The developer is struggling
Contrary to popular belief, Valve was working on three-issue games in those franchises that everyone loves. It wasn't laziness, disinterest, or the priority given to Steam that stopped Valve from finishing these games. Instead, it was a problem with the very foundations they were built on.
Geoff Keighley's Half-Life: Alyx - Final Hours documentary is out today for $10 on Steam. It's a look back at Valve's last 10 years, all framed against the recent launch of Alyx and what it took to finish that game. As promised, there are some interesting nuggets on projects that didn't never succeeded.
IGN has already looked at the document and reports a few canceled games of interest. For example, at least five Half-Life projects were started and then dropped between Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Alyx. One of them was officially intended to be Half-Life 3.
The reason Valve never persisted and saw Half-Life 3 through was because the Source 2 engine wasn't complete and development was impossible without it. However, it is said that Half-Life 3 was going to be a procedurally generated game where the story beats were preset, but the gameplay would play out differently as building layouts and enemy placements would still be random. Apparently Valve was aiming for a highly replayable game. It seems new in 2022 (i.e. when Half-Life 3 was in development), but not that much anymore.
It's a similar story with Left 4 Dead 3. This third spin for the co-op zombie shooter was going to be set in Morocco and might have had horde counts that spanned hundreds of on-screen zombies at that time. More interestingly, it's said to be open-world rather than akin to the linear campaign chapters of the first two games. But, much like Half-Life 3, Valve dropped the third Left 4 Dead because Source 2 wasn't far enough.
There's more in the documentary and it's all told in more detail, but there's a teaser that might pique your interest: Valve has been working on a 'top secret project' since 2022 and there's no information on what it is. could be. Everything must always be so mysterious with Valve!
Details of several canceled valve projects have been revealed, including Half-Life 3 [IGN]
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