Home Gaming Half-Life 3 would have left you hanging

Half-Life 3 would have left you hanging

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HL3

Half-Life 3 is a game that I’m sure will never come out. No matter how good the game could be, it would never live up to the lofty expectations set by fans and Valve themselves. That fact that there are no more Half-Life writers left at the company anymore probably doesn’t help things. Chet Faliszek and Erik Wolpaw, co-writers on Half-Life 2: Episode One and Episode Two both left the company this year. Last year though, the principal writer on both Half-Life and Half-Life 2 and narrative director on the episodes, Marc Laidlaw left – leaving Half-Life’s already uncertain future even more precarious.

In an interview with Arcade Attack, Laidlaw has said that even if Episode 3 or Half-Life 3 came about, they wouldn’t give gamers the closure they want. The games – should they have happened – would have been littered with narrative loose ends.

“I had ideas for Episode 3,” Laidlaw said. “They were all supposed to take the series to a point where I could step away from it and leave it to the next generation. I had hoped for a reset between HL2 and HL3 that was as dramatic as the shift between HL1 and HL2. I honestly don’t know if anyone else shared this goal, but it seemed important to me to give ultimate freedom to whoever inherited the series, with my own personal set of loose ends tied up to my satisfaction.

“Unfortunately, I was not able to do that,” he continued. “But I never thought as far ahead as HL3, unless you were to say that HL3 and Episode 3 were the same thing. I will say that I expected every instalment would end without resolution, forever and ever…”

Laidlaw did however say that rumours that Episode 3 (or Half-Life 3!) would have brought Freeman’s story to a close were unfounded.

“There was some rumor going around that Ep3 or HL3 would end Gordon Freeman’s story, and I don’t think that was accurate. My intention was that Ep3 would simply tie up the plot threads that were particular to HL2. But it would still end like HL1 and HL2, with Gordon in an indeterminate space, on hold, waiting for the next game to begin. So one cliffhanger after another.”

A new Half-Life is probably not going to happen, but even if it did it would just leave you waiting for more – and so ad infinitum.

Last Updated: July 18, 2017

15 Comments

  1. Alien Emperor Trevor

    July 18, 2017 at 11:18

  2. Alien Emperor Trevor

    July 18, 2017 at 11:18

    • Original Heretic

      July 18, 2017 at 11:39

      I think I know the guy on the right, sitting by the braai.

      Reply

  3. Kromas Ryder

    July 18, 2017 at 11:29

    Slow day at the office?

    Reply

  4. Original Heretic

    July 18, 2017 at 11:38

    Yeah, gotta agree with this sentiment. No way could one game ever live up to so much hype.

    A reboot might be awesome in a few years time, when game graphics become ultra realistic and nigh indistinguishable from reality. Doing it like that, in VR, perhaps as a launch tool for Valve’s latest piece of hardware, that’s the only way I would see it really working.

    Reply

  5. Ottokie

    July 18, 2017 at 11:41

    I bought half life 1 and 2 now with the sale…these games better blow my mind or else I am coming for all the people making HL3 hype xD

    Reply

    • Frik van der Hewerskink

      July 18, 2017 at 11:58

      did you buy Black Mesa ? the half life 1 remake in source engine. Definitely a must buy

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief

        July 18, 2017 at 12:05

        ^THIS^

        Reply

  6. Admiral Chief

    July 18, 2017 at 12:04

    To be honest, I’d prefer HL2E3 instead of HL3

    Reply

    • HvR

      July 18, 2017 at 13:17

      The hope and excitement was more for HL3; the rage and disappointment was more for the lack of HL2E3.

      The indefinite delay of HL2E3 felt like being screwed over, you bought into Ep1 and 2 with the expectation that there will be 3.

      Reply

  7. konfab

    July 18, 2017 at 12:33

    Valve should still give their fans closure. They could literally just make short video where it shows the combine launching a weapon that will kill everything on earth. Gordon Freeman is seen to try and intercept it, but he fails because he notices a casserole in a microwave and tries to stop it from burning. Gman then takes him away and tells him to stop worrying about the trivial things in life.

    Reply

  8. Magoo

    July 18, 2017 at 12:49

    Damn right. It would never have been good enough.

    Reply

  9. Peter Pan

    July 18, 2017 at 15:37

    I think we all need to accept what Mr. Tim says: “Half-Life 3 is a game that I’m sure will never come out. No matter how good the game could be, it would never live up to the lofty expectations set by fans and Valve themselves.”

    I think, in all seriousness, us gamers should arrange a memorial for the HL games, and bid that specific storyline adieu (there is still potential for other games in the HL universe as a whole, even if we never see HL3 as a continuation of HL1/2)

    Reply

  10. Deceased

    July 18, 2017 at 23:06

    Maaaan – I’m telling you, the click-bait header is real O.o

    I didn’t even read what the article is about before I clicked the link…
    I’m a simple man, I see HL3, I open link 🙁

    Reply

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