As Hamlet requested of Horatio, it is time to absent myself from felicity awhile, and in this harsh world draw my breath in pain to tell you that the Half-Life 3 speculators are at it again. Over the weekend, the discovery of a mystery Valve project called "White Sands" on a voice actor's portfolio has set tongues and fingers wagging about potential Half-Life news in the offing.
]]>While he's spending quarantine in New Zealand, the national news channel has gotten Valve guy Gabe Newell to sit down and pointedly not answer some of his very favorite questions. They did their best to ask about all the games that end with threes, but Newell of course declined to say anything on the subject. He was willing to say that the company has games in development currently and also mentioned that launching Half-Life: Alyx had created the despire within the company to continue creating singleplayer games.
]]>I've only ever played bits and pieces of the Half-Life games, but it's been a delight learning the ins and outs of their creation from Half-Life: Alyx - Final Hours. It's a multimedia documentary on all things Valve - their (many) cancelled games, a close look at life during Alyx's development, and the ups and downs the developers went through in making sure Half-Life returned in the best way possible. I've pulled out some of my favourite snippets of info from the doc, so read on to hear all about Alyx's invisible headcrab, and why I now believe that G-Man's actor might actually be G-Man in real life.
]]>Can you imagine a Dark Souls-meets-Monster Hunter RPG made by Valve? I think I would've loved that. Unfortunately, it's on a list of Valve's games that were never meant to be. Of course, Half-Life 3 is sat up on that shelf, too, along with Left 4 Dead 3, and another Half-Life-themed shooter that would've looked very different to what we got with Alyx. It's all been revealed as part of the Half-Life: Alyx - Final Hours documentary, and there's loads of juicy info on what Valve have scrapped over the last 10 years.
]]>It's taken 13 years, but we finally have a new Half-Life game. It may not be the long-awaited Half-Life 3, but as you've probably seen from our Half-Life: Alyx review, Valve's first foray into virtual reality shows they're a developer that are still very much at the top of their game. But Half-Life: Alyx isn't just the work of a talented team of developers. It's a game that's ultimately been shaped by the people who have played it - the hundreds, if not thousands of playtesters who helped Valve turn their most famous FPS game into a VR sensation.
To find out more about how Half-Life: Alyx came into being, I sat down with Valve's Robin Walker and Jim Hughes a week before the game's big release day. We talk about everything from revisiting the Half-Life series and the challenges of bringing it to virtual reality, to what this means for Half-Life 3 as well as just whose idea was it to have headcrabs jumping directly at your face. Some of the answers you'll have seen appear on the site over the past week, such as how playtesters became obsessed with collecting every last thing in sight to everyone assuming they were playing as Gordon Freeman until Alyx was finally given a voice, but there's plenty more to discover here as we lay out our chat with Robin and Jim in full. Enjoy.
]]>Half-Life: Alyx is out today and, as you'd hoped, it is good. Graham-certified good, in RPS's Half-Life Alyx review. For all its goodness, Alyx is not officially Half-Life 3, which Valve still have not made. There are a few primary reasons that the fabled "3" hasn't made an appearance, Valve have now explained. Chief among them, they just weren't happy with what they came up with.
]]>Valve's new game Artifact has a vague release window of 2018, but thanks to a bit of jealousy on Gabe Newell's part it won't be the only Valve game we can look forward to in the next few years. Who do we have to thank for this? Nintendo.
]]>The lesson here is "never go to sleep." All sorts of things happen while people sleep. Cats go on adventures, presidents threaten nuclear war and, well, ex-Valve writers post thinly-disguised plot summaries of the unreleased and, so far as best guesses go, long-cancelled Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Long time Half-Life scribe, the excellent Marc Laidlaw (who left Valve last year), casually tossed out a link to his website last night, which led to a short story about Gertie Fremont, Alex Vaunt and their climactic battle against evil alien invaders the Disparate. (The site's having a wobble, but the page is archived right here).
While that might sound like satirical tomfoolery, the actual story very much sounds like how the final chapter of Half-Life 3 could have played out. It involves time-travelling cruise liners, resurrected overlords, the heart of the Combine and the fate of one Doctor Gordon Freeman.
This is really happening.
]]>Half-Life 2: Episode 3 [official site] came out one year ago and I never even noticed. It wasn't an official release from Valve, for well-known reasons, but instead a player-made mod. Yet surprisingly, Episode 3: The Closure is not a fastidiously faithful extension of Valve's world by super-serious fans. Instead, it plays fast and loose with Half-Life by introducing everything from Star Trek bits to cutscenes showing Gordon. In a hugely fascinating post, the mod's creator has looked back on the (often furious) response from Half-Life fans and explained some of his curious decisions, all of which I adore. This has truly made my day.
]]>Everyone knows the story of Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Lacking a diktat from on high, folks and teams within Valve have never quite found the inspiration, momentum, or cohesion for another Half-Life, so attempts have faltered and they, y'know, haven't made it. Everyone knows that. It's knowledge as common as cleaning windows with white vinegar and newspaper. And yet! You -- you there -- are still harping on about it and cracking those same awful "Half-Life 3 confirmed???" jokes. Go play something else. There are loads of great games! Go for a walk. Go for a swim. Go swallow needles for all I care! Or, fine, read this Game Informer bit which explains, using an unverified source, what everyone knows. Then please shut up about it.
]]>After 18 years at Valve, working on everything from Half-Life to Dota 2, writer Marc Laidlaw has confirmed that he's retired from the company. That's an eternity for the games industry! He wrote novels before getting into video games, and it sounds like he's getting back to writing for himself.
]]>There have been some unusual and unexpected ports in recent times. I'd never expected to see Deadly Premonition in my Steam library and Way of the Samurai 4 was something of a surprise. Strangest of all, perhaps, is that I've not only become accustomed to the presence of Metal Gear Solid V on PC, but that its stealthy immersive sim-feel has made it an integral part of 2015. Aspects of the design will become part of the fabric of future open world games, whether stealth-focused or not, and there's nothing about the game that marks it out as a port.
]]>Source 2 is upon us, it seems.
Quite what this means, it's impossible to say at the moment, although plenty of people are confidently stating exactly what it means. What we do know is that the latest update for Dota 2 appears to be packing a little more than mod tools. Digging into the files like feverish moles, the excitable detectives of the internet have discovered references to Source 2 in file names and routines. Dota 2 appears to have been ported to the new engine, which means the changes in a game that looks and sounds the same as it did yesterday are now today's big news.
]]>It's finally happened. Gabe Newell broke his nigh-mythical cone of silence to take part in a long-promised Reddit AMA, and the results were... illuminating. Ish. Newell is not the most talkative man, but he is a fairly straight shooter. The whole thing's a fascinating read, though truly "newsworthy" (whatever that even means any more) bits were scarce. But hey, if you'd like to know laughably bad company names that Valve nearly went with (like Rhino Scar, as we revealed in 2007) and also the main purpose of Source Engine 2, you've come to the right place. Newell even fielded a question about Half-Life 3, shockingly enough. Well, sorta.
]]>Valve is a strange company. The mega-dev has always paddled against the inundating current of conventional wisdom, but it gets especially odd when it defies its own internal logic. Oh yeah, also infuriating. As we've observed on multiple occasions, the house that Newell built is often extremely open, responsive, and communicative... except when it's really, really not. Half-Life 3, a recent bout of (still-unexplained) layoffs, Diretide, etc. These lapses don't make Valve a Bad Guy or anything, but they do strain the developer's relationship with its 65-million-strong audience. It's an odd dichotomy that's more relevant than ever with the evolution of Steam Machines and SteamOS apparently in the community's hands. So I decided to ask Valve a simple question: What gives?
]]>Yes, that's right: You. That is who this article is for. Absolutely, positively nobody else. And by that, I of course mean Yousef Johnson, the world's most average PC gaming enthusiast. He spends much of his leisure time playing on his own custom-built PC, largely by way of Steam. According to Valve, You (and perhaps by extension, also you) are who the initial line of Steam Machines is aimed at. And yet, so far it's difficult to find many reasons to care. There's the living room appeal, sure, but what's to stop You from simply installing SteamOS on his own machine, buying a Steam controller, and doing a bit of quick (not to mention free) legwork? I asked Valve to justify its massive yet arguably over-cautious endeavor both now and in the long run. Here's how the PC juggernaut replied.
]]>Lookit! A box! Isn't that just the most exciting thing? The Internet is, of course, in a tizzy over Valve's big reveal of a Steam Machine prototype, and - yep - it sure looks like one of them newfangled VCRs that can play those dang dern gametapes we never stop talking about. The bigger news, however, is that you need not worry about being required to own one - or even running SteamOS, for that matter. Nope, not even for Half-Life 3. Valve, happily, is philosophically opposed to the idea of platform exclusives.
]]>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.
]]>As if there were any doubt, it looks like Half-Life 3 is officially some kind of a thing. Enough so, at least, that Valve feels the need to make sure everyone knows who it belongs to. And hey, who wouldn't want Gordon Freeman leading the charge on liberating the living room from the nefarious Combine force that is proprietary, closed console-dom? Also, I did have the fortune of speaking to a Valve source recently who dropped some pretty big hints about Source 2, Left 4 Dead 3, and Half-Life 3. So that's worth noting as well. But even then, nothing's even close to confirmed. Here's what we definitely do know.
]]>Hello there, you are on the Internet. Assuming this is not your first time ever diving into this brave, wacky experiment that's been a cornerstone of human society for the past 15 years, you are almost certainly aware of two things: 1) Porn. 2) A screenshot of an alleged Valve change log that recently leaked, more or less revealing the existence of Left 4 Dead 3 and Source Engine 2. I decided to get in touch with a few sources (hah, I guess) close to Valve for verification and a few scant details.
]]>Every time a slip, leak or whisper emerges from inside the caverns of PC shop owners and former developers Valve, the gaming news press (us occasionally included) gets into a frothy frenzy at the mention of Half-Life 3. "Could this be evidence they're working on it?!" everyone cries, tickling their own legs in excitement. OF COURSE THEY ARE! Of COURSE Valve is working on Half-Life 3! It's not even vaguely feasible that they wouldn't be! They've obviously been working on it, in some capacity, since HL2: Ep 2 came out. News would be if they actually bloody finished it.
]]>UPDATE: Guess what! Gamescom are now saying that Half-Life 3 and Dragon Age 3's appearances on the list was "a mistake", according to Eurogamer. Although they won't say how that mistake happened. Also, Lamda Generation heard from Valve (a rare treat) saying they weren't showing any games this year.
Another Half-Life 3 confirmation rumour? Why not. T3 have spotted, on the Gamescom pdf designed to show press what games are appearing, the Half-Life 3 is listed as Valve's entry. You can see it for yourself right here.
]]>Valve have created themselves an interesting situation. Presenting themselves as bastions of consumers, remarkably accessible to gamers, regularly inviting in groups of modders - often to give them jobs - and always being present to offer a quote on how customers deserve to be treated with more dignity, they establish themselves as being our friend. And then from that position, they sure do like to muck about. And as Eurogamer's Tom "Tom Bramwell" Bramwell mentioned on Twitter this morning, it's hard not to sympathise with a growing body of Valve's customers who are asking for better communication.
]]>Who fancies a mystery? Valve prepared what must have been an incredibly expensive video for the VGAs' best character category, starring Wheatley, complete with Stephen Merchant's voice, floating in space and begging for help getting home. So, that's nice and fun, if lacking in the big laughs. (He didn't win.) But of course Valve being Valve, they've filled it with more details. Not many, but there's Russian text, star constellations in the background and weird numbers, which of course means those with a mind for such things are tearing it to pieces. Of course, it might have just been filler to make the image more interesting. But Valve MUST know by now that anything they add is going to be analysed to pieces, and they're clearly the sorts to troll their community in every imaginable way. What do you make of it?
]]>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.
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