“SELL YOUR GRANDMOTHER, REMORTGAGE THE CAT, DO WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO DO. JUST DON’T MISS OUT.” SO READS THE FINAL LINE OF PC GAMER’S REVIEW OF HALF-LIFE 2.
ALMOST TWO DECADES SINCE ITS RELEASE, THE GENIUS OF VALVE’S SEQUEL HAS BEEN EXHAUSTIVELY DISCUSSED. BUT THE EXPLOSIVE IMPACT OF ITS DESIGN IS PRESERVED IN THE BREATHLESS WORDS OF ITS REVIEWS.
JIM ROSSIGNOL GAVE IT A SCORE OF 96 IN PC GAMER, CALLING IT “A NEAR PERFECT SEQUEL”.
THE LONG-DEFUNCT PCZONE WENT ONE POINT HIGHER, AND SAID “GAMES MAY NEVER BE THIS GOOD AGAIN”.
IGN MATCHED ZONE’S SCORE ON A DECIMAL SCALE, AWARDING IT 9.7.
EUROGAMER BROUGHT OUT THE PERFECT 10.
MOST REMARKABLY OF ALL, SO DID EDGE, MAKING HALF-LIFE 2 ONLY THE FIFTH GAME TO RECEIVE THE AWARD, ONE OF JUST 24
“REVOLUTIONARY” GAMES RATED SO TO DATE.
Half-Life 2 was a phenomenon, a game so good one of the few complaints levelled against it was that it didn’t go on forever. “I want to bemoan the fact that it had to end at all,” Rossignol wrote. As time regrettably stopped for Gordon atop City 17’s Citadel, the question on everyone’s lips was, “What’s next?” Surely Valve wouldn’t leave Alyx stranded beside an exploding portal. Surely Gordon wouldn’t remain trapped in the G-Man’s limbo. Valve had followed-up the most celebrated shooter of its day with something even better. Surely it would do it again.
Valve’s answer was unexpected, and has only grown stranger as the years turned to decades. Two expansions, a VR prequel, a host of aborted spinoffs, and a rumour-mill so productive that it became a running joke. But never the one thing Valve fans have craved more than anything else, that trio of magical words, Half-Life 3.
Valve’s evasion of its most famous series baffled players for years. But it isn’t 2010 anymore, where the only clues to Half-Life 3’s whereabouts were a few cryptic allusions from Gabe Newell and a few cruelly staged internet hoaxes. There are answers to be had. Dig through the interviews, the news stories, the rumours and the leaks that have stemmed from and revolved around Valve for the last 20 years, and it’s possible to build a surprisingly complete picture of Half-Life’s history during its long absence. We can confidently answer the two most important questions – what happened to Half-Life 3? And why didn’t Valve make it?
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Perhaps the greatest irony of the whole Half-Life 3 saga is that Valve may never have intended to make a third Half-Life game at all. At least, not in the conventional sense. This notion was being suggested by Valve before Half-Life 2 had released. Hidden in the corner of PCZone’s review of Half-Life 2 is a boxout titled ‘What’s next for Valve?’, in which the mag presses Valve’s former PR man Doug Lombardi about the idea of making Half-Life a trilogy. “I don’t know where that rumour came from,” Lombardi responds. “That’s just one of those rumours, like you had with Star Wars. We honestly don’t know how many of these things we’re going to make.”
Lombardi’s statement was true, albeit misleading. In The Final Hours of , Geoff Keighley explains Gabe Newell’s vision for prior to its release, which stretches far beyond a mere trilogy.isn’t just a game,” Keighley wrote. “Newell seesas an engine, a platform, or at best a whole industry unto itself. Going forward there will be engine licenses, hundreds of thousands of user modifications (mods), episodic content, sequels, add-ons and expansions.” Certain elements of Newell’s vision would come true (isn’t short of mods, for example). But the idea of an omnipresent universe stands in stark contrast to the modern reality.
