Valve talks about Half-Life's future, and what Half-Life 3 would look like

Valve is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2, one of the most beloved single-player first-person shooters ever made. As part of the celebration, which includes a massive update to the base game that fixes some long-standing bugs and visual upgrades, the company has also released a two-hour documentary chronicling the game's development and the franchise's legacy.

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In addition to core developers, writers, and designers who worked on the iconic Half-Life 2 and its Episodic expansions, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell opens up about the canceled Half-Life 2: Episode 3 while hinting at what that means for the franchise's future and the possibility of Valve releasing Half-Life 3 at some point in the future.

With Half-Life 2: Episode 3 set to conclude the game's story and resolve the cliffhanger of Episode 2 (or push it forward), it was ultimately canceled because - as Gabe Newell puts it - it failed to push the genre forward or evolve the gameplay laid out by Half-Life 2 and its first two Episodes.

This is after we see concept art and early gameplay from Episode 3, which includes Gordon Freeman wielding an Ice Gun that can create ice-wall shields and even mini-bridges for defense and traversal. According to Gabe Newell, he took Episode 3 and left the team "stumped" regarding ideas, and releasing a new Half-Life requires more than simply "moving the story forward."

"That's copping out of your obligation to gamers, right?" Gabe says. "Yes, of course, they love the story. They love many, many aspects of it. But sort of saying that your reason to do it is because people want to know what happens next... We could've shipped it; it wouldn't have been that hard. My personal failure was being stumped. I couldn't figure out why doing Episode 3 was pushing anything forward."

Of course, we got the critically acclaimed VR-focused Half-Life Alyx, which presented the franchise in a new light. However, when it comes to continuing the story of Half-Life 2 with what would be Half-Life 3, Gabe believes that the only way that would work is if the game innovated the first-person genre and delivered an experience that hadn't been seen before.

It's a tall order, and it's probably the main reason we haven't seen (or will see) a new mainline Half-Life game.

"I think that Half-Life represents a tool we have and promises made to customers to capitalize on innovation and opportunities to build game experiences that haven't been [seen] previously," Gabe Newell explains. However, he left gamers with a glimmer of hope by adding that "there is no shortage of those opportunities facing us as an industry right now."

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