GamesGabe Newell ponders the future in new Half-Life 2 documentary: ‘I think that Half-Life represents a tool we have and promises made to customers’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesGabe Newell ponders the future in new Half-Life 2 documentary: ‘I think that Half-Life represents a tool we have and promises made to customers’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Valve)
To celebrate Half-Life 2’s 20th anniversary, Valve dropped a few surprises in our lap on Friday afternoon, like putting together the original dev team to record in-game commentary for the legendary FPS, which isfree for the weekend on Steam. Awesome! Valve also posted atwo-hour documentary on the making of Half-Life 2on YouTube. Also awesome—unless you had something else to watch tonight like a ridiculous boxing match.
Personally, I’m less interested in the development of a 20-year-old game I know like the back of my hand as I am in some hints about what might comenextfor Half-Life. So, I did the thing you do when you just can’t wait to find out who done it in a whodunnit: I skipped to the end.
Is there confirmation of Half-Life 3 in the Half-Life 2 documentary? Or confirmation of Half-Life: Alyx 2? Or confirmation of anything specific at all? No. But in the closing minutes of the documentary, there are some hints that the Half-Life saga isn’t over.
“It’s an interesting challenge moving forward to think about what that means for future Half-Life stuff, for sure,” Jacobson added.
Future Half-Life stuff confirmed? I mean, sorta, though Jacobson is implying that more Half-Life won’t happen until more technological innovation is done.
Over to you, Gabe Newell:
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“The ending of Half-Life: Alyx is somewhat a self-critical realization,” said Gabe. “I think that Half-Life represents a tool we have and promises made to customers to capitalize on innovation and opportunities to build game experiences that haven’t been involved previously. And I think there are no shortage of those opportunities facing us as an industry right now.”
Look, I know GabeN is a beloved industry figure but at times he talks like a business cyborg. What does that word salad mean? At the end of Half-Life: Alyx we briefly get to inhabit the boots of Gordon Freeman again for a few seconds, and a portion of the history of Half-Life is changed due to a bit of spacetime G-Man magic. I’m not sure how that adds up to a self-critical realization, honestly.
But it does seem like Gabe is saying something along the same lines as Jacobson did: Half-Life and technological innovations go hand in hand, and you won’t get one without the other.
What those innovations might be, I’m not sure: more advanced VR? More powerful GPUs? A Steam Deck you control with a neural implant? Whatever breakthrough needs to happen, I hope it happens soon. Otherwise, see you at the Half-Life 2 25th anniversary party for some more speculation.
TOPICSValve
TOPICS
PRODUCTSHalf-Life 2Half Life 3Half-Life: Alyx
PRODUCTS
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