Now that your attention is slowly turning away from the misleading title, bear with me as we examine the top 3 reasons we haven’t seen or heard anything from Valve about one of the most anticipated games of all time after Duke Nukem Forever and any “game” Peter Molyneux announces every time he opens his mouth.
VALVE IS BIDING THEIR TIME
If we examine the last 10 years, the video game industry has been unpredictable. Graphical capabilities of machines are constantly advancing, motion control came and went and VR is trying to become something more than bits of interesting ideas for people with expensive tastes.
Even the format in which we buy games is changing, with experts arguing whether physical or digital media will prevail in the future. Different people have varying opinions and all we know for certain from this is that we don’t know where the industry is going.
Maybe VR becomes the next Dualshock and turns into the default way to play games or people decide to go more than 70% digital with their games. Maybe the Power Glove makes a comeback. Isn’t it logical that Valve is waiting for this uncertainty to be over before they move on and release their possible masterpiece?
The developers want to make a Half-Life game that won’t look or feel outdated within a year. Other than more horsepower and some other interesting interface ideas, there is nothing in 2016 that would have made Half-Life 2 a better game back then.
THE OLD WAY TAKES TIME
We already examined that it’s possible Valve is waiting for the dust to settle and the novelty of glorified tech demos to go away (e.g. The Order 1886) before they bring out the big guns and remind people that games shouldn’t try to be movies. But what about the development process of Half-Life games?
The Half-Life series lets the player experience the action and aims to make you feel in real-time instead of wowing you with an on-rails dramatic event that stops the action to show you some insane set piece or scene (see Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc). If you ever listen to developer commentary while playing the game you notice the insane amount of detail and fine-tuning that goes into making the game perfect. Instead of relying on cutscenes, the levels are made so as to invoke a series of emotions that immerse you in the experience of Gordon Freeman.
When you play, you really care about your friends and their fate not because that’s the story, but because the game is structured to make you feel that connection. In an era of Hollywood-style first-person shooters and games that basically play themselves, Half-Life games feel out of place and are take much more time to make. The length of the games compared to the years of work that goes into them is very short because of the detail that goes into crafting an incredibly specific experience.
MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY
The simplest reason of all. Valve is a successful company. They’re most likely waiting for the prediction of a “dry period” before even thinking of starting work on the next game in the Half-Life series. It’s a sad fact but it makes sense. As gamers we can only hope the hype won’t betray us. It can’t be as bad as No Man’s Sky after all.