Game Informer: No Half-Life 2: Episode 3 for you in 2010

I never knew dying was spelled dieing. ;P

Newell said that they were working on a new engine but with all the crap like Larrabee being canceled, it might be a little longer. Hopefully I'm wrong, and Episode 3 took so long, they decided to build it with their new engine, otherwise we will have to wait until Half-Life 3, which might be out by 2015, maybe.

Everyone knows that James Cameron owns Valve which is why we haven't seen Episode 3 just yet because the technology to make it doesn't exist.

Dur dur dur.

DOUBLE DAMNIT!!

I really hope they at least use Source to finish up HL2. I still think the games produced with it look great, and now it's very resource efficient.

@Jose: Where did you read that from Gabe N? I'm just curious because with all the shit they've given PS3 and the 'weird' Cell processor, to spend a bunch of time and money on something like Larrabee...well that's either some karma or just maybe Gabe got his heft by suckling Intel's anti-competitive teets. (How's that for an awesome mixed metaphor!)

BigD145 you used the double D word!

everyone knows its actually corey feldman who owns everything.

@legato Aw, shit. Am I in some donkey sized fucking trouble now?

Could anyone ever give me the reason why Source is "dieing"?

The engine is self-sufficient and living, any old parts can be swapped out and have been swapped out. It doesn't age like a traditional engine, because Valve was actually smart when they made it.

It's like it is against the law to use any one name for more than 2 years or something.

People always bring up Valve's Source Game's graphics as "examples", but have you ever realized that Valve has always gone pretty easy on hardware requirements?

Here's an issue. It runs C+ only. The PS3 doesn't play nice with C+. It prefers assembler variants.

assuming there already working on it(which is probably not the case).

Good full games take a long time to make, episodes not so much. It would be unbelievable if they end up releasing Episode 3 next year on the Source Engine and is just another 2-3 hour game.

If they are taking this long it better end up being Half Life 3 and not another episode.

Valve championed episodic games and released the Half-Life 2 episodes to combat the time it takes to develop full titles. Episode Three will be over three years in the making, kind of defeating their original reasoning for deciding to develop them episodically in the first place.

I said at the first announcement that episodic content (and story) lives or dies on having short and consistent time frames between releases.

And I knew Valve would not do that and fuck up the entire concept.

In the length of time it's taken them to make 2 episodes and this third they could have made HL3 and it would have been twice as long as all the content they've added so far.

When I saw the Aperture Science cameo I swore if I saw the Portal Gun in Episode 3 I would personally travel to Valve HQ and kick Gabe Newell in the dick.

well either way i want to see portal in an open environment.

@IGLAW - Why is that im about as purist you can get in Half-Life and even i want to play a Half-Life-ish game with the Portal Gun that said i would be mutch happier if it was Portal that did the Portal Gun with normal weapons.

Yeah IGLAW! Damn you Newell! How stupid will it be if they let us use the portal gun in Episode 3 for things like shooting rockets at Stiders as we hide away in cover, new dimensions in multiplayer matches and launching combine forces across maps as they drop into your well placed portals.

Why do you hate awesome? Bet this disdain carries over to things like puppies, Christmas, boobies and explosions.

Dumbass.

They have multiple teams over at Valve. In fact, most of the L4D team has no involvement with the Half-life team.

The L4D2 team is made up of something close to 60 people, compared to the what, 200 or so employees Valve has? They've been working on episode 3 the whole time.

in fact, the L4D team gets a lot of help from the TF2 team. Both have nothing to do with the Half Life Team.

Nothing is interfering with the HL team. I'm sure they just want a AAAA game release.

@ LordPoncho

I'm so glad you have the mental capacity to see the big picture on that one. As much Left 4 Dead is taking staff, funding, and resources away from other Valve projects and products, let's just put that aside for a second. Yes, if there was no Left 4 Dead it would help give EP3 a more timely release with a product that's just as quality, if not more so. But let's just put that aside.

This is a financial decision by Valve. If they can sell well over 5 million copies combined on both games, why should they bother releasing anything else? If they can release 2 average games in Left 4 Dead 1 & 2 in back to back years with a less capable team and lower budget, why should they even bother putting out a sequel to any of their legitimately good series?

Basically, a bunch of people with a significantly lower standard for quality are stopping myself and the millions of other die hard Half Life fans from getting what may be the best first person shooter of this generation. Instead we get Left 4 Dead. What a trade off.... >_>

Or you could consider that 200+ employees cost money to hire, and setting aside a small portion of them to make gobs of money with L4D is a pretty smart choice when it helps fund what maybe be "the best first person shooter this generation" and allow them the time they need to make it as good as it can possibly be. Putting those people on HL3 won't necessarily make it better or make it come out faster. A bigger team doesn't automatically make a better game. As pretty much every game they've released shows, Valve knows what the fuck they're doing. Stop being an impatient ass and let them do their thing. (Their thing being make great games)

Half-Life 2 came out 6 years after the first game. Was that not worth the wait? I think it was. I'm sure Half Life 3 (or episode 3) will be too.

First of all, people aren't idiots for liking L4D. It's a different game for different people. You're the idiot if you discredit people for simply having tastes not in line with your own.

Secondly, yea, financial reasons probably have something to do with it. But what do you expect from a COMPANY. Valve is there to make money just like any other developer/publisher out there. Like I said before, 200 employees don't come free.

"It's not a full scale game, it's not a new engine"

You don't know either of those things. Not only could Episode 3 end up bieng a full game and a full engine, but they coule be working on making it for the PS3 as well. Remember when you said it was unacceptable for Valve to not make their games for the PS3? Maybe they are now. If they want to make their game up to the quality that PS3 owners want (Uncharted 2, Killzone 2, etc) then making their game engine up to par it's going to take a LOT of time. Bottom line: You don't know what episode 3 is going to be like. Stop complaining about it as if you do.

@ CaramelZappa

As a company, it's smart of them to continue to push out Left 4 Dead content rather then have a more timely release for one of their other series. I do believe I said that from the get go. As a company, I don't fault them for doing so. However as a group of people crafting entertainment experiences, I feel they are disappointing a lot of fans who have been with them since day one like myself.

And as for your last comments, I choose not to live in a word of what if's where I give people well above and beyond the benefit of the doubt when they've given zero reason to make me think such a way.

So until they announce that they've suddenly changed an episodic release into a full, $50 retail game akin to Half-Life 1 & 2 proper, they've suddenly scrapped the original Source Engine and built a brand new one without anyone in the industry even considering that possibility, and they suddenly realized the PS3 is a viable platform and started developing for it after they've publicly bashed the platform on multiple occasions, I have ZERO reasons to think that way.

Ya know what, maybe there will only be one Guitar Hero release this year and it'll allow full backward compatibility with all previous songs for free and from then on Guitar Hero will be a platform of DLC only releases, but I have no reason to think that's going to happen. Both scenarios are equally ridiculous. Stop living in a fantasy world.

wat

Why is that? The other two were on PS3, even if they were a tad shitter then the 360 version :)

Silly Sony, invite Valve round for a manly drink up, surely they'll see sense after that and start making games for it as well :P

I propose we use Freeman's Fist.

ms vance should be the new DSG

uh yea def. is

The episodes are Half Life 3, or that was Valve's stance when it was first announced that they were releasing episodic content.

Valve changes their stance a lot.

Team Counter Half Left 4 Portal: Episode 3 actually...

Or maybe Team Half Left 4 Portal: Source?