Half-Life 2: Episode 3 Not Releasing in 2010? Mr. Wonderful Turns Knife on Self.

Source.

Half-Life 2: Episode Three will not be released this year, despite the latest "episodic" Valve instalment having been released almost two and a half years ago.

That's according to the latest issue of US mag Game Informer, which states that there won't be any new Half-Life instalments in 2010. What's more, it's not even clear what form the next game will come in - episodic or full sequel - says the mag.

Late last year Valve's Chet Falisek visited the CVG office and when quizzed on the missing-in-action third HL2 instalment, was rather cagey.

"Until we have something we have to announce we tend not to talk about what we're working on," he said.

Will Episode Three ever come out? We've contacted Valve for comment.

It better be an 80 hour long game at this point. What the hell, Valve?

...Day one.

It better be built on a totally new engine. If it's going to take this long it better not be using the outdated (although slightly upgraded over the years) source engine.

edit: well, of course I'm still 100% getting it the second it's out regardless though.

Writing a new engine would be a waste of time and money. New doesn't mean good. I'd rather they continue updating the Source engine as they have been.

Originally Posted by Kool-Aid Man

Writing a new engine would be a waste of time and money. New doesn't mean good. I'd rather they continue updating the Source engine as they have been.

Six years, it's about due. That, and I've heard that the augmented nature of the engine has made it a mess.

I go by what I play/code, not what I hear.
Makes no sense to rewrite an entire engine -- and very few people have, to be honest.
At the most, people have made large modifications and changed the name. No developer with half his head is going to dump years of work and say "Better try again!"

I would say that Team Fortress 2 -- and it's usage as a Source engine sandbox -- would indicate that Valve is far from through tweaking their engine. It has no major faults, graphics are not inherently tied to the engine, etc.

Originally Posted by Kool-Aid Man

Writing a new engine would be a waste of time and money. New doesn't mean good. I'd rather they continue updating the Source engine as they have been.

If you want to be incredibly technical no, I am not saying they need to build a new engine from the ground up. Without a doubt the source engine needs a massive facelift to catch up to any of the newer engines out there though. So much so that it'd have to be considered "new".

So, what you really mean is that you think their update/tweaking process is too slow, correct?
I can see where you're coming from there. Because the use of a pre-existing engine is supposed to facilitate the creation of a game, you feel that their progress on Episode 3 has little excuse to be taking so long.

Originally Posted by Kool-Aid Man

So, what you really mean is that you think their update/tweaking process is too slow, correct?
I can see where you're coming from there. Because the use of a pre-existing engine is supposed to facilitate the creation of a game, you feel that their progress on Episode 3 has little excuse to be taking so long.

That's pretty much what I was getting at. Also since the source engine already is pretty dated it'd seem to be a good time to heavily update it. Valve may very well just be going by Valve time on this and they are just going through new ideas for the actual gameplay instead, so I am not necessarily expecting anything as much as I am hoping.

Yeah, I can agree with you there.

I think Valve's main reasons for hesitation on doing a major upgrade have something to do with the success of the engine thus far, various ideas that they've catalogued for the engine (that would have to be pushed back if they did a major facelift), and along with that one, the fact that all of their ideas can be easily implemented into any Source engine game (including new ones). This is probably why they've been using TF2 as a sandbox for the engine (as I mentioned before), due to it's relatively large user base (especially in terms of users who give detailed and critical feedback), and the fact that additional features to that game don't have to come with a whole slew of new content (as in story additions, large campaign levels, etc).

Point is, I personally don't see them with the attitude of needing to update the engine very heavily, at least until after Episode 3 is released. :/

Bet episode 3 is turned into halflife 3?

Duke Nukem for this generation.

Originally Posted by Mafoofoo

Duke Nukem for this generation.

We all hope.

Originally Posted by master iem

Bet episode 3 is turned into halflife 3?

That's what I'm starting to think.

This topic made me cry.

That is bull****. No Episode 3 in 2010? **** that.

Well, let's hope that this will be a game to remember.