There is a thing called Jira that Valve uses for project management. Everything they do is tracked on it, and last night it accidentally went public and OHMYGOD THERE’S A HALF-LIFE 3 TEAM ON IT! No Ricochet 2 team, however.
It’s the second indication in as many days that suggests Valve has decided to focus on Gordon’s journey, following the discovery of a trademark registration. The list has a core of ten developers (called “Half-Life 3 Core, that has Minerva modder Adam Foster, Counter-Strike’s Jesse Cliffe and others, as well as a further 46 in the “Half-Life 3” group. I borrowed some fingers and toes in the RPS Forbidden Chatroom of Mystery and came up with 56 developers. All those eyes and minds and fingers and elbows probably modelling crowbars as you read this.
It’s telling that I heard about an internal list of Half-Life 3 developers being discovered and immediately thought it was the beginnings of an ARG. Valve has gotten so good at manipulating me into seeing hints everywhere that a genuine flub on their network sent me on a scouring of forums to see if anyone had discovered hidden treasures and fun secrets. There is nothing, only the realisation that there is a team at Valve working on Half-Life 3, and that we don’t have a week of puzzles to solve. It’s almost disappointing.
Via NeoGaf.
02/10/2013 at 13:01 Totally heterosexual says:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAok cool
02/10/2013 at 15:31 CookPassBabtridge says:
Agreed :)
02/10/2013 at 15:33 Syra says:
I was more excited seeing jake the dog than the inevitable news that hl3 is being made. Okay cool sounds about right.
02/10/2013 at 20:48 hamburger_cheesedoodle says:
I can hear his voice even now!
02/10/2013 at 17:31 Shuck says:
An “eh” seems more appropriate. Half-Life 3 is in development? Well, yeah. Most likely Half-Life (2 episode) 3 has been in development continuously, with a variable team size, since the last installment was released. If everyone in the group is actively working on it full time (which is an assumption I’d be wary of making), it just indicates they’re serious about it (again). Which the seeking of the trademark already indicated. It could still be several years before we see anything, of course.
Edit: Er, I mean, HALF-LIFE 3 CONFIRMED!1!
02/10/2013 at 13:02 Tiax says:
What about Duke Nukem Forever 2 ?
02/10/2013 at 14:06 Alexander says:
Duke 2 is in dev at Gearbox.
02/10/2013 at 19:58 Tiax says:
Hurray.
02/10/2013 at 13:05 Tayh says:
Great.
Now can you please stop obsessing about it all the time, everywhere?
02/10/2013 at 13:09 Litany says:
no way pal 420 obsess about hl3 every day
02/10/2013 at 17:53 kregg says:
420 OBSESS IT GAMER
02/10/2013 at 20:52 Phendron says:
noscope killstreak dev team
02/10/2013 at 21:32 gwathdring says:
I love all of you.
02/10/2013 at 13:06 philbot says:
What if I told you… It’s just a game that’s in development?
02/10/2013 at 13:10 Dominare says:
Then I’d suggest you haven’t been playing the series thus far.
02/10/2013 at 13:47 boe2 says:
Half Life 2 was a good singleplayer shooter, but not the OMGBESTGAMEEVER shooter. In retrospect I got more fond memories of the first 2 bioshock games than from the Half Life games. Let’s be honest, we are talking about 10 hours of action gameplay here. Half Life and Half Life 2 on their own aren’t THAT special.
However: The sideprojects and modding communities that these games sparked have had a HUGE impact on PC gaming today. Counterstrike, Garry’s mod, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress and everything around those games would never have existed if it wasn’t for Half Life. It is the open nature of the HL games that teached gamers that buying a single game could prolong your game for many, many years. Without Valve, today there would be only very little PC games with official modding tools, because the demand would barely be there.
So HL3…meh, I’ll play it and most likely enjoy it too. It’s all the sidestuff that I’m excited about :). Native linux support is a given. Maybe with python supported modding/scripting tools? *wishful thinking*
02/10/2013 at 14:43 nasenbluten says:
I agree. I have fond memories of HL1, HL2 was just good, I enjoyed L4D more.
Valve games are shadowed by their own hype.
02/10/2013 at 14:51 Faxanadu says:
Bioshock came out almost 10 years after.
Half-Life came out in ’98. It was INSANE. You can play Half-Life today and not get bummed out by the way something is done. The AI’s aren’t running into walls and being complete morons! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!? It was 1998! You don’t put AI’s in an open terrain in 1998! You just don’t do it!
02/10/2013 at 16:31 Jimanzium The King says:
I don’t think the AI’s as good as you remember
02/10/2013 at 17:26 fish99 says:
And System Shock 2 came out 10 years before Bioshock (a year after HL) and was superior. Honestly I feel SS2 was more of a gaming milestone than HL1. HL set FPS games off in a linear scripted direction and is largely responsible for most of what is wrong with on rails modern shooters. Meanwhile SS2 gave you freedom and choices about how to play, but was… maybe too complex for the masses.
Interesting that the re-emergence of the SS2 model (in Bioshock) was greeted with such rapture, despite it being inferior to SS2. It was good but not the 2nd coming it was proclaimed as.
You can argue the original System Shock was even more innovative for it’s day.
02/10/2013 at 18:35 Mman says:
“I don’t think the AI’s as good as you remember”
It is, but I admit that’s more because there are only a few FPS that have meaningfully built on it.
02/10/2013 at 18:39 waltC says:
Half-Life was surely a great game in its day…that said, Half-Life source is much better, still. And hopefully, you are aware that the HL you play on Steam today is not the same HL that shipped in ’98….? Valve has improved many things about it over the years–as well they should have.
Half-Life 2 single-player was a masterpiece, imo. Like a shot in the dark it came from seemingly nowhere and was way ahead of anything else shipping at the time. Then things began to get strange around Valve…with the advent of Steam and the “Episodic” adventure–which episodes obviously have petered out and run out of steam (oh, brother.)
I don’t want to hear about Ubuntu 12.03+ with a Valve-themed front end, and about x86 PC’s with “SteamOS” decals glued all over them. No thanks. I want Half-Life 3. Single player. And I expect it to blow away HL2. Got a real question about this finding, though…What in blazes took Valve so long to trademark HL3? Just now making up its mind to do a HL3? I hope not–I really, really hope it’s all done and almost ready to come out like another shot in the dark.
02/10/2013 at 23:18 chabuhi says:
I want HL2:EP3 and THEN HL3.
No fair cutting straight to HL3, Valve!
03/10/2013 at 10:30 Apocalypse says:
If the demos of Killzone 4 are any indication Half-Life 1 has still the better AI ;-)
03/10/2013 at 10:34 Mman says:
“Half-Life source is much better”
Half-life Source is a bad port that screws up many subtle things in terms of physics and similar that add together to make the game mechanics more awkward and remove flavour from the game (like the quiet HL2 footstep sounds that don’t fit HL1 at all).
Not to mention that the vast majority of the changes Valve made over the years are for stuff like stability, optimisation and bug fixing. They sure didn’t rewrite the AI or anything.
02/10/2013 at 15:06 skalpadda says:
Well, Half Life was genre defining so yes it certainly was THAT special at the time it came out. HL2 also did a lot of stuff that had never been seen before and at the time it was released the Source engine was only really rivalled by id tech 4. It was the first 3D game to use physics in any meaningful way and the facial animations are some of the best in gaming to this day.
02/10/2013 at 15:07 dazman76 says:
I was with you, up to the point where you possibly suggested that Bioshock may have been a better shooter than HL2. Now, this is obviously highly subjective, but shit me backwards on a Wednesday – I hope I misunderstood. Aside from much preferring HL2’s “non-shooter attributes” to both Bioshocks, I thought the Bioshock games were two of the most terrible shooters I’d ever played. Horrible sloppy controls, guns that have no character or heft or feel to them, totally useless and primitive AI. Yikes. If you really did mean to compare the shooter element, I can only imagine we have very different ideas about how a good shooter should feel and play :) Which is fine obviously, but I still think you should be burned at the stake. Sorry! :)
When I put the solid shooter element and the storytelling together, and mix in the depth, breadth and length of the game – I honestly find it hard to compare any other titles. Remember, Valve did this years before other FPS developers achieved the same overall package and quality – TWICE. I was an id fanboy through and through, but I still had to face the fact that HL1 blew everything that had come before it totally out of the water. I genuinely believe it continued to do so up until HL2 was (finally) released, at which point the baton was passed on. I’ve never actually felt that I got quite so much enjoyment and sheer quality from another FPS since. I could happily fire it up now, and play the whole thing again for the christ-knows-how-many-th/nd time. I honestly cannot say the same for any other straight-up FPS in my collection. Note that with “straight-up” I’m excluding games like Deus Ex : HR which I love, but not for the shooting, which I do not love in the slightest :)
02/10/2013 at 15:31 boe2 says:
Well, both press and user ratings on Bioshock disagree with you :p
Granted, opinions are personal and all, but I find it a bit hard to have a discussion about gameplay with someone that calls bioshock the most terrible shooter he’s ever played.
02/10/2013 at 15:35 Lagwolf says:
Certainly the combat in Bioshock Infinity was not really that great. Story-wise Bioshock is more intriguing than HL2. However game-play wise it is the other way round methinks.
02/10/2013 at 16:15 Faxanadu says:
“Well, both press and user ratings on Bioshock disagree with you :p”
Huh, no they don’t. HL2 is rated higher by more people/publishers.
I don’t understand what was amazing about Bioshock. Controls average, story, well I don’t know because I got bored halfway, gameplay, grindy, “collect stuff and then some more”… Powers, blast some ice and stuff, wow innovative….. Brought anything new to the table? Nope. Setting was awesome, that’s about it. (Edit: Obviously not talking about infinity.)
02/10/2013 at 17:32 djbriandamage says:
Very well said, dazman76. I thought Bioshock was a good game weighed down by lousy shooting and puzzles. I wish that whole series was point-and-click adventures that kept the story and tone and ditched everything else.
The inverse is true of Infinite. I really enjoyed the shooting but the rest seemed nonsensical and superfluous.
Half Life 2 might not be the best of anything but it’s exceptionally great at everything. It’s cohesive and thought-provoking and has equal parts thrills and thoughtfulness. HL2 is certainly my favourite story-oriented shooter.
03/10/2013 at 12:45 dazman76 says:
@boe2 – I have a feeling any ratings for Bioshock 1/2 are more about the story, the setting, the environments – all of which I had no problem with. The shooting however – the controls, the weapons, the movement, the AI – I simply couldn’t put that on the same level as HL1/HL2, and indeed a good few other FPS games. I personally feel the Bioshock games were built from the start, as storytelling vehicles – and that’s fine, for that kind of game. HL on the other hand, always felt like a shooter first – the controls were sharp, the weapons were weighty with excellent audio, and the AI was up to the job. Bioshock was, in my opinion at least, a simple procession of very dumb standard enemies, broken only by the bullet-sponge Big Daddy’s. I can’t really see that as a good recipe for a shooter, to be honest. The HL AI isn’t exactly a pool of genius, but it still proves to be more engaging and challenging than many shooters that followed it – again that is just my opinion, but I do find it hard to understand how people could put BS above HL when it comes to the shooter part of the experience.
02/10/2013 at 23:13 Continuity says:
Half-life was pretty damn special in its day, its easy to look at it now and think its run of the mill, but compare it to its contemporaries and you will see that half-life was the birth of the modern single player FPS.
03/10/2013 at 10:31 Apocalypse says:
Kids these days.
04/10/2013 at 08:13 scatterbrainless says:
Got to agree that I didn’t find HL2 as amazing as most, it seems. It didn’t seem to be furthering any of the impressive changes to shooter DNA that many other games of the time were attempting such as the rpg mashup of Deus Ex, or the open world of Far Cry: it was “straight” shooter. Which would be fine, except that I found the shooter element sadly lacking. Aside from the gravity gun, I found most of the weapons un-creative and unsatisfying, and a large number of the enemies deeply boring; although reactivity and movement were well done. It certainly had some amazing strengths in its set pieces, aesthetic design and characterization (not to mention that damn gravity gun, one of the best weapons ever created); however its setting and enemies ultimately felt poorly fleshed-out, which failed to give me a sufficient sense of the import of my actions, with hints of depth that the straight shooter structure gave little room to fully explore.
While I absolutely expect HL3 to be a top-notch quality product, I can’t see them changing the series’ basic formula of linear shooter for fear of alienating its many fans, and as such I find it hard to be excited about a game that is constrained by the weight of expectation from really pushing the limits and possibilities of the genre. Of course, I could be completely taken by surprise by some magic-Valve-Jesus-Gandalf brilliance, in which case I hope my mediocre levels of hype will allow me the opportunity to be completely mindblown in ways that the rabidly anticipating hordes are not.
02/10/2013 at 14:12 ZillaRacing says:
i don’t think suggest means what you think it means.
02/10/2013 at 15:18 Donjo says:
You definitely have a point with modding, I remember constantly searching for new HL1 single player mods, some of which are fondly remembered. But in 1998 nothing like HL1 existed.
02/10/2013 at 15:41 philbot says:
Well, yes I have. I rather enjoyed them, and they were great games worthy of their praise. There have been other great games. The hype has clouded all of Valve’s announcements for the last 10 years though; they can’t make announcement without at least 20% of the discussion being crazy HL3 conspiracies.
02/10/2013 at 14:03 Panda Powered says:
It’s the second comming of the second comming of Lord Gaben. Prepare your wallets.
02/10/2013 at 13:06 Tom Walker says:
We use JIRA where I work – I’d be interested to see what Valve’s one looks like. Surely someone somewhere must have screen-captured the HL3 scrum overview…
… anyone?
02/10/2013 at 13:11 LionsPhil says:
Given some of their cock-ups from reading the Steam release notes, I’m kind of surprised they don’t just have a folder labelled “code and stuff” somewhere on a Windows network share from someone’s old desktop box.
Alright, alright. Maybe as much as Visual SourceSafe.
02/10/2013 at 13:13 InternetBatman says:
They went way safer than that. All their code is hidden in a folder called accounting.
02/10/2013 at 13:14 Gap Gen says:
I went to a talk by the Creative Assembly tools guy, and he said that originally Shogun development was just one big folder everyone had access to, and in Empire they actually had no idea what assets were being used, resulting in the install being inflated by some ridiculous amount because they were afraid to break the game while cleaning up. So yeah, not completely surprising.
02/10/2013 at 14:28 MichaelGC says:
They have a screenshot on Eurogamer:
link to eurogamer.net
02/10/2013 at 14:38 Tom Walker says:
Yeah, I saw that, thanks.
That seems to be the only one anybody has, though. If the site was publicly accessible for even a few minutes you’d expect there to be photos of practically every page of it.
Without wanting to go into a boring explanation of how this particular bit of project management software works, that’s not really the page I wanted to see.
02/10/2013 at 14:29 Tyrmot says:
This is actually quite old news…. I think this was already picked up in June this year: link to valvetime.net
02/10/2013 at 14:40 thewellis says:
We use JIRA as well (short for Gojira if anyone is interested on pronunciation) and it doesn’t strike me as odd that they’d have the groups. You tend to create groups for project proposals as well as actual development so people know what’s on the horizon and what might be on the horizon. Two groups, one general one core, is interesting though.
Wonder what their dev setup is?
02/10/2013 at 18:27 phuzz says:
JIRA is much better than the fucking mess that is osTicket.
02/10/2013 at 13:09 cpt_freakout says:
IT’S GOING TO BE AN MMO, CONFIRMED BY THE GEOCITIES SUPPORT FORUM
[nice find by the way]
02/10/2013 at 13:10 RedViv says:
Well there were THREE announcements made and now we have THIS and the COPYRIGHT thing, which means those are THREE hints so it’s confirmed!
02/10/2013 at 13:11 Utsunomiya says:
I rose and shone inside a little.
02/10/2013 at 13:11 Gap Gen says:
I love that one of the linked articles is “Is Alpha Centauri Set To Return?”, as if there’s a nexus of wishfulness that is sucking in every license that people miss from a decade ago.
02/10/2013 at 13:12 XhomeB says:
So… who else loved HL1, but found HL2 severely disappointing? I can’t be the only one.
The orginal felt less on rails (and more “grounded” when it comes to the main theme of the story – all hell breaks loose, try to survive), didn’t constantly lock you in small rooms, forcing you to listen to hours of exposition, didn’t have countless ludicrously boring sections dragging on and on (sewers; driving etc.) or obligatory tutorials (hey, here’s a new gun, let’s teach you how to use it). Oh, and the puzzles were so much better – some of them required you to think for a second, at least.
02/10/2013 at 13:20 BTAxis says:
I wouldn’t call HL2 “severely disappointing”, but I wasn’t that impressed by it. As such I don’t really understand the whole HL3 sentiment that seems so prevalent on the Internet.
02/10/2013 at 14:09 XhomeB says:
I guess the term “severy disappointing” is unjustified, my mistake. “OK when judged on its own merits, disappointing compared to the original” would be better.
02/10/2013 at 13:23 Yosharian says:
Nobody else, everyone else but you is more excited about this than words can convey, sorry bro
02/10/2013 at 17:30 fish99 says:
Speak for yourself.
02/10/2013 at 13:38 Mman says:
I think Half-Life 1 is better than HL2, but HL2 is still my second favourite FPS. I also think the episodes fixed a lot of the issues I did have with HL2 (including some of the stuff you mentioned), and, to me, showed that Valve know what they’re doing and is listening to feedback.
02/10/2013 at 13:40 Zekiel says:
I loved it – even playing it (for the first time) 5 years after release. But then I wasn’t the biggest fan of Half-Life (1) – liked it, didn’t love it. (In fairness I kept getting stuck in lifts for some reason, which isn’t everyone’s experience.)
02/10/2013 at 13:40 Volcanu says:
I wouldnt go quite as strong as you, but I do agree that Half Life 1 made the greater impression on me. I thoroughly enjoyed HL2 but didnt find the story/art direction/ world particularly engaging, in fact they were a bit generic.
I guess HL1 was so amazing an experience when it first came out, especially compared to the single player experiences of the FPS genre to that point, that I probably paper over it’s flaws with a thick veneer of nostalgia.
I have to say that Black Mesa remains an iconic game locale for me in a way that City 17 never quite managed.
Cant wait for HL3 though!
02/10/2013 at 13:45 PostieDoc says:
I was going to agree with you but then ZOMG Ravenholm!
02/10/2013 at 14:01 Volcanu says:
I remember Ravenholm being a tense, horrible, at times scary place that I was glad to see the back of. But other than that I cant recall much in the way of specific images, encounters, places with in it and so on, in contrast with huge chunks of HL1 that I recall vividly.
Thats sort of HL2 in a nutshelI for me. I remember enjoying the experience, but I can’t really recall too many of the details- it just didnt make the same lasting impression on me…
03/10/2013 at 11:32 Apocalypse says:
Imo this change by a lot if you include the Half-Life 2 episodes into the whole experience. But to be fair Opposing Forces and Blue-Shift were both great additions to the fantastic and innovative game that half-life 1 was.
And anyway, half-life 1 changed FPS and how we look at them forever. Half-Life 2 did nothing like that, the greatest addition to half-life 2 was havoc, and that was used already in halo before. Still I love Alyx and how facial expressions were done in HL2. The half-life 2 just did not re-define the genre, unlike half-life did.
02/10/2013 at 14:06 XhomeB says:
Ravenholm felt like a level tossed in solely for the sake of “variety” and the “boo” factor. It wasn’t coherent with the rest of the game AT ALL. It’s like someone made it in his spare time and Gabe decided “hey, put this in at some point”. Also, it’s not like it was special in any way apart from the overall shift in atmosphere.
02/10/2013 at 15:24 Doomsayer says:
I’d think more than one person made Ravenholm, and the only justification I feel it needs is that it’s fun with zombies and the gravity gun.
02/10/2013 at 17:20 Lemming says:
It’s weird that you felt the need to single out Ravenholm as every level is like that in Half-Life 2. That’s why it’s such a great game. By the time you’ve gone through everything saying how “x was such a gimmick in that level”, you’ve covered the whole game.
02/10/2013 at 17:32 fish99 says:
Ravenholm felt just weird and out-of-place to me. The gravity gun stuff was fun, but the spooky setting and weird enemies felt like they belonged in another game. They didn’t sit well next to the sci-fi weapons and human struggle against oppression scenario.
02/10/2013 at 17:37 Lemming says:
Half-Life always had horror elements though. If the info is to be believed, even more horror was left on the cutting-room floor or shelved for later in the story. Check the half-life wiki for ‘Cremator’, for example.
02/10/2013 at 13:52 Jack Mack says:
“The orginal felt less on rails ”
Pure nostalgia.
02/10/2013 at 13:54 Volcanu says:
Ironic that it even had a section entitled “On a rail”…
02/10/2013 at 15:47 AbigailBuccaneer says:
I’d regularly replay HL1 if it weren’t for On A Rail. I don’t have that kind of patience.
02/10/2013 at 17:21 Lemming says:
Give Black Mesa a go instead. They cut On a Rail down completely for that reason. I’d advise checking the community for configs though, as they love the crouch-jump waaaay too much in that mod.
02/10/2013 at 17:27 Volcanu says:
^ I read that as “crotch jump” momentarily there.
02/10/2013 at 21:35 gwathdring says:
^ An alternative nomenclature referring to the fact that the jump is properly executed when you tuck your knees so as to put for feet where your crotch was formerly.
02/10/2013 at 14:01 XhomeB says:
Oh boy, do I love the “nostalgia” argument.
A:”Quake had an infinitely better level design than CoD!”
B:”WTF man, that’s pure nostalgia, remove those rose tinted glasses”
Yeah, how about no…
Granted, HL1 did feel linear, no argument there, but I never felt so guided compared to HL2. The puzzles in HL1 made you return to certain parts of a level sometimes (which helped Black Mesa feel like an actual place). HL2 for the most part always makes you move from point A to point B, and like I mentioned, loves to lock you in rooms, which completely kills the pacing.
I replayed both fairly recently (including the Black Mesa remake), and I stand by my opinion. The original is MUCH better designed.
02/10/2013 at 14:03 Mman says:
Not really. It’s still more linear than FPS games generally were at that time, but there are entire sections of levels you can miss at various points (ironically the chapter called “On a Rail” probably has the most examples of that). Whereas in HL2 the Coastal levels are basically the only parts where there’s notable missable content (as in, more than an alcove with a crate in it) for not exploring.
Edit: I also forgot to mention that the periodic backtracking and interlinking the game makes you do also gives the impression of the game being in more a world (regardless of if that’s true or not), which is done more rarely in HL2.
02/10/2013 at 14:31 empyrion says:
I actually played HL2 before I did the original and found HL1 to be pretty disappointing. Maybe there’s some message in there somewhere. Anyway, I can imagine that the original must have been a bigger deal especially when comparing both titles to the other shooters around at their respective release dates.
02/10/2013 at 14:40 Mman says:
The message is that you liked one game and didn’t like another.
02/10/2013 at 15:21 Oozo says:
Funny. I thought that the driving section was the best part of the game. Was it Jim who once mentioned that “Half-Life 2” basically was the closest we got to a Road Story in a game yet? (With the coop-mod turning it into a buddy Road Story…)
See, I have played the game about two years ago for the first time. Far from the initial hype, I thought it to be a very enjoyable game, ground-breaking in a historical sense, maybe, but mostly just a very, very well-constructed game. Like somebody up above said, I don’t remember a lot of details (and I can’t understand why people were so upset about the cliffhanger — the plot of the game seemed to be one of the least interesting things to it.)
But then, just the other day, I found myself on a hike in the mountains, all by myself. It was a rather spectacular path, with lots of gorgeous sights and tunnels, and at one place, I had to climb a railroad bridge, and cross it. (One looking like that: link to tinyurl.com) And there, all of a sudden, the game I thought to remember very vaguely at best, produced a fully formed and very vivid memory — of course, the one of the bridge-section on Highway 17. I went home, installed the game again, and played the whole Highway-part. It held up very well. I didn’t care about the story. But the levels, the environments, they still are spectacular.
So much so that I honestly have to ask myself: For all the talk about it having become obsolete, which games did actually surpass it in what it did there (meaning, an honest to god FPS journey that feels like travelling)? It’s an honest question… any suggestions?
02/10/2013 at 21:39 Boarnoah says:
I agree with you, I played HL2 for the first time earlier this year and the driving and boating section were the most memorable for me from the whole game. Really loved the feeling of traveling through a deserted land, which oddly enough I never felt playing something like Fallout.
02/10/2013 at 16:46 GapToothedGipsy says:
Black Mesa was just a great place, HL2 was good, but too broad in its environments.
02/10/2013 at 21:37 gwathdring says:
I liked the broadness. It felt more like a journey or a quest.
02/10/2013 at 17:23 Lemming says:
I love the whole Half-Life series, but I replay HL2 far more than I replay HL1.
03/10/2013 at 11:36 Apocalypse says:
Same, and I still think that the first game was the more important game, its just that its level design and story pacing is not as streamlined.
02/10/2013 at 17:29 Napalm Sushi says:
I played both games right when they came out.
HL1 took a long time to engage me and left me thinking “well, that was decent, but this much fuss?”
HL2 gripped me from the outset and left me with the most giant, shit-eating grin.
Maybe it’s the more surreal, escapist setting of HL2 that appeals more. Maybe it’s the fact that HL2 ended with the Citadel rampage while HL1 ended with Xen. The fact that I played HL1 on a computer that struggled with it may also be a contributing factor. Either way, just reading this post is tempting me to blast through HL2 again. I’ve never felt any such urge to do the same with HL1.
02/10/2013 at 17:44 Enkinan says:
They were both amazing at release. The real thing that set 2 apart for me though was the inclusion of Portal and TF2. Talk about a bargain. These are still 3 of the best games ever made in my opinion. It was also the release of Steam, which has changed the face of game distribution forever.
02/10/2013 at 20:53 The Random One says:
I hated all of them
All of them.
Episode 1 was the least awful. I almost had fun playing it.
02/10/2013 at 13:13 skyturnedred says:
Cool. Let me know when it comes out, ok?
02/10/2013 at 16:59 cunningmunki says:
There is only one news service you need to follow for that, my friend: link to twitter.com
02/10/2013 at 13:24 hlm2 says:
‘Accidentally’….sure.
02/10/2013 at 13:28 phelix says:
Same as all those “leaked” prerelease footage videos that have all the dev and publisher logos in them and a big subtitle “ALPHA FOOTAGE – NOT INDICATIVE OF FINAL GAMEPLAY”. Surely, this was leaked and neeeever meant to be seen by the great public.
02/10/2013 at 17:01 cunningmunki says:
A series of intentional leaks leading up to an official announcement, or sheer coincidence? Granted, there’s only been two ‘leaks’ so far, but maybe, oh Christ, just maybe…
02/10/2013 at 13:26 Yosharian says:
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
02/10/2013 at 13:28 Yosharian says:
IM READY GABE
02/10/2013 at 13:28 bstard says:
Spooky news. Now LETS WHINE BOUT PART 4!
02/10/2013 at 13:29 Nemon says:
Half life 3 speculation confirmed!
02/10/2013 at 13:30 KingFunk says:
I’ll be waiting on a statement from Gordon himself…
02/10/2013 at 14:30 Alexander says:
He’s not really that vocal.
02/10/2013 at 14:32 KingFunk says:
Indeed. Actions speak louder than words. Especially actions performed using a crowbar.
02/10/2013 at 21:38 gwathdring says:
Also that “WA-TCHUUNG” noise the gravity gun makes. That’s pretty loud AND active!
02/10/2013 at 13:35 Dudeist says:
confirmed, another proof:
link to i.imgur.com
02/10/2013 at 17:33 Lemming says:
that’s an ad for an insurance company.
02/10/2013 at 13:38 Spidy09 says:
I never thought I’d see this day in my lifetime, finally, HL3 is kinda sorta legitimately speculatively confirmed (maybe).
02/10/2013 at 13:39 kupocake says:
Four months ago called, wonders why you’re all so excited.
link to valvetime.net
(Remembering of course that you covered it under the title “Of Course Valve Are Working On Half-Life 3, Now Shush”. I suggest making this editorial policy.)
02/10/2013 at 13:54 Panda Powered says:
Oh well, it was fun as long as it lasted. Time to start working on H4lf-life jokes.
02/10/2013 at 21:08 Rublore says:
It will start out being called H4lf-Life, but the fan reaction will cause them to call it just “Half-Life”, and it will be styled as a reboot, or a retelling, or possibly a sequel with an entirely illogical name. Then they will announce that they’re changing the voice actor for Gordon Freeman to someone who can perform the required motion capture, and that they’ll be adding bullet time, and you won’t be forced to play as a scientist fighting for survival (though it will be encouraged). At which point people will pretty much give up on it.
03/10/2013 at 07:17 KwisatzHaderach says:
Second Life!
04/10/2013 at 12:36 Panda Powered says:
Your Cynic-Fu is overpowering!
02/10/2013 at 13:57 Jack Mack says:
It’s a bit much to post an article saying “Of Course Valve Are Working On Half-Life 3, Now Shush”, and then post articles that are surprised and elated to announce that valve are working on half-life 3.
02/10/2013 at 15:28 Doomsayer says:
Not really. We knew Valve was doing something with HL3, but now we actually have numbers and more info. This is actual news.
02/10/2013 at 16:22 Merus says:
Yeah, but there’s a core team of ten or so, which suggests that while it’s in development it’s nowhere near done. Portal 2 got up to 120 or so, if I recall. Which fits the scuttlebutt that suggested Half-Life 3 was delayed while Valve worked out how to make a manshoot that was compelling to them.
02/10/2013 at 14:09 schlusenbach says:
Now what will I do when they make it SteamOS-exclusive? That would be the dickiest move of a game company of all time. Probably.
02/10/2013 at 14:15 pilouuuu says:
Probably install SteamOS in your PC and play the game? It will probably be less annoying to have a dual-boot PC than installing rubbish like Origin or Ubiplay.
02/10/2013 at 15:24 basilisk says:
Yes. It’s definitely much less annoying to close everything and reboot your computer than to launch an executable.
02/10/2013 at 15:32 Horg says:
They wont make HL3 a SteamOS exclusive. Even if they have a pet operating system in the pipes, their core business is Windows PC and that wont change any time soon.
02/10/2013 at 17:20 nrvsNRG says:
Yeah! Fuck ObamaCare!
02/10/2013 at 14:21 XhomeB says:
They already did it once (gave everyone the finger, I mean) – tied HL2 and Counter-Strike to the trash Steam was at the time, I won’t be surprised if Gabe decides to do this again. He knows Valve is the only company that can get away with things like this.
02/10/2013 at 14:13 pilouuuu says:
Jake lives in a post-apocalyptic world called Ooo, which funnily enough has three letters. Half-Life is about a post apocalyptic world. Half-Life 3 totally confirmed!
02/10/2013 at 14:16 engion3 says:
will i say hallelujah, will i be able to speak at all, i can only imagineeee
02/10/2013 at 14:21 Spinoza says:
True Story : I bought Orange Box , installed steam , played HL 2 and … did not like it that much. I do think its something wrong with me though.
02/10/2013 at 17:29 Lemming says:
How far did you get?
02/10/2013 at 17:33 MadTinkerer says:
You should play through the episodes as well. Mentally a lot of us fans lump the episodes in with the main game because it’s all canon, and sometimes forget the improvements made in the Episodes weren’t all retroactively applied to the main HL2 experience. Some of it was (OB engine applied to almost all Source games, ep2 Vort models appearing in HL2 levels, etc.), but the levels stayed the same. Later, in the Episodes, you get Helpful, Smarter, Not-So-Pushy Alyx, more new interesting enemies, even better set pieces, and even some new characters.
Plus, when you get to the end of Ep2, and go back and listen to the commentaries for what was originally planned for Ep3, then you’ll realize the massive anticipation for the next part of the series.
02/10/2013 at 14:24 chiablo says:
There’s less than positive press about our hardware solution? Hurry, distract them!
02/10/2013 at 15:32 Horg says:
The Piston has nothing to do with Valve.
02/10/2013 at 17:35 fish99 says:
Probably meant the pad.
02/10/2013 at 18:51 Horg says:
I doubt it, most of the complaints about the pad are from the public who can’t imagine how a controller can function without thumb sticks. The overall press response was cautiously optimistic. The Piston, however, has had more current press releases and is being universally panned.
02/10/2013 at 14:28 CookPassBabtridge says:
All the people claiming to be too cool to care will devolve into pure squeeing pant explosions the moment they click that “install game” button. Admittedly this will be in the same year that hoverboards are invented, but nonetheless. Release that inner child from the weight of years of dashed dreams and frantic, fruitless ARGing. They will be waiting for you. In the test chamber..
02/10/2013 at 16:14 Panda Powered says:
On the other hand – 6+ years of hype after Episode 2 and people build up lots and lots of hype.
If HL3 is just Ep. 3 with shinier pixels a lot of people will say “Not enough!” and if they change to much the other side of the camp will scream “To much enough!”.
02/10/2013 at 18:00 CookPassBabtridge says:
There will be pant squee. Mark my words
03/10/2013 at 11:39 Apocalypse says:
Half-Life 3 include enemy AI that will pass a turning test. That is the whole reason the game is delayed so much. They have trouble to contain the AI to just the game.
02/10/2013 at 14:32 DatonKallandor says:
“that has Minerva modder Adam Foster”
I really hope they let him do whatever the hell he wants. His level design and the way it tricks the Source engine into not being crappy for linear FPS games is incredible. If him working on it means we get the kind of backwards curved and highly vertical maps Minerva had it’ll be awesome. And maybe not need to load every 3 minutes.
02/10/2013 at 20:51 hamburger_cheesedoodle says:
I was going to say the same thing. Well, not the same thing, I actually quite love HL2 despite its linearity, but I played Minerva for the first time a few months ago, and I was blown away; it’s got better level design than HL2, or almost any commercial game release I’ve ever played for that matter. If Foster is in charge of level design, HL3 is in good hands.
02/10/2013 at 14:53 fitzroy_doll says:
There is no way it will live up to expectations.
02/10/2013 at 15:37 Horg says:
My expectation is a really solid horror / survival themed shooter building on what worked well from the previous HL games, continuing where HL2 left off and demonstrating clever new engine tech. Call me unambitious if you want, but I cannot see why anyone would expect them to under deliver on that manifesto. They are 2 for 2 so far.
02/10/2013 at 16:40 MrUnimport says:
If you count the Episodes, it’s more like 2 and a half for 4?
02/10/2013 at 17:09 Horg says:
I liked both episodes. They both suffered from being too short for the price tag, but they had some of the most memorable game play moments of the series.
02/10/2013 at 17:19 MadTinkerer says:
I expect it to be at least as good as HL1 and 2, very good FPSs which heavily borrowed elements from adventure games and movies. Does that mean I’m too hyped?
02/10/2013 at 18:08 Contrafibularity says:
Way.
02/10/2013 at 14:54 Leprykon says:
I have faith in Gabe. It will be cancelled.
02/10/2013 at 14:56 povu says:
“accidentally”
02/10/2013 at 15:54 Tuor says:
We’re waiting for you, Gordon, in the *Test chamber*.
02/10/2013 at 18:01 CookPassBabtridge says:
Heh. That gives me tingles
02/10/2013 at 16:47 Twist says:
What I find curious is that two people I was sure would be working on Half-Life 3 are not listed on either list (as far as I can tell): Doug Church (System Shock, Thief) and Clint Hocking (Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, Far Cry 2).
Given their experience, design preference and reputation, I figure they must be working on some kind of innovative singleplayer experience. If not Half-Life 3, then what?
02/10/2013 at 17:25 Lemming says:
I can understand Valve’s trepidation. The formula was getting a little tired in Episode 2. Not the story, not the set pieces, not the production values but things like the weapons. It’s been so long since we had any new ones, yet it would seem forced to not have things like a shotgun, so what can they do, really?
02/10/2013 at 17:50 MrUnimport says:
They could not use the same model, animations, and sound effects for one thing.
02/10/2013 at 17:51 Enkinan says:
Combine Portal and Half-Life?
Duh
02/10/2013 at 19:27 Ninja Foodstuff says:
That would be pretty amazing. I actually thought there was going to be a game like that at one point.
02/10/2013 at 17:51 squareking says:
HL3 has no choice but to rip off COD in every way possible. Because that’s where we are today with big-studio FPS, and that’s where the money is.
Oh, I just woke up! What a terrible dream.
02/10/2013 at 18:03 pilouuuu says:
Or they can make something so amazing that will make COD seem even worse. Which is what probably is going to happen.
02/10/2013 at 18:05 Rockman says:
I’m slightly worried that you are implying the gravity gun got old…
That thing could be the only weapon in the game and it would still be awesome x10^400
Don’t even lie to me and say you disagree or it’s obvious you never played it.
02/10/2013 at 23:43 Lemming says:
No, I’m not implying that, but when you’ve played HL2 + episodes back-to-back as often as I have, you start to get a bit ho-hum about losing weapons only to find the same ones again by the time you reach the later parts. By episodes 2 its ‘oh yeah, the shotgun’. when right at the start of Hl2 it’s ‘Oh yeah! The shotgun!’
02/10/2013 at 18:21 rustybroomhandle says:
Gordon’s alive!
02/10/2013 at 18:36 Tuor says:
Forget about Freeman. We’re pulling out!
02/10/2013 at 19:02 CookPassBabtridge says:
Well, this has made me download MINERVA via steam at least. Played the old version and it was awesome, will be great to see what a current worker-on-half-life-3 has made recently
02/10/2013 at 19:06 HisDivineOrder says:
If Valve wanted to “announce” Half-Life 3 without actually announcing it, then this is how they’d do it. They’d suffer a few “leaks” that showed people something that they could then run with while not making any comment themselves because to do so would be to invite more questions that they absolutely don’t want to answer.
This way, people run wild and talk about the possibility without the certainty. Certainty breeds a certain ticking clock to boredom.
02/10/2013 at 21:53 zapatapon says:
Since we are in the realm of baseless speculations and wishful thinking: what would be very cool is if Source 2 included some kind of voxel engine (à la Everquest Next). Wouldn’t that open a new era of modding possibilities, like HL2 did in its time?
02/10/2013 at 22:09 dagudman says:
Valve are just making those ”leaks” on purpose so that they can get even more hype.
02/10/2013 at 22:55 Wurstwaffel says:
Yay! linear FPS!
02/10/2013 at 23:33 SevenShoggoths says:
Strange coincidence for two hints like this to be dropped consecutively.
Seems like it might be intentional. They only chose yesterday to file the trademark as some sort of lead-in to a proper announcement.
03/10/2013 at 03:42 gwathdring says:
Or it’s not a coincidence and they only recently put Half Life 3 into the “we are definitely doing this” box.
I mean … employees leak things sometimes, too. It doesn’t have to be intentional and it’s certainly not stretching the imagination to think that they set up an official team for the project and trademark the name in short order.
03/10/2013 at 03:24 Nick says:
I just want a resolution to the damned cliffhanger. Things like that really bug me.
03/10/2013 at 04:10 Grape Flavor says:
Surprise, surprise… RPS hipsters are too cool to care about Half-Life, say the whole series was “overrated”, anyway, maaaan.
Oh well, your loss! I still care! Give it to me Gabe!
And as far as “expectations”, I expect a quality game. Don’t particularly care if it’s “revolutionary” and redefines the entire genre. Just a solid, entertaining game. That’s all I want. That’s all we should expect. And if they manage to pull off another landmark title, well then that will be a pleasant surprise.
03/10/2013 at 13:56 Monkeh says:
Finished HL2 more times than any other game and I could still fire it up now and thoroughly enjoy myself.
HL1 is obviously a classic as well and probably even more mind-blowing, but I actually didn’t play HL1 ’till a few years after it’s release (yes, shame on me). It was of course still fantastic, but looking back at both games now, I have to admit loving HL2 a bit more.
So yeah, I can’t freaking wait for HL3, but in all honesty I’ve already begone giving up hope of it ever releasing.