Games have “gotten away from genuinely scaring the player,” and Half-Life, whenever it deploys its next episode, needs to get back to doing just that, the game’s boss said
Gabe Newell, the Valve honcho, was asked if the game’s tone has matured along with its audience’s over the past 12 years. He told Edge magazine that the game’s writers hadn’t necessarily proceeded in that direction, although if the game’s themes had changed it was because “simply repeating the past isn’t going to have the same impact now as it did then.
However, “I feel like we’ve gotten away from genuinely scaring the player more than I’d like, and it’s something we need to think about, in addition to broadening the emotional palette we can draw on.”
And Newell knows exactly what pushes those emotional buttons. Asked what scares Valve’s gamers the most, he replied: “The death of their children. The fading of their own abilities.”
Andrew Cruise
Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 8:37 PMsqueeeeeee!
wepoo
Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 8:40 PMWoah, too right there Gabe.
Dunnowhathuh
Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 8:59 PMWait, scary as in horror scary? I didn’t know Half-Life was supposed to be a horror game….
706
Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 9:54 PM‘The fading of their own abilities’ sounds interesting when applied to half life.
As to it being scary, I think the first contact part of Half-life 1 was kind of scary. If not in a jump out and make you scream way then more in a suspenseful and creepy way. Running around with just a crowbar while monsters were spawning in all around you, watching scientists get attacked in the very next room. I always remember that one poor guy hanging off the elevator calling for help.. but you can never get there in time.
Sabmac
Monday, March 29, 2010 at 3:20 AMI agree, first contact was fairly disturbing. I would like more disturbing moments in HL3.
Brendan
Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 10:36 PMHalf-Life isn’t a horror game at, and it might lose a few players if it did become one.
That is one of the stand outs of Hal-Life, its a game that lets you shoot invading aliens but isn’t a horror game.
Jay
Monday, March 29, 2010 at 12:12 AMI think with Valve being in the spotlight with Mac and announcing Portal 2 etc… is a build up to Episode 3.
They’re talking more and more and the game conventions going on with hidden messages etc…
TALKING about future Half-Life without addressing anything NEW exactly.
If they leave Episode 3 OUT of E3 – it will become the next Duke Nukem except for announcing the bloody thing than releasing it. Heck heaps of games have been announced a good 2 or 3 or even MORE years before they’re released. At least put the fanboys to rest BY announcing that Episode 3 is alive and well… AT LEAST!
Xan
Monday, March 29, 2010 at 12:23 AMIf HL2 ep3 becomes a horror game I’ll be really sad. I like HL2 and like a lot of people have been looking forward to ep3 for too long. Last thing I want is it to become silent hill. Interested in avoiding all horror games. Games are meant to be fun. HL2 is awesome fun. Horror isn’t. But why change the style totally but recycle the characters? HL2 characters aren’t so perfect and wonderful that a decent writer couldn’t do better than them in creating a game for a different genre. You’re going to make Alyx a screamer like jamie lee curtis in fri 13th? or a tough chick like sigourney in alien? Just write something new and leave half life out of it.
Cameron
Monday, March 29, 2010 at 8:42 AMI don’t think I’d want to play Half-Life if it was any more scary. I don’t particularly enjoy playing games like Bioshock or Dead Space for that reason, where as the Half-Life series is less edge of your seat scary, and more atmospheric.
Ahh who am I kidding, I’ll just stick to Civ 4 until Civ 5 comes out.
StudiodeKadent
Monday, March 29, 2010 at 10:37 AMUmm… to all those people saying “Half Life is not a horror game”…
Whilst yes, the game is an FPS rather than a survival horror game, the first Half-Life DID have some genuinely frightening moments. The sparse, minimal narrative combined with the whole “secret lab” setting really worked at upping the paranoia levels. And the G-Man everywhere…
It mightn’t exactly be flat-out horror, but its certainly got the whole “X-Files-esque Conspiracy/Suspense” thing going on.
Simon G
Monday, March 29, 2010 at 11:21 AMI find horror games or elements of horror make me feel uncomfortably tense and unnerved, to the point where i just don’t want to play certain games anymore. As wussy as it sounds, I much prefer games like Mass Effect and Halo, which are bright and vibrant.
Funnily enough, Ravenholm was one of my favourite parts of Half-Life 2. Go figure.
Andeh
Monday, March 29, 2010 at 4:31 PMYeah, I don’t like horror games very much either. And personally, I dislike the zombie aspect of Half Life encroaching on the much more interesting alien/combine aspect of it.
Kopust
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 10:53 PMHalf Dead 2. The zombies in half life are only from those old times, when zombies were ‘horror’ involving parasitic beings – headcrabs. You can’t take the zombies out of game expansions. Truly, i believe that if episode 3 will be only in borealis, it shouldnt be a lot of zombies. It could have more mistery. And btw, i think first portal two will be realesed, then – Half life 2 episode 3. Rememeber Orange box? Portal game gave a lot of new understanding about half life. I think its gonna be the same with portal 2 and ep3.