After over six months of development, Geoff Keighley's latest interactive deep-dive into video game production is available today. Since its initial announcement last November, Valve and Half-Life fans alike have been eagerly waiting The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx because of its inside look into both the VR adventure's development process and Valve's long hiatus from making video games. Now, the Steam app's users are discovering new details about Valve's many shelved projects, including the mythical Half-Life 3.
Details from Keighley's new fifteen chapter feature reveal that Valve considered "at least" five Half-Life followups leading up to Half-Life Alyx. However, the making-of documentary does not go into further detail about these pitches and sharpens its focus on the one game that Valve actually named Half-Life 3. Unfortunately, like series writer Marc Laidlaw's plans, this project did not last long before its cancellation.
According to The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx, Valve developed its Half-Life 3 project between 2013 and 2014. Although the games' creators intended to build the game in the Source 2 engine, the software was still in its infancy at the time of development. Influenced by the success of Left 4 Dead, the developer intended to emulate the zombie shooter's gameplay and procedural generation of environments and missions.
To elaborate further, Keighley described a scenario where the game created randomized buildings, objectives, and enemies. Half-Life 3 would then create a route for the player to follow and achieve the missions between established story beats. Due to Source 2's incomplete state, the developers ultimately gave up on the project, but not before the development team scanned Frank Sheldon, who portrayed G-Man, into the game's files.
While this version of Half-Life 3 seems intriguing, the difficulties in developing such an ambitious game on an unfinished engine do explain the project's cancellation. However, Valve's vision for the lost Half-Life game is still in line with its desire to re-define how video games are made. Although the developer has finally released details on Half-Life 3, it does not necessarily mean that the franchise won't continue. After all, Half-Life: Alyx's ending opened up new possibilities for the series, and the VR game's developers are open to continuing their story.
The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx is available now on PC and Steam.
Source: Geoff Keighley/IGN