One thing that might be keeping Half-Life 3 from being released is that the game changer’s not a game itself, but a peripheral to enhance player interaction: the VR headset. Many hope that Half-Life 3 will start a new Renaissance of gaming. It’s sad times indeed when millions of people consider Dark Souls top be the game to change everything. Sadly, we’ve not had another game changer to really make that type of impact.
Resident Evil 4, Gears of War, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and others did their part to advance gaming. (Half Life 2, Valve) Half-Life 2 wasn’t the only game changer around. Half Life 2’s episodes came out when the current games where introducing more engaging mechanics and matched by the likes of Modern Warfare (one of the few good CoD games) with its brilliantly structured set-pieces and intense FPS gameplay. Portal was originally an idea by a group of college students Valve hired and developed the idea from there. Is there anything new and exciting to bring to the FPS genre? Has Valve just hit a wall?
But so many developers have done everything possible with gameplay, it seems. We can trust Valve and good ‘ole Gabe to ensure their games will always give us something cool.
It’s extremely difficult to create something new in a beloved series without trashing the original formula. To help revive trust in gamers and bring back a new age of gaming? I doubt it…not yet. Yet some wonder whether Valve’s lost the means to make a game and if that’d make an impact in an industry that demands something new and engaging simply to survive. This could mean great physics, graphical enchantments and organic lighting and sound design for their games. They also put a lot of work into the Source engine and recent news explains that the new Source engine is being introduced. Redeveloping and cutting out whole segments of a game to perfect it are good reasons to delay a half-finished game. It does produce outstanding work even when it takes some time. So why are fans so cool about this huge waiting time?Ĭome on Gabe, don’t let us down buddy The Valve team’s pretty good at making games and’ll always deliver. “It’ll be here soon, genius takes time and Valve will deliver.” HL has gained a legion of loyal fans who love the series and all that it has and will offer to the years to gamers and the industry. It seems as though many Half-Life fans are patiently waiting with calm expressions at the ready, chanting the same defensive phrase to everyone asking where HL 3 went. This could be a worrying sign that Valve have left Half-Life 3 on the back-burner for too long, meaning they’re not or ever will be prepared to release a product their happy with. Episode 2 was the one that generated a lot of dislike with fans.Īnd considering episode 3 was meant to come out shortly after and after eight years, it doesn’t look like it will. These further developed the gameplay, but disappointingly left us with even more cliff-hangers. We were thankfully blessed with HL2‘s episodes, a sort of afterwards expansion of the main game’s story. Fans waited eagerly for its arrival and while a majority loved the game and what it brought, a few didn’t. Half-Life 2 was, in short, a labor of love six years in the making that went through its share of changes as development went on. The main issue, though? The cliffhanger ending. Some fans were disappointed with the simple gameplay and the tired narrative that resulted in the most prolonged road trip ever. Half-Life 2 used a remarkable source engine to make a fantastic physics system, stunning facial animations, and dynamic new gameplay opportunities that only the biggest technological advancements could provide – some that inspired designers to develop games that would, as a whole, change gaming itself. Sadly, Half Life 2 was met with a mother-load of delays, but thankfully, the game got made and plenty of folks adored it. It gained a huge fan-base and when a sequel was announced, people cheered. But Half-Life was the kind of game that reimagined the classic FPS and implemented a stronger design and thought-provoking gameplay. We had the legendary Deus Ex which delivered a fantastic FPS, RPG experience that integrated sci-fi elements. The original Half-Life was simple, engaging, and exceedingly focused compared to many games at the time.