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[CHC]

all the talk about the finances of steam and loot boxes etc. imply that there is no artistic drive or vision left at valve. which just cannot be true.

you'd think half-life would remain economically viable as a loss leader. if they're making so much money, why the fuck not?

The problem seems to be that there is no leadership or vision. It's employees choosing what they want to work on and when.

Making a game is hard. It has rough patches that need strong leadership to just keep people motivated and on schedule. Valve's structure seems to lead to a lot of started projects and few conclusions.

I mean, if you were told you could work on whatever kind of thing you wanted at work, wouldn't you go for small, easy projects that your friends were working on too?

 

[friskykillface]

The end of half life 3 happened in my life time
What a day to remember

Welp

 

[Fuchsdh]

The Borealis has a teleportation device on it that is able to travel both time and space.

Gordan, Alyx, and Dr. Mossman are all on it as they activate it, and realize the potential this device has as they inadvertently start warping around on the ship.

Alyx, wanting to follow her fathers final wishes, debates destroying the ship with Dr. Mossman, who sees this ship as the only chance to actually defeat the combine.

Alyx kills Mossman, mainly because she never actually trusted her and always resented her for being a double agent. Alyx locks in on what she thinks is the Combines base of operations for Earth, and basically makes a mini-citadel nuke that is traveling towards the Combines base.

In the fleeting seconds, the G-Man interrupts these events and takes Alyx away. Gordan witnesses that the "base", is actually a Dyson sphere, which is a megastructure that completely surrounds a star to harness all of it's potential energy, something only the most advance civilizations are able to create.

This basically means that Alyx was an unknowing sleeper agent for the G-Man, and her plan and goal are pointless, and the ship won't actually do anything other than be destroyed, Mossman was right.

In the final seconds, the Vortigaunt intercept Freeman, similar to what they did in Episode 2, and save him, bringing him to an undisclosed location on Earth at an undisclosed future date.

TLR. The Combine quite possibly are the most powerful civilization in all of time and space in all realities , The G-Man's plans are to destroy the Borealis and it's technology for unknown reasons, it's unknown if humanity and the resistance was successful in it's uprising on Earth.

If the Combine can create Dyson Spheres, it raises the question of why they bother messing with Earth in the first place. Why would they need anything we have? Seems like a massive jump in power from anything we've seen in the games.

 

[Milennia]

the death of a thousand memes in just a few paragraphs

 

[The Elite]

I wish they would have just outsourced it to a developer if they didn't want to do it in house. I am sure there are quality studios who would have been excited at the opportunity.

 

[DrZeus]

Yeah, fuck Valve.

This.
I gave up on Valve making games I'm interested in along time ago.

 

[OBias]

This also matches up with the leaked concept art

Is this BreenGrub?

This is where Borealis shows up:

This is how Alyx could look like:

 

[jelly]

all the talk about the finances of steam and loot boxes etc. imply that there is no artistic drive or vision left at valve. which just cannot be true.

you'd think half-life would remain economically viable as a loss leader. if they're making so much money, why the fuck not?

What are dev contracts at Valve, if you could make bank doing loot, card games very quickly while working on HL3 means you don't see a dime on top for 5 years or not even close to the return of constant loot percentages, I think it's clear what someone might choose to work on.

 

[strafer]

ugh, those pictures hurt too much.

 

[The Elite]

Funny that Giant Bomb was talking about Half Life stuff this past week.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Also, while people are reading into the "futility" part with the last section, I'd be willing to be dollars to doughnuts this passage:

Old friends have been silenced, or fallen by the wayside. I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to it. Expect no further correspondence from me regarding these matters; this is my final episode.

Is far more about addressing Half-Life fans than it is about the HL3 story.

 

[Melon Husk]

If the Combine can create Dyson Spheres, it raises the question of why they bother messing with Earth in the first place. Why would they need anything we have? Seems like a massive jump in power from anything we've seen in the games.

One of the principles of cosmic horror is that you leave the monsters' motives unclear, and that makes it spookier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicism

In Lovecraft's work, human beings are often subject to powerful beings and other cosmic forces, but these forces are not so much malevolent as they are indifferent toward humanity.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CosmicHorrorStory

A universe where humanity is preyed upon as a mere plaything for all kinds of inconceivable horrors, and all our ideals are naught but cruel illusions

 

[Diprosalic]

Naughty Dog have offered repeatedly.

thank god Valve never accepted.

 

[Ionic]

Is far more about addressing Half-Life fans than it is about the HL3 story.

I got that. The futility part was about actually seeing the combine, not Gordon/Marc moving on.

 

[drkzr01]

Also, while people are reading into the "futility" part with the last section, I'd be willing to be dollars to doughnuts this passage:



Is far more about addressing Half-Life fans than it is about the HL3 story.

 

[The Elite]

And Respawn. It's ironic how Titanfall 2 shares a similar mechanic to the Borealis,

Wow. Good point.

 

[jett]

Honestly that sounds like crap. Another cliffhanger ending? I'm almost glad it's dead.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

Combine are not gods, just your run-of-the-mill Kardashev scale 2.x civilization. What they want from Earth begs the question.

If the Combine can create Dyson Spheres, it raises the question of why they bother messing with Earth in the first place. Why would they need anything we have? Seems like a massive jump in power from anything we've seen in the games.

They want our portal technology.

The Combine are capable of drifting between universes/dimensions, but we learn from Halflife 2 that they are, at best, extremely hamstrung by the ability to locally teleport within a single universe (this is based on the dialog from the games, and the fact that the Combine teleporter at Nova Prospect had a two week time gap between the entry and exit points).

They were able to invade Earth when the portal storms started raging. This implies that the Combine aren't exactly able to create these portals on the fly, and simply used the resonance cascade as an intermediate way to invade Earth, basically they saw an open door and they took it.

The Combine are clearly a high level civilizations, they aren't gods. They invade planets and assimilate the species to their needs. At some point on Earth, they started to learn that humans were extremely close to local teleportation, and they started to focus in on capturing the people responsible for that technology and reverse engineer it. The Borilais is the breakthrough of all breakthroughs, being able to travel not only locally, but into other dimensions, as well as time itself.

The Combine were after that. The ability to rapidly travel between all realities, all points in time, all locations instantly.

 

[Trago]

Sooooooooo who's gonna confront Gabe about this?

 

[Whompa02]

Damn...that sounded like it would have been super fun

I love how vague the ending is!!! God dammit I want more half-life...

 

[strafer]

Sooooooooo who's gonna confront Gabe about this?

With the amount of knives he has? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

 

[Melon Husk]

They want our portal technology.

...

The Combine were after that. The ability to rapidly travel between all realities, all points in time, all locations instantly.

Ooh. They want FTL. Good point. I thought the Vorts could already do that, why not bug them instead?

 

[Sad Affleck]

Also, while people are reading into the "futility" part with the last section, I'd be willing to be dollars to doughnuts this passage:

Is far more about addressing Half-Life fans than it is about the HL3 story.

That much is clear. Laidlaw is basically saying that the old guard has little influence inside Valve or has already left the company, that there are still embers of the company's original spirit but that he has given up on trying to reignite it and left the company in the hands of the new guard who think they know better. Laidlaw confirmed what we already knew, that modern Valve is a different company than old Valve.

 

[Muffin Awesome]

So Alex became the new Gordon Freeman in this and Gordon was left to die by both Alex and Gman, only to have his life spared/saved by the other alien dudes? Interesting and bleak, feels like the portal endings.

 

[∀ Narayan]

Honestly that sounds like crap. Another cliffhanger ending? I'm almost glad it's dead.

Same. At this point, the only Half-Life related content I'm looking forward to is Xen for Black Mesa.

Ooh. They want FTL. Good point. I thought the Vorts could already do that, why not bug them instead?

Have you played Half-Life 1? The Combine already invaded the Vortigaunt homeworld, which led to Nihilanth and co. fleeing to Xen.

 

[Uhyve]

The problem seems to be that there is no leadership or vision. It's employees choosing what they want to work on and when.

I believed this, but no more. Valve make money off every marketplace transaction. It just so happens that they keep making games that can heavily use the Steam marketplace ('oh hey, you wanna trade a limited edition 'x' for a large amount of real money that we make a cut of?').

But you know, it's not like they've courted this business model before

Spoiler

(DOTA2/CSGO)

, or even released a game, then patched that game to incorporate this model

Spoiler

(TF2)

.

Same. At this point, the only Half-Life related content I'm looking forward to is Xen for Black Mesa.

I mean, Xen sucked... I'm honestly looking forward to the Black Mesa remake though, because then they can move onto something else.

Maybe more they could do more Half Life, it's not like Valve are doing anything with the franchise. I mean, they've got the blueprint for HL2:Ep2 now...

Valve don't have to risk setting people up for disappointment if they're like, hey we've got a mod team making Ep3.

 

[Melon Husk]

So Alex became the new Gordon Freeman in this and Gordon was left to die by both Alex and Gman, only to have his life spared/saved by the other alien dudes? Interesting and bleak, feels like the portal endings.

Coincidentally, Portal 2's ending might co-occur with Ep 3's, making Chell the new Alyx (or Gordon?).

 

[Tumo]

Yours in infinite finality,

Gertrude Fremont, Ph.D.

Dr Gertrude Fremont

Gertrude Dr
Fremont, CA 94536

??

 

[alr1ght]

Man, sounds amazing.

 

[Trago]

It's just gonna be service game bullshit from now on it seems. But hey, best for business.

I need a drink.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

Ooh. They want FTL. Good point. I thought the Vorts could already do that, why not bug them instead?

I think it's better to interpret that the Vorts are able to "see" the universe and tap into it, but not to the power of literal FTL technology that the Borialis would hold to a civilization like the Combine.

They believe Vortessence is the fabric of the universe, made of "vortal cords", of which everything is woven (and therefore everything is connected). The Vortigaunts are able to read and control this force for their electrical powers, nearly hive-mind telepathy and, likely, their ability to take power from objects. They can use their powers coupled with "the extract" of Antlion larvae to heal the critically injured (however, it is shown in Episode Two that they cannot do this alone).[7]

This interpretation explains the portal storms, as all universes are connected in a way, and portal tech is basically hooking into those "strings" to move between them.

 

[Duxxy3]

It's not the ending that we deserve, but it is an ending nonetheless. We can move on at last.

 

[strafer]

Dr Gertrude Fremont

Gertrude Dr
Fremont, CA 94536

??

Hmm, whoever lives there will probably get a lot of curious eyes.

 

[DeadlyParasite]

This, along with Mass Effect being left to die and shelved indefinitely has left me pretty empty inside. The single player story universes of old that I loved are floating away in the wind.

 

[Alec]

There was an Ep 4 planned, you guys know that right? I recall an old interview where someone states Ep 3 was going to end on a similar cliffhanger of the other games.

Still, this sounds amazing.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

There was an Ep 4 planned, you guys know that right? I recall an old interview where someone states Ep 3 was going to end on a similar cliffhanger of the other games.

Still, this sounds amazing.

"Episode 4" was a spin off game, horror game, taking place in Ravenholm.

 

[FelipeMGM]

wait, Im seeing people reporting both that this is HL3 and also HL2 Episode 3 story, so what is it really?

 

[Cymbal Head]

Sounds like this could have been cool. So it goes.

 

[Widge]

The problem seems to be that there is no leadership or vision. It's employees choosing what they want to work on and when.

Making a game is hard. It has rough patches that need strong leadership to just keep people motivated and on schedule. Valve's structure seems to lead to a lot of started projects and few conclusions.

I mean, if you were told you could work on whatever kind of thing you wanted at work, wouldn't you go for small, easy projects that your friends were working on too?

Also, I don't expect Valve have quite the commercial pressure to keep churning out content like other developers. One of the big benefits of being a platform holder.

 

[RRockman]

How amazing would it be if Gordon still found a way to interfere with the G-man's plans? The right man in the wrong place shouldn't exclude the G-man's machinations!



...but we'll never get to see it. *SIIIIIIIGGGGGHHHHHH*

 

[Barrel Cannon]

Would a Half-Life 2 Episode 3 survive in today's market.... thinking about today's current market compared to when Episode 2 launched alongside Orange Box nearly a decade ago, a lot has changed. After seeing Tifanfall 2(a game in similar vein as the Half-Life games) crash and burn during the same heavy fall period as Episode 2

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

wait, Im seeing people reporting both that this is HL3 and also HL2 Episode 3 story, so what is it really?

HL3 and Episode 3 are basically one and the same when people mention them.

Would a Half-Life 2 Episode 3 survive in today's market.... thinking about today's current market compared to when Episode 2 launched alongside Orange Box nearly a decade ago, a lot has changed. After seeing Tifanfall 2(a game in similar vein as the Half-Life games) crash and burn during the same heavy fall period as Episode 2

How could anyone possibly ask this question with a straight face?

It's the most hyped game in existence.

 

[7DollarHagane]

Sounds really awesome and also really ambitious and probably expensive. Makes sense why new lazy valve cancelled it.

 

[Haganeren]

From a business standpoint, the company doesn't need to take on the risk of game development. It would be a passion project and that isn't how business works. If Blizzard doesn't make a new game(at some point) they have to cease operation. If Valve never makes another game, they will still be loaded.

Actually it IS how business works in those companies.
For exemple UbiSoft is loaded vith frustrated creators who wants to make a passion project, sometime they have to quit the studio to do that. (Magic Engine Studio with its Rayman Legends-like project) Sometime UbiSoft will allow them to pursue (For Honor, Child of Light...)

And Valve have a very bizarre structure which seems like they clearly encourage passion projects.... But even with that, nothing comes out..

 

[guybrushfreeman]

wait, Im seeing people reporting both that this is HL3 and also HL2 Episode 3 story, so what is it really?

This is EP3 100% There have been reports of a project called HL3 within Valve but it's clear this is not that. This is the story of EP3 if it had come out immediately after EP2 as planned. HL3 (if such a thing ever really got started) would've been something different

 

[Liamario]

Why did he post it though. Valve have not spoken about this for a reason and then an ex employee reveals the plot.

 

[FelipeMGM]

This is EP3 100% There have been reports of a project called HL3 within Valve but it's clear this is not that. This is the story of EP3 if it had come out immediately after EP2 as planned. HL3 (if such a thing ever really got started) would've been something different

thanks, thats what I got out of it too, but saw some sites saying that this was Half-Life 3 story...

 

[Piers]

Before this topic:
HL3 is dead.

This topic:
WAIT IT'S ACTUALLY DEAD? ;__;

 

[SpudBud]

Well it's at least some closure but man, what could have been. I don't know if I can be excited about a Valve project in the future. It's great Marc Laidlaw put this out there.

 

[Cardon]

Jesus. Wasn't expecting to do my daily morning visit to GAF and be this shook. Cool to see the story laid out, but it's a damn shame that Valve never released what could've been.