Valve is taking it’s sweet time creating Half-Life 2:
Episode 3, so fans are eager for any hints
at all about when it will
come out, and what sort of experience it will impart. So when Gabe Newell, while discussing Portal
2, mentioned that Portal 2 would “probably” be the last isolate singleplayer
experience, Half Life fans became
jumpy, since Half-Life is very
story driven. When asked to clarify this statement, Newell responded:
“I think what we're trying to talk about is the fact is not
that we're not thinking about single-player games. Portal 2 I think is a pretty
good example of what we've learned over the years in terms of how to create
those [single-player] experiences."
Newel continued "It's more that we think that we have to work harder in the
future. That entertainment is inherently increased in value by having it be
social, by letting you play with your friends, by recognizing that you're
connected with other people. Single-player is great, but we also have to recognize that
you have friends and wanted to have that connected as well. It's not about giving up on single-player at all. It's
saying we actually think there are a bunch of features and capabilities that we
need to add into our single-player games to recognize the socially connected
gamer. Every gamer has instant messaging, every gamer has a Facebook account.
If you pretend that that doesn't exist, you're ignoring the problems that
you're taking on. It's single-player plus, not ‘no more single-player.'”
Portal 2 and Half-Life
2 exist in the same universe, so it makes
sense that the two may cross over at some point. Gabe Newell also commented on
this, "When you're thinking about games, you sort of want to
think about how characters collide. In their current forms, Chell and Gordon
are very similar characters. in terms of the phenomenology of their
experiences. ... In terms of having these people coexist at same time and same
place, that's ... part of the reason Portal and Half-Life are in the same
universe."
So no, we still don’t know when Half Life 2: Episode
3 will come out, but at least we know that
it may have Facebook integration. If you want to see Newell’s remarks on video,
watch the video below.