Introducing Half-Life version of virtual reality, Valve is “afraid” of developing Half-Life 3?

It has been 12 years since Valve launched Half Life 2: Episode 2 in 2007. Since then, no more versions of Half-Life have been released. 12 years is clearly a long number, marking the waiting time for fans of this legendary shooter. When the main character Gordon Freeman’s journey is still unfinished after the episodes at the end of Half-Life 2 Episode 2, the gaming community is still looking forward to, still believing in one day “St. Gabe” will introduce you 3 seems to exist only in legends.

However, most recently, Valve has suddenly confirmed that it is developing a completely new version of Half-Life called Half-Life Alyx. The statement was made by Valve at the right time to mark 21 years since the first Half-Life version was released (November 19, 1998).

Valve has just announced Half-Life Alyx on its official Twitter

Notably, Half-Life Alyx is not completely a sequel to Half-Life 2. Instead, this will be a virtual reality game, as revealed by Valve. Half-Life Alyx will be the strategic card used by Valve to capture the young but potential VR market.

While Half-Life Alyx will feature many of the characters that have appeared in Half-Life 2, a virtual reality game project instead of Half-Life 3 is clearly not what most games are. The favorite player of this shooter line desires.

Why isn’t Valve interested in developing Half-Life 3?

Since Valve first made a splash with the launch of Half-Life in 1998, the company’s focus has gradually shifted to the operation and development of the digital game distribution platform Steam. The fact that up to 30% of the profits of any game sold on Steam made Valve gradually neglect the game development.

The future of Half-Life 3 is increasingly distant, as Valve no longer has any financial incentives to develop this project?

In fact, the more Steam grows the number of users, the fewer the number of homegrown games is released by Valve. In other words, Valve has transformed from a game developer to a distributor and publisher of digital content. Even the blockbuster titles labeled Valve are “lots of goods”: DOTA 2 was upgraded by Ice Frog from Defense of the Ancients version on Warcraft 3, CS: GO was developed by Hidden Path.

Obviously, instead of investing people and resources for launching the game, the huge amount of money collected from Steam was too much to feed Valve and enrich the ‘boss’ Gabe Newell. This is invisible, making Half-Life 3’s future more and more remote, as Valve no longer has any financial incentives to develop this project.

Half-Life 2 Episode 2 ends with an unfinished ending

Besides, in the eyes of business investors, it would be foolish to try to spend money to make an unknown game, especially when Half-Life 3 will have to overcome a huge shadow. of previous versions.

In fact, Half-Life and Half-Life 2 created a revolution in the shooter genre that caused the public to place excessive expectations on Half-Life 3, but also made Valve meet a lot of deadlock in the game. developing this shooter. In an interview in 2013, Valve even admitted to “not knowing how to do Half-Life 3”.

This is evident in a series of signs that the Half-Life 3 project was actually conceived by Valve for many years, before being scrapped for failing to achieve the desired quality.

The pressure to overcome the shadow of the previous Half-Life versions made Valve deadlocked in the development of Half-Life 3

In 2016, writer Marc Laidlaw, the writer of Half-Life officially left Valve after many years working here. The writer himself then tweeted plot details in 2017 in plot scenarios for Half-Life 2: Episode 3, following the events of Half-Life 2: Episode. 2. According to many gaming news sites, the scenario of revealing the project once existed, but was canceled by Valve.

Previously, in 2013, Valve even planned to assign a studio outside of the development of Half-Life 2, which is said to be Half-Life Episode 4. Accordingly, Arkane Studios – the game company behind the game series Dishonored revealed the new Half-Life will be set in the spooky town of Ravenholm that appeared in Half Life 2.

However, this project was developed in the period of 2006-2007 and was canceled midway because Valve thought that the zombie theme was outdated and difficult to achieve the desired success.

Thus, up to now, the future of Half Life 3 is still a question and answer. In order to know the exact information about the “fate” of this game, gamers will certainly have to wait a while longer.