14 Year Anniversary of Half-Life 2. Release of Half-Life 3 is now longer than Duke Nukem Forever Development Time.

Today marks the 14 Year Anniversary of the release of Half-Life 2. What's equally sad is that the development time for Duke Nukem Forever is now less than the time it will take for Half-Life 3 to come out (if it will ever come out). Duke Nukem Forever took 14 years to come since it's started development in 1997 to the year it was released in 2011. If Half-Life 3 comes out it will actually be longer than the time it took to release a follow up to Half-Life 2 which is a shame. Half-Life 2 is probably my top two most favorite shooter along with the original Crysis. It broke new grounds in terms story telling, facial animation and innovation in gaming. It's appalling that it's taking so long for Half-Life 3 to come out that it's now longer than the development time of Duke Nukem Forever!

Let's face it, Valve has gotten lazy. Steam is now a cash cow and they no longer have any incentive or motivation to produce Half-Life 3. I don't think Gabe Newell cares anymore now that he is a billionaire. Or he want's to push out a game that raises the bar like Half-Life 2 did when it came out that he thinks he can't make anything like that anymore.

Before some idiot claims that Half-Life Episode 1 came out in 2006 and Episode 2 came out 2007 which would make today 12 and 11 years since the last Half-Life entry, that still is 12 to 11 years. Plenty of time to make Episode 3. I think if Valve was going to delay the release of Half-Life 3 or not release it at all they should have release Episode 3 and be done with the franchise.

What do you guys think? Will we ever see Half-Life 3? Valve no longer cares? It's sad that a developer like 3D Realms (which was notorious for mis-management) managed to push out a game, a follow up to Duke Nukem 3D in 14 years than the time it took Valve to release a follow up to Half-Life 3!

Half life is overrated.

It’s a poor shooter and aged badly.

Gravity gun is a lol worthy gimmick.

No one cares about lack of cutscenes and people talking in real time. Blah blah “innovation”.

The truth is, half life was never that good and Gabe knows Half Life 3 would suck which is why he won’t make it.

Its 96 on metacritic and one of the most beloved game of all time. you are wrong.

Or perhaps Half Life 3 was never intended to be released and people just like to whine and complain?

Duke Nukem Forever was actually in development.

Half Life 3 is not.

You tell em' son.

**** that overrated piece of masterpiece.

Yes it's over-rated that's why Gamespot gave the original Half-Life 9.4 rating and any shooter fan knows that it was one of the greatest and one of the most influential FPS to be ever released. Sounds like you never played the original. And I wasn't talking about the original either. Half-Life 2 was even a better shooter. Maximum PC gave it a 10/10 rating which they gave it to no other games not to mention 9.2 score on Gamespot.

I know that (or that we know of). I was using it to make it a point that it still hasn't come out in 14 years which was the entire length of the development cycle of Duke Nukem Forever which was notoriously mis-managed.

Metro Exodus will be next Half life 2 that will revolutionize SP story driven FPS.

HL3 was never ever in development from the start at all. And if such a development happened awhile back, I'd be really surprise if it did cause we would've know about it by now at least. Duke Nukem Forever on the other hand saw it's development before it went to development hell over the years but the fact is, DNF saw it's development cycle life and HL3 did not.

I don't care about HL3 anyways, HL2 Episode 2 is good enough for me as I already moved on. And from my understanding, it was supposed to be Half-Life 2 Episode 3 and not Half-Life 3 itself.

Still my favourite game of all time.

And sadly HL3 is never coming. And it pains me every time I think of it :(

its because 20 dollar episode 3 reusing same assets wont work today. it would have worked in 2008. beside episodic formula failed as a result valve decide to scrap it.

Episode 1 was terrible and episode 2 was great not as good as HL2.

Aside from a supremely weak ending chapter, Episode 1's gameplay is a step up from Halflife 2.

The hospital section is closer to fire-fights in original Hallflife and probably the best single combat area in the franchise.

I would argue as well the elevator section was a more effective horror sequence than Ravenholm, It really the sense of fending off zombie hoards in a desperate stand more so than Left4dead ever did imo particularly because it's deliberately and perfectly paced. It's actually reminicent of the opening village of RE4, albeit in a much tighter space.

the beauty of Half life is you are alone gordon freeman and has to find ways and solve puzzle. in EP1 alyx always be your sidekick.

EP1 was just pretty bad. it should have been Half life 2 epilogue that was originally suppose to be.

The thing is though, she's never in the players way, nor overpowered, not annoying (see Resident Evil 4). The game uses well.

The only issue I have with her, which is completely stupid on Valves end - Valve used research to show players prefer a "positive" personality.

This results on her cracking jokes constantly like shes on a date in Starbucks, which makes 0 sense in the context of what is going on in Episode 1. Rebellion. Thousands of folk dead. City level'd. Tower about to blow up and kill people etc.... There's a lack of immediacy or investment to what's going on compared to Episode 2, which dramatically is totally on point.

I remember when Half Life was relevant. Now its just an overrated relic from the past that nostalgia heads keep reverting to .

When did Valve confirm Half Life 3 was in development? Ending a game on a massive cliff-hanger doesn't mean there was plans to make another.

The mid 00's was the best time to be a PC gamer that's for sure Half Life 2, Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R. ect... the good old days of picking up a physical PC box at store.

PS : I know Half life 2 Launch with Steam but you could still get the physical box btw I love the box art.

Ahhhh I miss that Sierra logo.

iirc HL3/Episode 3 isn't actually under development. So nice try.

Why don't you look at what shooters were like before 2004. The game didn't really re-invent the genre, but it certainly breathed new life into it. Prior to that, the best we could hope for is Halo (2001) or the first Half-Life (1998)...I'll pass on Halo, and HL1 was dated but still great.

It has aged really well, actually; game is still fun to play, and the Source engine is arguably one of the best game development tools, professional and amateur, to have been created. Only recently has it really been outdone.

Gravity gun is a weapon, tool...not a gimmick. Having sticky cover in your game...that is a gimmick. Pressing buttons during a cutscene to get your character to do something...that is a gimmick.

They're not saying "innovation", they're saying "immersion". Listen better. Cutscenese are fine and all, but first-person games are far better when you aren't constantly jerked out of the first-person narrative. It's more immersive, and that's what HL did well. As a shooter, it didn't really innovate, it just nailed the fundamentals well.

The truth is...HL2 was a great game and imo underrated, despite achieving legendary status among players and professional critics. But it is 14 years old, and it'd be pretty sad if we didn't have something better (and we do) to play. But that doesn't undo it's greatness, nor take away its place in gaming history.

Picking on Half-Life 2 is like, idunno...giving a 90 year old war veteran a hard time. Making a 9/11 joke. It just makes you look bad.

Half-Life will always be relevant. There's a term out there called "classic", or maybe "timeless" would be better.

True some people look back at it and go "man that game is better than the garbage we get now" and I admit that's sad, but in the context of history, it's not overrated and there are still lessons to be learned from it. Things it did well that can still be applied to games today.

Alyx is arguably one of the better "sidekicks" in gaming history. Non-intrusive, positive (which I liked), smart, athletic, well acted...and she came with a sidekick of her own (Dog)!

Agree with you on overall tone, though, Episode 2 nailed it with Alyx.

Yay, more cynical internet naysayers. Half Life 3 (or, rather, something titled both "ep3" and "hl3") were at one point in development. This is absolutely an indisputable fact. How far along were they? We have no idea. But there were many, many leaks throughout the years referring to these titles in Valve's code base.

People love to be overtly pessimistic about this stuff... I guess to shield their expectations or whatever. But what you've written is categorically false.

Nevertheless, there's little evidence to suggest either what was titled "ep3" or "hl3" are still in development. References to either of these titles have stopped coming out quite a while ago. There's still increasing and abundant information about "hlvr" however. My guess? Valve put Half Life 3 on hiatus and they're testing public interest in the IP when they create a VR title.

Half-Life 3 development is over. It's cancelled.

Gabe has been trolling Half Life for years but Deez fans still love it.

@Xtasy26:

Only difference is that Duke Nukem Forever actually released. You might as well give up on Half Life.

Half Life 3 does not compare to Duke Nukem Forever. Duke Nukem gained infamy because it was an announced game in development plagued with the amount of delays it had. It ultimately developed a cult following because it finally came out way beyond relevance to a laughably bad game.

Half Life 3, however, was never an announced game and it has never been in development.

@R4gn4r0k: you nailed it. HL 3 is not being developed. They never finished up HL 2.....

Half Life 3 confirmed

Yes I know Half-Life 3 wasn't officially in development as I explained earlier. I am simply compare the fact that Duke Nukem Forever development time is now less than the time gap between the launch of Half-Life 2 14 years later. Which I found appalling for such a revolutionary game and franchise.

Yes from what I heard from rumors on the internet that there was some development. How much of it is actually true remains to be seen. I personally think Valve started on Episode 3 or Half-Life 3 and they scrapped it for whatever reason (maybe to work on other projects like the Portal series).

I have doubts that it will even be released in 15-20 years.

HL3 has never been in development. I remember reading such, Laidlaw said he penned a canon ending which unfortunately we'll never get to see in action.

Never said it was. Simply stating that the time period between the release of Half-Life 2 and now is longer than the entire development cycle of Duke Nukem Forever.

@warmblur said:

The mid 00's was the best time to be a PC gamer that's for sure Half Life 2, Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R. ect... the good old days of picking up a physical PC box at store.

PS : I know Half life 2 Launch with Steam but you could still get the physical box btw I love the box art.

Ahhhh I miss that Sierra logo.

Iconic box cover. Totally agree mid-2000's was the last great time to be a PC Gamer where games were solely designed to be on the PC first. Last 10 years with the exception of Crysis has been meh with respect to PC-centric development. I would say that was the tail end of the Golden Era of PC Gaming.

Never said it was. Simply stating that the time period between the release of Half-Life 2 and now is longer than the entire development cycle of Duke Nukem Forever.

@warmblur said:

The mid 00's was the best time to be a PC gamer that's for sure Half Life 2, Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R. ect... the good old days of picking up a physical PC box at store.

PS : I know Half life 2 Launch with Steam but you could still get the physical box btw I love the box art.

Ahhhh I miss that Sierra logo.

Iconic box cover. Totally agree mid-2000's was the last great time to be a PC Gamer where games were solely designed to be on the PC first. Last 10 years with the exception of Crysis has been meh with respect to PC-centric development. I would say that was the tail end of the Golden Era of PC Gaming.

First Valve has never said or indicated in any way that there would be a Half-Life 3 so how do you go from a wet dream to Valve being slower than a game that was always expected and known to be in development?

So no Valve does not care about what you may want and feel entitled to nor should they ever.

Just face it. Valve isn't being lazy. Running and managing Steam is a full-time job.

@Xtasy26 said:

@HoolaHoopMan said:

HL3 has never been in development. I remember reading such, Laidlaw said he penned a canon ending which unfortunately we'll never get to see in action.

Never said it was. Simply stating that the time period between the release of Half-Life 2 and now is longer than the entire development cycle of Duke Nukem Forever.

@warmblur said:

The mid 00's was the best time to be a PC gamer that's for sure Half Life 2, Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R. ect... the good old days of picking up a physical PC box at store.

PS : I know Half life 2 Launch with Steam but you could still get the physical box btw I love the box art.

Ahhhh I miss that Sierra logo.

Iconic box cover. Totally agree mid-2000's was the last great time to be a PC Gamer where games were solely designed to be on the PC first. Last 10 years with the exception of Crysis has been meh with respect to PC-centric development. I would say that was the tail end of the Golden Era of PC Gaming.

I don't think it has anything to do with being designed for PC. The only difference between console cases and PC was with the older massive, brick sized cases PC games used.

More than likely the drop in quality is due to a fetish for 3D over hand-drawn. In ye old days, when graphics were simplistic, they had to sell you an idea, a condensed concept of what the game represents. It was also before the internet and other sources made information readily available.

Now, we already see hours of footage in advance, and they try to get the box cover in line with the 3D asthetic of the game. This results in... shall we say... boring and lazy shit.

Funnily enough I don't really like the Halflife 2 cover. I think it's sort of boring. The simplicity of the original Halflife cover worked better, as did Opposing Force and Blueshift with them being related with orange/green/blue.

This just looks like a slightly dated CGI dude with glasses.

Ending the story at Episode 2 on a cliffhanger with the aliens coming in and killing one of the main characters was a terrible move. Yeah, I get it. Valve makes loads of money with Steam now, no longer cares about Half-Life, the old writers and/or devs of Half-Life 2 are gone, etc. But seriously? Being as rich as they are and they're not even going to try to do anything with one of the franchises that put them on the map? Just abandon the whole thing when the story was really getting good (it always was good, but it really heated up in those last moments of Episode 2)?

Makes no fukking sense to me.

Wait ... didn't we knew for a while that Half Life 3 (episode, next entry, whatever) was oficially cancelled ? didn't someone released some notes about the plot ? i thought we knew for a fact that a next entry will never happen.

Anyways, the first time i played HL was with the Orange Box, one of the greatest deals ever in video game history and honestly, i loved the game to death ... is hard to explain why ... it just has a thing that definitely hooks you almost inmediately ... sadly, somethings have aged pretty bad IMO and is hard for me to get back to it, specially most of the first part of HL2 (the sewers).

Sad to see such an inconic character just ... die without a proper resolution.

Gabe said countless times that episode 3 was being worked on and that it would tie up all the loose ends of the trilogy lol, so much for that I guess.

Thought the opening quarter was the best part. It turns a helicopter into villain from a slasher movie.

Booted it up yesterday and one thing that I love, really, quite genius level story-telling, is the opening with Breen on the TV-screen. We get all this dialogue.

And then you get this shit, just brilliant.

Again, I am merely mentioning that the time period for the development of Duke Nukem Forever is no less than the time period since Half-Life 2 was released. Never said I was entitled I just think it's frankly sad that a company with the resources that Valve has is too lazy or don't care for a marquee title. Especially considering that there are some loose ends in the Half-Life universe.

@uninspiredcup said:

@Xtasy26 said:

@HoolaHoopMan said:

HL3 has never been in development. I remember reading such, Laidlaw said he penned a canon ending which unfortunately we'll never get to see in action.

Never said it was. Simply stating that the time period between the release of Half-Life 2 and now is longer than the entire development cycle of Duke Nukem Forever.

@warmblur said:

The mid 00's was the best time to be a PC gamer that's for sure Half Life 2, Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R. ect... the good old days of picking up a physical PC box at store.

PS : I know Half life 2 Launch with Steam but you could still get the physical box btw I love the box art.

Ahhhh I miss that Sierra logo.

Iconic box cover. Totally agree mid-2000's was the last great time to be a PC Gamer where games were solely designed to be on the PC first. Last 10 years with the exception of Crysis has been meh with respect to PC-centric development. I would say that was the tail end of the Golden Era of PC Gaming.

I don't think it has anything to do with being designed for PC. The only difference between console cases and PC was with the older massive, brick sized cases PC games used.

More than likely the drop in quality is due to a fetish for 3D over hand-drawn. In ye old days, when graphics were simplistic, they had to sell you an idea, a condensed concept of what the game represents. It was also before the internet and other sources made information readily available.

Now, we already see hours of footage in advance, and they try to get the box cover in line with the 3D asthetic of the game. This results in... shall we say... boring and lazy shit.

Funnily enough I don't really like the Halflife 2 cover. I think it's sort of boring. The simplicity of the original Halflife cover worked better, as did Opposing Force and Blueshift with them being related with orange/green/blue.

This just looks like a slightly dated CGI dude with glasses.

I was talking about games specifically being designed for the PC up until the Mid-2000's where developers switched to developing for consoles first and the lowest common denominator.

With respect to the cover I was merely commenting that it has become an iconic cover.

Totally agreed. First time I played through the some of the Half-Life 2 was when I got the orange box. Top notch games in one package.

This thread makes no sense since Half-Life 3 is not in development.

Well PC has no games! At least no quality AAA games, so I cam imagine their frustration and nostalgia for a time when PC games were arguably great.

No one cares about Half Life.

Why does this thread keep getting bumped each week? Just let it go already.

Again, never said HL3 was in development, it's just the time period from the release of HL2 is now longer than the development cycle of Duke Nukem Forever.

Do I smell a troll....