Half-Life 3 - We're Already Playing It?

[-smash-]

Gabe Newell, Valve's co-founder, has spilled the beans on some pretty important information in a recent Eurogamer interview. Is Valve going to expand their Half-Life franchise into a trilogy, or is the episodic approach going to be a long-lasting trend? Well, both. It seems Half-Life 3 is in fact going to be Half-Life 2: Episode's One through Three. While there is no direct answer from Gabe, he refers to the Episodes as Half-Life 3 in a select few areas.

Eurogamer: Why did you change the name from Aftermath? We liked the name. [br]Gabe Newell: Errr... I... I think that Aftermath was almost a temporary name. I always thought of it as Episodes One through Three because that's how we planned the products out. I think people thought we'd need a name for them, and Aftermath ended up being more confusing than helpful.
Probably a better name for it would have been Half Life 3: Episode One, but these three are what we're doing as our way of taking the next step forward, but Half-Life 2 was the name we used.

Of course, there's a lot more answered in this interview. Doug Lombardi and Erik Johnson also pop in to answer some questions. Be sure to check it all out here.

 

[63]

Did you type that on a mac?

edit: it's fixed now... go hl2!

 

[-smash-]

Did you type that on a mac?

Nope - I copied it from Word and I think our news posting system doesn't really enjoy it... I've fixed the errors.

 

[-smash-]

"Now, I've stumbled upon an audio clip that appears to be recent and legit - It's a phone interview with Doug Lombardi and he states that the Half-Life story may just continue on even after the episodes. My mind is jumping all over the place; Conflicting reports are not fun!"

Mm, I'll put this part back in the post if I can get a confirmation that this is legit.

 

[63]

I just drank your city.

Feath, I think the confusion here is that people are thinking they won't get a full HL3.

 

[Feath]

Erm, what's so confusing about that audio clip? I don't remember that interview saying that the three episodes would be the end of Half-Life.

 

[-smash-]

Erm, what's so confusing about that audio clip? I don't remember that interview saying that the three episodes would be the end of Half-Life.

Another reason why I removed it - I've just speant the last 7 hours of editing some video... I'm so frickin exhausted, I have no idea what I'm doin... :x

 

[madog]

I wish they had a game of the combine invasion. Between half-life 1 and 2. That way we would have a complete story from start to finish.

 

[D€vIL²]

You can Kind of think of Blue shift and Opposing force as episodes for Half-Life 1, but they were still generally the same graphically. With these episodes for HL2, I think calling them HL3 is kinda odd, I think if its gonna be HL3 it should be a full length game where the source engine is upgraded graphically and even physically (Not to say its Graphics/Physics aren't amazing at this point)

 

[AgentXen]

(Not to say its Graphics/Physics aren't amazing at this point)

The graphics arent impresive anymore. They were 2-3 years ago. But i still have to hand it to them for their Facial animations and Online player animations, they use blending, its awsome. Havent seen that in any game to date. Their physics are the best in any game thats out right now (mostly because of the interaction).

 

[Asuka]

As i said before one of the best interviews iv ever read.

 

[lonefox]

I'd like to point out that they say this (shoulda called it HL3) in the commentary of Episode 1 aswell. I can't remember where, and if it was Gabe or someone else. I think it was Gabe.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Whoa, I didn't know steam sends over to valve all these reports about what weapon I'm using, where I'm getting stuck, how long my computer takes to load levels and all that.

It's kinda good I guess, that way the next episodes will be probably even more fun. But on the other hand, it's not like they told us about that. At least not flat out loud.

 

[99.vikram]

"The eyes of the truth are always watching you".

 

[Solaris]

Halflife3.net?

 

[99.vikram]

Halflife3.net?

Hell no!!

 

[L3TUC3]

Hmm? Wasn't Newell saying that they should've called the episodes HL3 Ep1, Ep2 etc, instead of having hl2, hl2 ep1, hl2 ep2 because it screwed up continuiity?

In a sense you are playing hl3 then. It's just not called that way.

 

[Smigit]

I personally wouldnt consider it HL3. It doesnt feel like a new game, it feels like an addon for HL2 which while good doesnt lend itself to it being an entirely new game. No new guns, only one new enemy. That and the fact its still got the HL2 name in the title. Also the story doesnt really have a start, it continued straight on from the previous game which probably wouldnt be done if this was a complete standalone game (not in terms of requiring HL2 to play but being the 3rd in the series). Not that I mind, its still HL afterall but It doesnt feel like a new game and I would hope HL3 would be something revolutionary, more so than the episodes will be (as long as they are fun I'm happy and they did well with EP1 at achieving that).

They coulda just called it episode 2 if they were so woried about continuety.

 

[Krusty]

I think it being HL3 is fine, I don't see what the fuss is about?!

If they want to do more then that can be HL4 Ep1 etc.

Why the stressing?

 

[Ennui]

First off, ennui totally called it!

Second, this is nice, because now we never have to change the site name

 

[Insano]

Awesome interview!

 

[Krusty]

Second part of interview is up!

Love Gabe's new role

Eurogamer: And how would you define your role this time around?

Gabe Newell: I dunno... cheerleader, complainer, playtester, why the hell is it so late? [laughs] AMD-FX63 water-cooled, with dual SLI and 30-inch monitor tester!

 

[dogboy73]

This is getting confusing now .......

........ Half Life 2 ......... HL2: Aftermath ........ HL2: Episode1 ........ HL3: Edpisode 1 .......... 2 ...... & 3 ......... HL3?!! HL2B: Episode 1B?!! .......... HL3: Source 2!!!

Valve are obviously now well known for their inability (for whatever reason) to deliver on time. I think now they are just trying to hide this fact by confusing us to death with episodic (or not?) content delivered in a trully 'making it up as they go' fashion!!

 

[Smigit]

Valve are obviously now well known for their inability (for whatever reason) to deliver on time. I think now they are just trying to hide this fact by confusing us to death with episodic (or not?) content delivered in a trully 'making it up as they go' fashion!!

well if thats the case they didnt do a good job since EP1 was close to 6 months late (originally slated for an 05 release). hehehe

 

[BaconIsGood4You]

This is not HL3, but HL2: EP1 is misleading because we already played HL2 (but this is the first?)

 

[kupocake]

This is not Half-Life 3, because it's not called Half-Life 3. It IS the third installment in the Gordon Freeman Half-Life story, but we all already knew that.

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

well if thats the case they didnt do a good job since EP1 was close to 6 months late (originally slated for an 05 release). hehehe

It was never slated for a 2005 release, gj.

 

[Kanehdian]

I bet when Episode 3 is released, Valve will release a patch that combines them into one game called Half-life 3.

 

[Cyan Leader]

Men I love interviews. Valve have to do this more often.

 

[Kadayi]

Essentially Valve are testing out the idea of Episodic as a game delivery mechanism. If they think the formula works based upon how well all 3 episodes are recieved then they will almost certainly continue the trend, however I suspect that the storyline will probably advance a great deal on from City 17, Alyx, Kleiner etc with any further episodes past 3.

As regards the Source engine, Valve principally developed it because they wanted an engine that was capable of delivering the kind of gameplay features they wanted to implement in HL¹ but were unable to. Since HL² too came out Valve have steadily added new features to the engine to further enhance the type of gameplay scenerios it is capable of delivering. The manifesto driving the future development of Source has very little to do with the sort of rendering BS that preoccupies most other Engine designers. Until the product is no longer capable of evolving to match Valves gameplay demands (which is some way off yet given Sources robustness) I doubt we will see them develop a new engine.

 

[Cunni]

Hehehehe.......I have a bigger monitor than Gabe!!!

 

[Cole]

I bet Gabe has a bigger knife collection than you!

 

[doomed - uk]

Gabe certainly must have a big desk if he keeps getting all these Steam reports landing on it. :dork:

 

[wilka91]

seriously, I'm tired of this bull. those interviews are getting so annoying!

all those hints, enigmas and stuff ... jesus, please somebody shut them up.

or let them just say "yes we're going to make Half-Life 3 in 10 years"

 

[M1CH43L]

Man, I just remembered that Valve hq is located only 1.5 hours away from my house!

 

[Praetorius]

What a lame idea.

 

[99.vikram]

Man, I just remembered that Valve hq is located only 1.5 hours away from my house!

Whatchoo waiting for? Drive over and try your luck getting in!

 

[polyguns]

Episodic can be scary. i mean look at dbz, it had like 500 or so good episodes, but all that gt stuff sucked and was totally unnecissary

 

[Asknoone]

Sorry Polynuts I didn't get a word of that? No, really, I don't quite understand what you are saying.

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

Episodic can be scary. i mean look at dbz, it had like 500 or so good episodes, but all that gt stuff sucked and was totally unnecissary

DBZ was an anime series, for TV. This is a bit different, not to mention a 10 min fight on that show took like 10-15 episodes, GO FIGURE. :|