Marc Laidlaw reveals Half-Life 2 Episode 3's story synopsis

Liamario said:
Why did he post it though. Valve have not spoken about this for a reason and then an ex employee reveals the plot.
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Because it's well talked about that with the way Valve structures it's studio, Half Life is not in development, and the people responsible for the previous games are no longer in the studio, and nobody wants to develop the game.

The "ex employee" is the main writer for the series iirc.

This is him basically saying the game is dead, and won't ever see the light of day because there is literally nobody within the studio pushing for it's development, or pursuing it.
 
FelipeMGM said:
wait, Im seeing people reporting both that this is HL3 and also HL2 Episode 3 story, so what is it really?
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It's both. episode 3 was going to be the third installment of half life main series.


Whompa02 said:
To think Artifact is what they're working on now is fucking infuriating...
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What's more infuriating. Them working on that or that people in this thread and in the community at large will happily buy into the game and the rest of their micro-practices?
 
Not sure if posted. Laidlaw twitter

My website's down for now. I guess fanfic is popular, even a genderswapped snapshot of a dream I had many years ago.
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https://twitter.com/marc_laidlaw/status/900960760481726464

Fanfic or not, this is now canon to me and i'm happy.

7pCDm0q.gif
 
Widge said:
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.
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Of course, that's part of it. They have a steady revenue stream so they can afford to have people work on path-of-least-resistance projects. There's obviously no one left there willing or capable of captaining Half Life 3, else it would have happened already.
 
jett said:
Honestly that sounds like crap. Another cliffhanger ending? I'm almost glad it's dead.
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It is but it isn't. While we don't necessarily know what happens to the main characters, it does seem to complete several arcs (Mossman/Borealis and its importance to the rebellion, Breen's fate, Alyx dealing with Eli and revenge). It would've been a lot better note to end on than the ending of Episode 2, that's for sure.
 
Greg Coomer said:
Although we're not going to treat Dev Days this year as the place or the time to make big product announcements related to the content that we have in development at Valve for virtual reality, I do think that once it becomes time to do that next year, nobody in this room is going to be disappointed.
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https://youtu.be/OR4jPtrDCLo
 
CHC said:
Of course, that's part of it. They have a steady revenue stream so they can afford to have people work on path-of-least-resistance projects. There's obviously no one left there willing or capable of captaining Half Life 3, else it would have happened already.
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There are few game companies can afford to nurture quality writing. Valve's one of them, but they're not interested. Maddening.
 
This is Phil Spencer's big chance to redeem Microsoft's first party games.

Buy the rights to Half-Life and make a huge studio dedicated to the franchise, much like the investment they made in Minecraft..... billions of dollars.
 
Gabe Newell doesn't care about the art of video games. The current Valve have no ethos other than making as much money as possible in the fields they're invested in.
 
Barrel Cannon said:
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
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Can DOOM or Wolfenstein survive? Yes and they thrive. Half Life would thrive in this environment.
 
CHC said:
Of course, that's part of it. They have a steady revenue stream so they can afford to have people work on path-of-least-resistance projects
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I always keep this in mind when I hear or read things like "Nintendo should go software only!"
 
As a long time Valve supporter I'm starting to see they just don't really care about games anymore. Constantly taking a bigger cut while offloading work to the passionate community. Lazily running events they host. Their horizontal company structure bringing their actual content creation to a grinding halt. They're continual poor customer support. Minimal contact with their user base/fans. Even their last few games have been them mostly outsourcing then taking over and maintaining (L4D2 and CS:GO, giving IveFrog free reign to run DOTA2). The Steam Sales being mediocre as fuck.

Valve is really shooting themselves in the feet these days...
 
At this point all I really, really want is an explaination. I want to understand what went on at Valve post-Ep.2 that made one of gaming's most valuable and acclaimed franchises not worth continuing.

Accountant: "Hey Gabe, look at this TF2 hat money."
Gabe: "Cancel Half-Life!"

I doubt it went like that.
 
What's the status of Source 2 by the way? Last I heard anything about it they said licensing would require your game to be released on Steam.
 
strafer said:
Can you imagine if they milked the franchise like Call of duty and Assassins Creed.

We would be so sick of Half Life right now. :P
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instead we get irregular development, an emotionally draining cliffhanger, and a text dump of a great sci-fi story that will never see the light of day as we were strung along by the company that abandoned the project years ago.

yay!

Zombie James said:
At this point all I really, really want is an explaination. I want to understand what went on at Valve post-Ep.2 that made one of gaming's most valuable and acclaimed franchises not worth continuing.

Accountant: "Hey Gabe, look at this TF2 hat money."
Gabe: "Cancel Half-Life!"

I doubt it went like that.
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You leave a can of coke out for too long, the soda goes flat.
 
Severianb said:
This is Phil Spencer's big chance to redeem Microsoft's first party games.

Buy the rights to Half-Life and make a huge studio dedicated to the franchise, much like the investment they made in Minecraft..... billions of dollars.
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They would be better hiring ex Valve staff and giving them funding to start a new studio and IP.
 
Tremendously glad that we were finally able to have some closure. I always felt deep down that we'd eventually see a leaked plot outline after it became apparent that Valve had no idea how to properly develop "Half-Life 3" once they scrapped the episodic format following the release of "Portal 2" eons ago. A proper installment would've been more ideal, of course. But I'll take something that properly closes the book instead of it being left open with blank pages.

Thank you, Marc Laidlaw!
 
Honestly I'm very okay with this ending. It's perfect. It sucks to think there won't be an ongoing series of Half-Life games like I thought would happen in middle school, but the fact that I now have closure to the Half-Life 2 arc, I feel much better and can accept that the game I was looking forward to for almost 10 years isn't coming
 
Severianb said:
This is Phil Spencer's big chance to redeem Microsoft's first party games.

Buy the rights to Half-Life and make a huge studio dedicated to the franchise, much like the investment they made in Minecraft..... billions of dollars.
Click to expand...

I would finally have a compelling reason to buy an xbox!
 
Severianb said:
This is Phil Spencer's big chance to redeem Microsoft's first party games.

Buy the rights to Half-Life and make a huge studio dedicated to the franchise, much like the investment they made in Minecraft..... billions of dollars.
Click to expand...

Gabe and others left Microsoft in the 90's to form Valve. They would never sell their baby to them, especially with the whole SteamOS thing arising out of a fear of Microsoft locking down Windows to an app store model.
 
Could have been something special, but Valve made their choice a long long time ago. despite having so much money and creative freedom, in the end they couldn't give less fucks about their long-time fans. Fuck you Valve.

At least we got to see some kind of closure. Never thought I'd see the day
 
neurosisxeno said:
As a long time Valve supporter I'm starting to see they just don't really care about games anymore. Constantly taking a bigger cut while offloading work to the passionate community. Lazily running events they host. Their horizontal company structure bringing their actual content creation to a grinding halt. They're continual poor customer support. Minimal contact with their user base/fans. Even their last few games have been them mostly outsourcing then taking over and maintaining (L4D2 and CS:GO, giving IveFrog free reign to run DOTA2). The Steam Sales being mediocre as fuck.

Valve is really shooting themselves in the feet these days...
Click to expand...

I think part of what you said here is what makes so annoyed with Valve in general - it's that they don't do ANYTHING with polish or conviction anymore. Look, Half-Life is whatever, it's a good series but not the be all and end all. If they don't want to work on it, fine, but at least communicate that and then pivot to SOMETHING and go all in on in the new thing. Their whole ecosystem is just made of ideas that seem to have been abandoned as soon as they either had their first passable version released or became too challenging. The Steam Controller, curators, Marketplace, etc.

Without some kind of leadership people are just going to work on the low hanging fruit projects and never touch the big, risky stuff. Even their core software, Steam, needs a big overhaul.
 
Thats was a compelling read, wish it had been made, although it still doesn't answer the core questions - such as what is G-man, and is Alex Shell's daughter.
 
I was reminded of this:

hlcanada1nob6.png


Five years later, they got something at least.
 
That was great thanks for bringing it to the forum. It sounds like an amazing story and truly fitting for half life. If only valve had got off their asses and pushed it through as episode 3. It would have been a great conclusion and framed as episode 3 expectations would not have been as high as it would be for half life 3.
 
Severianb said:
This is Phil Spencer's big chance to redeem Microsoft's first party games.

Buy the rights to Half-Life and make a huge studio dedicated to the franchise, much like the investment they made in Minecraft..... billions of dollars.
Click to expand...

After what happened to Halo?

Nintendo EAD or Rockstar North are the only studios that i'd trust to deliver on Half Life 3. Obv neither are happening.
 
Widge said:
I always keep this in mind when I hear or read things like "Nintendo should go software only!"
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I'm usually pretty critical of Nintendo but now that I'm actually thinking about the Valve situation, Nintendo gets a forever pass from me.

Releasing more 3DS games when my Switch (imo) needs more games annoyed me. But at least I'm enjoying the prospect of a MP4. If Valve released the Switch, I'm pretty sure it would have been my first traded in console.

Cameron122 said:
Maybe some talented modders can make a campaign��
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This is my hope. Since Valve aren't gonna do it.

Edit: Also, adding to the whole prestige thing, SE just announced a Secret of Mana remake, I doubt that'll even make $200k. They made it anyways, because SE understands the idea of maintaining their image.
 
Marc is a cool dude


I am happy he has closure on this too. Even if Valve gets desperate and feels they NEED to do it. At least now we know the original ending to the HL2 saga
 
TrutaS said:
Thats was a compelling read, wish it had been made, although it still doesn't answer the core questions - such as what is G-man, and is Alex Shell's daughter.
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G-Man is simply a being of another universe. The real question is, who is he working for and what are the real motives for his interventions
 
The final gunshot was an exclamation mark on everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger, and it was over.
 
CHC said:
I think part of what you said here is what makes so annoyed with Valve in general - it's that they don't do ANYTHING with polish or conviction anymore. Look, Half-Life is whatever, it's a good series but not the be all and end all. If they don't want to work on it, fine, but at least communicate that and then pivot to SOMETHING and go all in on in the new thing. Their whole ecosystem is just made of ideas that seem to have been abandoned as soon as they either had their first passable version released or became too challenging. The Steam Controller, curators, Marketplace, etc.

Without some kind of leadership people are just going to work on the low hanging fruit projects and never touch the big, risky stuff. Even their core software, Steam, needs a big overhaul.
Click to expand...

But the Steam Controller continues to get updates. They've continued to add many features and it's a vastly different controller than what it was at launch. Same thing with VR...they just unveiled the Knuckles controller two months ago along with updated base stations.
 
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