It's one of the most hyped games that never existed: Half-Life 2: Episode Three.
Billed as the conclusion to the Half-Life saga, it was originally supposed to hit the
shelves before Christmas of 2007.
Then developer Valve delayed it while they expanded it into a full-length sequel, Half-Life
3.
And delayed it.
And, well, fans are still waiting.
Here's a look at why we never got to play Half-Life 3.
The hype is too big
Since the original announcement of Half-Life 2: Episode Three, Valve has released several
blockbuster hit games, including Portal and Portal 2, Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead.
But despite the success of these titles, the game that eventually became known as Half-Life
3 was never rolled out to the masses, instead earning the top slot among the most famous
pieces of vaporware.
And as time went on, the company line on Episode Three from creator Gabe Newell evolved from
firm commitment to vague mentions to complete refusals to comment whatsoever.
"The main thing that we’re, uh, working on right now after we get the Orange Box out
the door is going to be episode 3, so we can finish of this trilogy and…"
"Well, I can’t really say anything about Half-Life 3."
In a Reddit AMA in January 2017, Newell said that "it's hard for me to look at them as
anything other than a series of things I regret."
That doesn't sound promising.
The main writer retired
In early 2016, Marc Laidlaw—the main writer and creative voice behind the entire Half-Life
series—retired from Valve after 18 years with the company.
When asked what his departure from Valve meant for the completion of Half-Life 3, Laidlaw
answered, "I don't and can't entirely know.
Half-Life is fully owned by Valve.
It came into existence before my arrival.
Where Valve may choose to take it in the future is not in my hands."
Internal politics
According to an anonymous Valve employee who spoke with Game Informer, the dynamic way
the employees choose projects contributed to Half-Life 3 never getting off the ground.
Developers, artists, story writers, and other team members can literally take their desk
and move it to whatever project interests them the most.
This means internal politics can really make or break a game.
The anonymous source estimates that various iterations of Half-Life 3 have been in development
as early as 2005.
"I've heard that some teams have had two to three people working on it, and they eventually
ran into a wall, and some teams may have gotten up to 30 or 40 people before it was scrapped.
Some people—I don't want to name names—were excited about their projects.
They've had some different thoughts about what it should be.
Every time a Half-Life project gets some gravity and then collapses, it becomes harder for
the next one to start up."
Steambath
Valve isn't seriously in the business of making video games anymore, and they haven't been
for some time.
With the exception of The Lab—a set of free mini-games that shipped in 2016 with the HTC
Vive—Valve hasn't actually created a title since Dota 2, back in 2013.
It's worth noting that many of Valve's franchises, including Left 4 Dead and Portal, started
out in the hands of other companies—companies which Valve then acquired.
Similarly, Counterstrike, Dota 2, Day of Defeat, and Team Fortress all started as mods—mods
which Valve then acquired.
Do you notice a pattern here?
Valve's only game franchise that they conceptualized and developed from the very beginning was
the Half-Life saga, which launched the company into the big leagues.
Since then, they've moved on to more profitable ventures, such as Steam.
While Valve doesn't publicly release financial data, in 2011, a Forbes article estimated
that through Steam, Valve controlled between 50 and 70% of the downloadable PC game market,
and that they take 30% of every sale on Steam for themselves.
That means in 2016 alone, they may have brought in as much as $840 million distributing games
they didn't spend a dime to develop.
Meanwhile, it's estimated that the Half Life franchise has generated only about twice that
much over the past 19 years combined, at a much higher cost to the company.
Simple math says that Half-Life 3 may literally not be worth their time or effort.
The most important character died
Okay, at this point, some of you are yelling at your screen, "Gordon is still alive, you
fool!"
But Eli Vance—not Gordon Freeman—was actually the most important character of the Half-Life
saga.
He was essentially a living MacGuffin who drove the entire plot.
Think about it.
In Half-Life 2, your first objective is to go meet Eli Vance.
Then, when he gets kidnapped, your objective is to rescue him.
But then he gets captured again, and so you have to go rescue him again.
"I’ve been on the line with Alex.
Her father’s been captured."
"Eli Vance is indispensable to the liberation."
When you finally free him, the game ends before he tells you anything, and you spend the next
two episodes basically tracking him down yet again to find out what his big stupid secret
is, which he still doesn't tell you before he dies!
Without Eli as a focus for your efforts, there's a huge hole in franchise, and if Valve has
figured out a way to fill it, they certainly aren't saying.
Say never
At this point, it looks as though the only thing that could convince Valve to make another
Half-Life is if the fans really, really want it—the fans of the franchise inside Valve
itself, that is.
That's what Newell said in a 2015 podcast:
"The only reason we'd go back and do like a super-classic kind of product is if a whole
bunch of people just internally at Valve said, you know, they wanted to do it.”
We know exactly what that means: Half-Life 3 is never going to happen.
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