Current Events > Valve employees want to build a 'full-scale,' non-VR Half-Life game

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-employees-want-to-build-a-full-scale-non-vr-half-life-game/

Geoff Keighley's interactive "storybook"about the development of Half-Life: Alyx ends with a section on what's next for the Half-Life series. According to Keighley, the majority of Valve's Half-Life team wants to build a non-VR game.


"Privately, most of the team hopes that the next big thing will indeed be a full-scale Half-Life game built not for VR," writes Keighley, "but as a game accessible across all traditional gaming platforms."


However, he says that there's some doubt within the company as to whether Valve will commit to a large-scale development project like thatwhich is a bit odd if Valve is truly a leaderless, 'flat' company as it has claimed to be. (I'm going to speculate and guess that it isn't really flat, and someone up top has to approve this sort of thing.) Whatever form it takes, though, more Half-Life is definitely ahead.


"We're not afraid of Half-Life no more," Valve designer Phil Co told Keighley.
"Going from [Half-Life: Alyx] to a new big thing, which will be even bigger, is pretty exciting," said designer and programmer Tejeev Kohli.


Right now, it's possible the next Half-Life thing is another VR project, but nothing is confirmed. It could be something that isn't a VR game, but isn't a big non-VR action adventure game, either. One final twist: Keighley also says that, near the beginning of 2018, a "small team" at Valve started work on a "top-secret" project.

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dang I thought people would get excited

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Yeah yeah sure
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Shablagoo posted...

dang I thought people would get excited

I would have been excited 10 years ago, but at this point half life should just be left in the past. Either they try and use the old design philosophy and it feels dated, or they modernize it and everyone screams that it's a betrayal of the franchise. I don't think it's possible to make a new half life that people will actually like.

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"Alyx sold like shit and we lost a ton of money"

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Clearly they should have a kickstarter if they can't get funding from Gabe.

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pogo_rabid posted...

"Alyx sold like shit and we lost a ton of money"

really? this article seems to say it sold pretty well, depends on how much it cost to make I guess:

https://www.roadtovr.com/half-life-alyx-best-selling-steam-march-2020/

s0nicfan posted...

I would have been excited 10 years ago, but at this point half life should just be left in the past. Either they try and use the old design philosophy and it feels dated, or they modernize it and everyone screams that it's a betrayal of the franchise. I don't think it's possible to make a new half life that people will actually like.

As someone who never played HL when I was younger itd be cool to experience the universe with modern game design for me. RE2make helped me similarly.

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Imagine if half life Alyx was on all consoles would have made them billions fucking idiots

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Not a surprise for the people who beat Half-Life Alyx

pogo_rabid posted...

"Alyx sold like shit and we lost a ton of money"

It sold 1-2 million which is massive for a high end VR game that's only on Steam.

Webbernet posted...

Clearly they should have a kickstarter if they can't get funding from Gabe.

Funding isn't really the problem as much as constantly doing prototypes, getting bored and moving on.
Halo478 posted...

Imagine if half life Alyx was on all consoles would have made them billions fucking idiots

Then it wouldn't be Half-Life Alyx

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People from 2008 are super excited.

On one hand itd be neat, on the other not pushing the technology forward would make it feel like a letdown and a disservice to the series. Half-Life as a franchise is pretty much expected to innovate, and just a really good FPS wouldnt gel with that. The flip side tho, is that VR is not super accessible and likely wont be for some time.

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Final Hours revealed Valve has sunk a ridiculous amount of money into numerous projects that went nowhere, and Source 2 has been notoriously slow to get up to speed on all the milestones set for it and consequently, cancellations soon after limitation after limitation appeared.

Not ragging on them, just very interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if Valve wants to make a non-VR one internally but Gabe is pushing for neural network shit next or something.

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CommunismFTW posted...

Final Hours revealed Valve has sunk a ridiculous amount of money into numerous projects that went nowhere, and Source 2 has been notoriously slow to get up to speed on all the milestones set for it and consequently, cancellations soon after limitation after limitation appeared.

Not ragging on them, just very interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if Valve wants to make a non-VR one internally but Gabe is pushing for neural network shit next or something.

A couple of concepts were some sort of randomly generated game and a Ravenholm spin-off from Arkane that was randomly dropped.

I think they're just a studio that isn't really built to release a AAA game in 2020 as they were. The days of messing around with a game engine and making a game out of it within a couple of years isn't really a thing anymore. Maybe Half-Life Alyx got them to rethink a few things but we'll see.

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Shablagoo posted...

dang I thought people would get excited

That ship sailed long ago