There are only two things that keep the internet going: calling strangers cucks and wondering where the next Half-Life game is. You’ve probably seen more than your (or anyone’s) fair share of memes questioning where Half-Life 3 is, but there’s still something that we need to get through before that – Half-Life 2: Episode 2.
Promised a decade ago in May 2006, Gabe Newell and his messianic friends have been decidedly tight-lipped ever since, only allowing trickles, no, drops, of information to come out. Basically, Valve have been very slowly gifting a string of dribble to fall from their mouths and into ours as we lay expectantly on the ground for the last decade.
October 10th was the last time we were actually able to play anything new from the world of Gordon Freeman. Half-Life 2: Episode 2, the second expansion to Half-Life 2, was supposed to have a follow-up in the form of Episode 3, especially considering that ending, but nothing has been heard since. It’s a pretty safe bet at this point that it will never be released.
You need only look at how much gaming has changed and progressed since Episode 2 to know that any new entry in the series might have to be drastically different from its predecessors. Episode 3 would most likely have to be built on a new engine with all sorts of bells and whistles. Steam certainly don’t have time for that: if they can’t be arsed to moderate Greenlight, they definitely won’t oblige the needs of HL fans, no matter how many memes are posted.
Gabe doesn’t exactly seem to be rushing to his computer to work on it, either. Speaking last year to Geoff Keighley, Newell didn’t explicitly mention a new Half-Life, but he may as well have when he said:
“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 they wanted to do it and had a reasonable explanation for why.”
As well as the chin-stroking question of how to update Half-Life to be more modern without pissing off a very devoted fanbase, there’s an even bigger roadblock: the guy who wrote it retired. Marc Laidlaw called it a day after almost two decades of working for the company, so whoever comes aboard will have serious shoes to fill.
Until the day when a new Half-Life game is announced and we’re all evolved past the point of needing digital stimulation and are simply masses of energy traversing the universe, it’s probably a good idea to go play something else instead. That Cyberpunk 2077 looks good.
Stay tuned to Cultured Vultures for absolutely no news on Half-Life 3 for the next five years.
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