOURS into Team Fortress 2.
This sounds like a comment on playing habits and the financial reality of making triple A games today. Given the huge amount of effort needed to make a game with as much graphical fidelity and underlying prowess as Portal 2, you’re not going to really get more than ten hours of gameplay for the same effort that may have produced you thirty a decade ago. Additionally, going by numerous comments on game completion, in the wider scheme of things, only a minority of people who start a single player game ever finish it before they lose attention. Multiplayer modes have no ending, and coop keeps you involved through interaction with another person.
It’ll be a sad day to see the original Half-Life model die. But admit it, it’s a dinosaur now.
26/04/2011 at 12:31 Harlander says:
I admit no such thing!
Also, what does it matter to the company how long you spend playing something once you’ve bought it and paid them their money?
26/04/2011 at 14:27 Nalano says:
Four things:
TF2 has no subscription costs. Were it not for the micropurchases, TF2 would be little more than a loss leader for Valve. As was already pointed out: Who cares what you do with the box after you pay for it?
We just got through reading a retrospective on SMAC, and while that game has multiplayer elements, like any Civ game I didn’t give two twiddles about the multiplayer elements.
Mirror’s Edge was a failure? It sold two million copies and I got my 30 hours of enjoyment from it. What more is needed?
And finally, who cares that Mirror’s Edge isn’t a series? Why must we be stuck in sequelitis? I’d rather “flops” like Mirror’s Edge than blockbusters like CoD: Dead Horse Edition.
26/04/2011 at 14:44 Mman says:
“But admit it, it’s a dinosaur now.”
This is a silly statement to make, especially when it’s based on purely personal views. It’s almost the opposite for me. With very rare exceptions that stick out to me (TF2 being one) I rarely get more than five-ten hours out of an MP game before I’ve had my fun and move on. Conversely, I’ve probably got over a hundred hours out of Mirrors Edge (given it was supposed to be an example of some sort of disposable experience here), and hundreds of hours out of HL1 between replays and the many SP mods available for it (and the rare one that still comes along). Along with plenty out of HL2 as well. Among several others.
26/04/2011 at 14:46 JackShandy says:
“But i’ve put in over SEVEN HUNDRED HOURS into Team Fortress 2.”
Yes. Seven Hundered Hours in which you could of been playing over 30 full-price games. From a money perspective, games with long lifetimes aren’t too convincing.
26/04/2011 at 12:47 cytokindness says:
This statement makes sense considering Valve’s core focus is microtransactions. The simple and cheap-to-produce decorative items have minimal to no appeal in a single player environment. There’s no point in buying a hat if you can’t show it to someone, right?
It also intertwines with the decision to choose DOTA as a franchise to pick up – it’s basically microtransaction heaven. Buy new classes, buy stat boosting items, buy new skins, buy new decorations for existing classes.
26/04/2011 at 12:55 aerozol says:
I’m the only person who this makes happy huh?
That sounds exciting through and through, and it doesn’t sound like they’re just willy nilly ‘removing’ single player. Also sounds like something said to get them headlines… Success?
26/04/2011 at 13:31 Tei says:
“What this all means is something Newell is still trying to figure out.”
Translation to non-programmers:
What this all means, is that this is something Newell is still tryiing to figure out.
As in, he has still not idea how to put this piece of the puzzle with the others.
Somehow some people is translating the line to:
“All future games will be multiplayer, without a singleplayer component”.
Even if that where the case (I doubt it). is not what he is saying. Surprising enough, you can read No as No, and Yes as Yes, and we are toying with the idea as we are toying with the idea.
26/04/2011 at 13:42 jealouspirate says:
I really love isolated single player games. Multiplayer can be fun and has its place, but why does seemingly every game have to ship with a multiplayer component?
Hopefully, as others have said, this simply means their future games will all have co-op available but not necessary. As long as it’s done properly that can work. Unfortunately… it usually isn’t. You are typically either stuck with a stupid AI partner the whole time that you frustratingly micromanage, or co-op adds an ‘extra’ character while the story pretends it doesn’t exist.
26/04/2011 at 15:33 JKjoker says:
on one hand an outspoken minority just LOVES multiplayer, and this minority happens to be the majority in the net, and they spend their lives posting things like “what? no coop? what were they thinking!?” everywhere makings it look like they represent a much higher percentage of gamers than they really do
on the other hand mutiplayer is cheaper than single player, providing the setting and characters is much easier, no need for that much voice work and game events, maps are expected to be replayed many times so you dont need as many (and since there is no need for them to be connected by a story, or even if they are you can packet them in “acts”, you can always patch in/sell more), the AI is usually provided by humans so you can half ass on that and the fact you need to go online to use it provides a good excuse to tie in a DLC store engine so it makes a lot of sense to focus on the multiplayer component for publishers
what seems weird to me is that the quickly aging older gamer demographic (which tend to have jobs and more money) is often not willing to play multiplayer and have their asses handed back to them by 12 years old that have more time to practice or just want to spend the few free hours they having fun in a contained environment without having to deal with teabaggers/griefers/etc, are they really going to tell those high income gamers to gtfo ? is that really a good idea ?
i also find funny that, while there are several very successful mp games, for most of them the servers turn into ghost towns weeks after release, yet the mp oriented community seem to ignore this, wouldnt it be better to just forget mp and invest that time and resources on the sp part for these kind of games and have specialized games for mp instead (which is what they are already doing anyway) ?
26/04/2011 at 16:07 Nalano says:
Sorta like saying, “Mass Effect is selling like hotcakes and people love it to pieces, but you know what it really needs? A multiplayer component.”
No, it does not.
26/04/2011 at 16:14 Mman says:
“i also find funny that, while there are several very successful mp games, for most of them the servers turn into ghost towns weeks after release”
This is something I find weird about the push towards MP games in general; MP is among the most cut-throat style of games to make. When a developer brings something unique to MP and it fails that’s one thing (and unfortunate), but I’m utterly confounded how developers act surprised when their brilliant COD or Battlefield killer (sarcasm) is dead within a month and sales die. At least with SP there isn’t reliance on a continuously large community for success, and more chance for long-runner sales even if the initial launch isn’t great.
26/04/2011 at 14:00 Mario Figueiredo says:
No single-player, no opening my wallet. Simple as that.
26/04/2011 at 14:28 T4u3rs says:
“Oh! A speculative commentary about the most succesful developer ! [ I Click the link ]
“Oh! I have to pay $2 to read the true quote in its full context !” [I stare at the screen with my suspicious look]
26/04/2011 at 15:15 Kaira- says:
Eh, I wouldn’t mind. Valve has never made really great single player games in my opinion. On multiplayer games I’ve wasted more than enough time, though.
26/04/2011 at 16:11 Urael says:
You didn’t like Half Life?
26/04/2011 at 16:31 Kaira- says:
Half-Life 2 and it’s episodes were rather nice manshoots, but nothing about them really hits me in the right place, and what happens is quite forgettable imho. Well, except Ravenholm and the ending of episode 2. Maybe one day I’ll play the original Half-Life when I get a sudden strike of inspiration.
Portals were nice puzzle games, and the first one in my opinion was way better than second (haven’t touched the co-op of P2 yet), but neither of them really seems to have lasting appeal on me, though it is too early to say about P2 yet, but I don’t think I’ll replay it anytime soon.
26/04/2011 at 21:34 skinlo says:
=/
I’ve played Portal 2 three times already.
26/04/2011 at 15:43 Big Murray says:
Wait, I’m confused … Geoff Keighley has nothing to do with Valve, surely? Valve themselves haven’t said anything like this. Why are we all taking his speculation as gospel?
26/04/2011 at 16:03 Sassenach says:
I was confused by this also, but it appears while the quote belongs to a journalist independent of Valve, he was paraphrasing Gabe Newell. I agree that it still doesn’t seem much to draw a conclusion from, though.
26/04/2011 at 15:48 Serenegoose says:
Well, I don’t think that this alleged quote from Gabe means anything, and I’m shying away from attaching significance to a remark made in a relatively formal context, I will say this. You know what I didn’t think when I was playing through portal 2? I didn’t think “Wow, I really wish there was someone sitting across the room from me harassing me for not solving puzzles fast enough and getting pissed off when I wanted to listen to the dialogue and maybe explore a little and then quitting because I hadn’t already played this segment 4 times before and actually had to figure out what to do next.”
So I’m really hoping they don’t abandon the ability to play through a game alone. Fortunately, I don’t think they mean that in the slightest, because I don’t really think they mean anything in particular. I sincerely doubt Valve are going to make an announcement on the future of their company in a small documentary app released for the ipad.
26/04/2011 at 15:53 Dawngreeter says:
Hats for Ep3 confirmed. Differing from Portal 2, your co-op buddy won’t be able to see it either unless both of you are wearing the same hat, in which case you both get stat bonuses. Voice chat will be delayed and any communication containing the word ‘hat’ will be bleeped, as will text chat, to hinder your efforts to cheat the system by agreeing which hat you will wear.
26/04/2011 at 17:12 shoptroll says:
I wouldn’t read too much into this. It sounds like idle speculation from Gabe and people are latching onto it for some weird sensational reason.
That said, if I had to wager a guess as to what he’s referencing, does anyone remember The Crossing which was a cancelled project that blended single-player and multi-player? Maybe that’s not fully on hold or they scrapped the game but are retaining the technology for another project. Kinda like that “F-Stop” mechanic they mentioned recently.
26/04/2011 at 17:51 Srethron says:
The next Half-Life game will involve Gordan Freeman merging with an AI and becoming a gestalt consciousness that exists only in co-op. Each will be a floating invisible man, except for a single hand, glasses, and a goatee, which shall be visible. The hand is for crowbar-ing. Poised. Ever poised to strike. The mustache is for the mustache micro-transaction store, including a portal mustache through which a series of infinitely smaller mustaches can be seen. The glasses are so he can see. His vision isn’t the best.
When either player looks at the other, they will be able to see a kaleidoscopic horror, but none of the NPCs will. This is to emphasize the new mustache and beard physics. There will be four achievements: successfully being locked in a room while an NPC talks at you, smoothly tabbing out of the game in a crisp flourish during a loading screen, looking into your co-op partner’s mustache and hiding inside your own mustache to evade that one annoying person.
…or “isolated” could just mean all their games will ship with a Deathmatch mode. I could live with that.
26/04/2011 at 18:20 Basilicus says:
I’m so angry about the thing that no one knows what it means. How dare Valve maybe mean what I’ve conjectured? They’ve got to fix the thing they haven’t done yet!
26/04/2011 at 19:37 matrices says:
Game Informer, a publication whose history of accurate Valve-related predictions appears to reveal a closeness with the company, prophesied in January that Half Life 3 will be announced this year.
We shall see.
26/04/2011 at 19:45 geldonyetich says:
“We’re done making single-player experiences” sounds a bit like they’re flat out saying they’ve decided Half Life 2 Episode 3 has taken too long to make so they’ve given up and decided to let the series end.
27/04/2011 at 03:36 Gvaz says:
Sorry Valve, if you’re reading this, I’m not interested in an MP only game and I will go out of my way to not buy it.
Portal 2′s SP/COOP different stories is fine, because i’ll never play the coop part, but taking it out entirely means I won’t buy them
27/04/2011 at 08:36 soundofvictory says:
Honestly, Geoff, I doubt it.
I mean, this is definitely an interesting topic to discuss, but to pretend that Geoff’s comment is anything more than speculation or guesswork is a disservice to critical thinking. Just for clarification since some here do not seem to recognize it: this is not a statement from valve or an employee of valve.
I like to think that valve know the difference between a singleplayer game, a singleplayer game with some coop, and a game built from the ground up for coop. I trust them to make the best games they can make.
27/04/2011 at 10:33 Dhatz says:
turns our borderlands or brink are gonna be the way everyone wants.