10 Video Game Franchises KILLED By Development Hell
2. Half-Life
The Half-Life 3 reveal has been meme’d into oblivion so much so now that if and when the time actually comes it’ll be impossible to comprehend. This is most likely how Valve feels about even making the product.
Unfortunately, with such a genre and platforming defining title as Half-Life 2 comes a mountain of pressure to deliver. Apparently many different Half-Life 3 projects have existed at certain points but the Valve team just couldn’t agree on the direction to take the series nor the story, which had ended on a cliffhanger at the end of Half-Life 2: Episode Two.
In 2020 the series saw a shocking revival with the release of Half-Life: Alyx which somehow managed to keep up the series promise of quality, but left many fans even hungrier for what they had been asking for for so long. Requiring VR, not every player could try out Alyx for themselves and the continuation of the story was totally avoided by it being a prequel.
Those who argued Valve didn’t care about making games anymore felt somewhat vindicated because, whilst Alyx was indeed a new title, they argued it was done as a way to sell audiences on VR. It shined a very harsh light on the possibility that Half-Life 3 and the actual progression of the story may forever be a pipedream.