The most anticipated game on the planet may not even be in production, if you believe the words of a longtime Valve actor who has made appearances in games like Half-Life 2 and Dota 2.
Actor John Patrick Lowrie has been in multiple Valve games, and he’s married to Ellen McLain, best known as the voice of GLaD0S from Portal 2. He works with Valve people. He talks to them.
He says they’re not even working on Half-Life 3, the elusive game that has frustrated fans for years now.
Writing in the comments of his blog (via NeoGAF), Lowrie answered some fan questions with the bad news. Some excerpts:
Here is the biggest challenge with bringing out HL3: the big thing now with FPSs is motion capture, or mo-cap. One of the great things about HL2 is that all of the characters that you meet actually look at you when they talk to you no matter where you go or stand. With mo-cap you can’t do that, at least not yet. Once you film the actor doing something and capture that motion, that’s what the character is going to do. This works great in movies, but when you make something interactive it gets way less interactive with mo-cap. So that’s one of the things they’re working on.
And:
Well, I’m not sure how big it is for HL2 fans. They don’t tell me their business plans, this was just a conversation I had. Right now they’re pretty full up with all the games they already have out there that they continue to support, plus the Steam stuff that they do, so, I don’t want to get people’s hopes up. I have no idea what they’re planning for the future. But I did have that conversation with some Valve folks, so I thought you might like to know what they’re thinking about.
And:
Right. As far as I know they are not developing HL3 now for several reasons, among them the mo-cap issue. Sorry for any confusion. What they might decide in the future depends on lots of different factors. I hope they do, personally, but it has to make sense for them.
And:
No problem! Glad to give any info I have. I just don’t want to get fans hopes up when I really don’t know anything about their decision process. I’ll find out about it when they call me in to record lines!
In response to one person saying “HL3 confirmed,” Lowrie responded: “Sorry, I’m afraid that the opposite is true. HL3 is not being worked on at this time as far as I know.”
Although the blog post is from 2011, the comments are dated August 14, 2013. The most recent episode of Half-Life 2 came out in 2007.
We’ve reached out to both Lowrie and Valve for more details, and will keep you guys updated as we hear more.
Comments
24 responses to “Half-Life 2 Voice Actor Says Half-Life 3 Isn’t Being Worked On”
I’ve somewhat lost interest in HL3 if I’m totally honest.
I’ve always been a long term Halo guy, so I’m pretty highly anticipating Halo 5, which actually has some solid information.
Either way. There’s also the fact that over the past 3 years or so we’ve been treated to so many brilliant games. I recently bought a PS3, just for the naughty dog games. I’ve only just started TLOU, but it and the Uncharted trilogy are certainly up there amongst my favourites.
Even the number of stunning games this year has been great, chiefly Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, so on so forth.
With the way that mainstream games are going now, do we really need Half Life 3? Perhaps for long term fans, but I have my doubts if it’ll be as revolutionary as the first two.
Booker, catch.
I’m the opposite end of the spectrum – I can’t play Halo or CoD games (CoD since #2) at all, they drive me up the wall. I find myself playing other genres as I think the FPS market just isn’t all that flash ATM. I’ve been finding lots of RTSs to keep me challenged as current FPS games seem to be cinematic walkthroughs.
That’s the thing isn’t it. If they want it to have much impact, they have to wait til it can do something revolutionary…
Yep, and working against them is the fact that the longer they leave it, the more everyone’s going to expect. In turn, this makes them less inclined to make it until they come up with something they deem good enough.
For this reason, I’ve given up on caring about the series’ future. The same thing has happened with books and other games for me. People have taken so long between releases that my interest is burnt out.
the sniper (John Patrick Lowrie) has spoken and now to chuck jarate at gabe newell
booker catch
Just really over halflife 3 now. If it happens then awesome. If not oh well.
It’s a conspiracy to throw us off! Clearly another clever ruse by Valve… we’ll check Steam this afternoon and HL3 will be available.
3 And’s in this article. HL3 Confirmed.
well played
This is clearly reverse psychology. HL3 confirmed!
It’ll happen when it happens. I’m fairly sure Gaben knows that that’s what everyone wants and although he’d want it to be of the highest standard, someone somewhere’s going to be working on it.
There’s enough games coming up to keep my mind off it though and it’s only articles like this that really remind me about (a lack of) Half Life 3
There was a time I was really excited for hl3. That was a while ago. Back then it was called episode 3 and it probably didn’t need to be revolutionary to be great. That boat sailed and now they can’t work on it because they’re waiting on technology to catch up with their “vision”. Which is constantly improving anyway so they’ll always be behind. Duke nukem forever confirmed.
Lies! All lies! We all know that HL3 is being worked on in a secret bunker under the Nevada desert.
Ha ha its bullshit. This isnt the 80s, animations can be blended even if the source was mo cap
I think Half-Life 2 was fabulous for its time, as well as the sequels. But we’ve all kind of moved on, and as fun as as it is to have this little conspiracy, the reality is – HL3 will inevitably disappoint some people. Hell, most people.
We’ve been waiting so long, that if we finally did get it, we’d have hyped ourselves up for so many years, that it could only disappoint. And when the technology finally does come along, we’ll have all moved on anyway. Look at Duke Nukem Forever. People waited so long for that, went through the whole conspiracy thing, and ended up being disappointed all over again.
I love and respect Valve, but my respect for them comes out of things like Dota 2 and esports – they’ve been doing a phenomenal job with that, and their contribution and help to this growing sport is wonderful.
TL;DR: HL3 will probably go the way of DN:F, which is to say, it might be better off not coming out at all. And Valve are doing a fantastic job elsewhere, with one of the best games distribution services out there, and with cultivating eSports.
I don’t know… I still think that if HL2 came out today it would still do really well. It’s just a great game. So I don’t know why they’re taking so long. My guess is they just don’t know where to go from here, they could feel the storyline slipping as soon as ep 1 came out and they don’t know how to get it back.
I STILL play HL2 every couple of years. Yeah I use fakefactory’s mod most of the time but I also explore vanilla. I still remember clearly when it came out. Total gamechanger.
HL2 Episode 2 still holds up really really well (and is still better than the majority) of games since.
I’m not expecting Half-Life 3. I’m expecting Half-Life 2: Episode 3.
But it’s pretty understandable when it comes to the motion-capture issue. If they do make it I’m sure it’ll still be a good (if not great) game – can’t really compare it to DNF with the backing Valve can provide, doubt it’s the sort of game they’ll abandon and pass to different developers, or have trouble funding. If anything they’ll probably just sit on it until some revolutionary new technology comes out and gives them an opportunity to bring it back punching.
If there was going to be HL2:Ep3, then the only issue would be writing…… The engine, assets etc are already there. There’s no way that the writing has been the issue for 6+ years since ep2.
The fact they are waiting until it can be as revolutionary as HL2 was, shows that it’s going to be a full title release, ei: HL3
As far as i remember the three episodes were meant to be Half Life 3, i remember reading that somewhere allllllllong time ago (don’t take that as being official though, i am not sure where i read it or who said it), so yeah if that’s the case then we would be waiting for the remainder of Half Life 3 and people should be asking for Half Life 4.
I think all past rules for the series [as well as all logic] are out the window at this stage, haha
I totally agree.
“Not being worked on at this time”
That obviously means it’s already finished.
Keep dreaming lol…
John 13:38: “I say to you, a cock shall not crow, until you deny Me three times”
HL 3 confirmed!
haha this is the best HL3 confirmed i’ve seen in ages
“HL3 is not being worked on at this time as far as I know.”
Room for doubt! HL3 CONFIRMED!
Valve & it’s inability in counting to 3, baffles me.. Portal, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress.