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PC Gamer staff discuss if we really need HL3

Rockk

Member
I mean we don't need any single game. People want it because it's a beloved franchise that ended on a cliffhanger.
 
I guess it's the trendy new thing in media to lecture audiences about half life 3? Of course we don't 'need' it anymore than we 'need' a sequel to any game.

People want a sequel to a revolutionary game series that ended on a giant cliffhanger with the promise of more to come. It isn't rocket science.

It's not enough to say 'itll come when it comes' or 'it may never come' now we need people lecturing us on why we shouldn't have ever wanted it in the first place. Give me a break.
 

Kinyou

Member
I've always speculated that an unspoken reason behind Half-Life 3's continued non-existence is the burden to reinvent the first-person shooter again, just as Valve had done on two previous occasions. Is it enough for Valve to just make a super refined sequel, even if it doesn't have the impact of either of the previous Half-Life games? Well, yes—Portal 2 is exactly that model of follow-up. It wasn't a reinvention, it was a welcome extension of the first game's existing ideas. If the level and narrative design is strong enough, it doesn't feel like diminishing returns.
That's where I'm at. Expectations are incredibly high and unless it has some unique hook that we haven't seen before Valve might feel it's not doing the series justice.
Then again, the whole episode model felt like an attempt to continue Half Life without the pressure of reinventing the game, and people were mostly fine with that. So it's weird that they didn't finish it that way.
 

ghibli99

Member
I don't care about HL3, but I do feel like we still are owed HL2:E3 after E2's ending... as an episodic piece of content, it doesn't seem like the insurmountable task that it has become given how so many other smaller companies have done it successfully in the years following.
 

EGM1966

Member
What I actually want is HL2:EP3.

Valve promised three episodes, delivered two and never delivered the third leaving the narrative and story unfinished.

They never needed to reinvent anything or rescue anything just wrap the episodes up. Gameplay could easily have been more of the same at that point.

It's why I never touch episodic games until the whole run is out: it was bad form and I'm not getting caught out like that again.

It's not like Valve ran out of money or folded as a business. They simply chose to abandon a large number of customers who'd paid for the first two episodes.

Now of course the hype and expectation is crazy as noted: but it didn't have to have been if they'd merely delivered EP3 in reasonable timeframe.
 

nekkid

It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
I just want a graphic novel that concludes the story, at this point.
 
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