Half-Life is a series of first-person shooter games created and published by Valve. Since the release of the original Half-Life for Windows in 1998, several ports, expansion packs and sequels have been canceled, including projects developed by other studios.
In 1999, Valve canceled a Half-Life port for Mac developed by Logicware. Half-Life: Hostile Takeover, an expansion pack for Half-Life developed by 2015, Inc, was cancelled in 2000. In 2001, Sierra, the publisher of the original Half-Life, canceled a port for Dreamcast after Sega announced its discontinuation.
After releasing Half-Life 2: Episode Two in 2007, Valve struggled to settle on a direction for a new Half-Life game. Episode Three was canceled after Valve abandoned episodic development and began developing a new game engine, Source 2. Another Half-Life 2 episode, by Junction Point Studios, was canceled after Junction Point was acquired by Disney Interactive Studios. Valve moved the project to Arkane Studios, who developed it as Ravenholm, set in a town infested with zombies. Valve canceled it as they felt it was creatively restrained.
Valve developed Half-Life 3 between 2013 and 2014, experimenting with procedurally generated levels, but canceled it as the Source 2 engine was still unfinished. A virtual reality (VR) game set on a time-travelling ship, Borealis, was canceled as the VR technology and tools were not complete.
On November 23, 1999, GameSpot reported that 2015, Inc. was developing a Half-Life expansion pack to follow Half-Life: Opposing Force. 2015, Inc declined to comment. [1] On March 18, 2000, the Adrenaline Vault reported that the new expansion was named Half-Life: Hostile Takeover, and that it had appeared on retail product lists with a release date of late August. [2] On August 7, the Adrenaline Vault reported that Sierra, the publisher of Half-Life , had informed them that Hostile Takeover had been canceled. The stock keeping unit for Hostile Takeover was repurposed by online retailers for Half-Life: Counter-Strike . [3] On June 21, 2001, Valve filed a video game trademark for "Hostile Takeover". After several extensions, the trademark expired on October 3, 2004. [4]
On February 14, 2000, Sierra announced that a port of Half-Life for the Dreamcast console was in development by Captivation Digital Laboratories with Valve and Gearbox Software. The Dreamcast port would feature improvements including higher-polygon characters and new lighting effects. Gearbox, who had developed Opposing Force, created a new single-player campaign for the Dreamcast port, Half-Life: Blue Shift, focusing on the security guard Barney. [5]
The port was delayed to September 2000, [6] then November, [7] when game publications began to receive early copies for review. Reception was mixed, with criticism for the inconsistent frame rate, long loading times and lack of online play. [8] [9] Sierra planned to release a version with online multiplayer using SegaNet. The Gearbox CEO, Randy Pitchford, said he suggested including additional multiplayer modes and mods from the Windows version, including Team Fortress Classic and the multiplayer modes from Opposing Force. [10] [11] Sierra delayed the port again and said they hoped to finish development that year. [12]
On March 29, 2001, Sierra announced that Blue Shift would be released for Windows [13] along with the new models developed for the Dreamcast version, as part of the Half-Life High Definition Pack. [14] On June 16, 2001, four days after the release of Blue Shift, Sierra announced that it had canceled the Dreamcast port, citing "changing market conditions". [15] It was weeks away from its release date and virtually complete. [16] In 2013, a late version of the Dreamcast port leaked online, featuring complete versions of Half-Life and Blue Shift. [17] [ unreliable source ]
A version of Half-Life for Mac OS was announced by Logicware on April 23, 1999. [18] However, Valve canceled it a few months later in October 1999. [19] The Valve CEO, Gabe Newell, said the port was substandard, citing a separate multiplayer network, no automatic update utility and the inability to include Valve's multiplayer mod Team Fortress Classic. He said he did not want to make Mac players "second-class customers" and preferred to write off the investment rather than "take money from Mac customers and short-change them". [19] Rebecca Heineman, the co-founder of Logicware, denied this, saying that Valve cancelled the port as Apple had angered them by misrepresenting sales projections. She said the port was complete and three weeks from release. [20] In 2013, Valve released a port for OS X. [21]
In May 2006, Valve announced a trilogy of episodic games that would continue the story of Half-Life 2 (2004). [22] Episode One was released in 2006, followed by Episode Two in 2007. [23] [24] Episode Three was initially announced for Christmas 2007 and was highly anticipated. [25] [26] Valve released little information in the following years, and in 2011 Wired described it as vaporware. [27]
Valve eventually abandoned episodic development, as they wanted to create more ambitious games. [28] [29] The designer Robin Walker said Valve failed to find a unifying idea for Episode Three that provided a sense of "wonderment, or opening, or expansion". [30] Additionally, they had started developing a new game engine, Source 2. As developing Half-Life 2 and the original Source engine simultaneously had created problems, Valve delayed development of a new Half-Life until Source 2 was complete. [28] In 2017, the Half-Life writer, Marc Laidlaw, released a short story that journalists speculated was a summary of the Episode Three plot. [31]
Another Half-Life 2 episode was developed by Junction Point Studios, led by Warren Spector. The episode showed how Ravenholm became the town seen in Half-Life 2, infested with headcrabs and zombies, and saw the return of the character of Father Grigori. [32] It included a "magnet gun", which fired projectiles that magnetized metal surfaces and attracted objects and enemies, and was used for combat and puzzles. [33]
Junction Point worked on the game for a year, producing enough content to demonstrate one section, and a vertical slice that demonstrated the magnet gun. Valve lost interest in the project and Junction Point, who had been acquired by Disney Interactive Studios partway through, canceled it to instead develop Epic Mickey . [34] [35] [36] Images of the game appeared in early 2017. [32]
In 2007 or 2008, Valve gave the Junction Point project to Arkane Studios in Lyon, France. They developed it into a standalone game with the working title Ravenholm. [37] It was also referred by some sources to as Episode Four. [38] [39]
Players controlled Adrian Shephard from Opposing Force, working alongside Father Grigori, who had taken refuge in an abandoned psychiatric hospital. Grigori was experimenting with the effects of headcrab venom on himself, and would mutate through the story. The player would use the magnet gun and traps created by Grigori against enemies. Arkane also implemented a nail gun that could create paths to conduct electricity and set traps. [37]
Valve gave Arkane freedom to develop Ravenholm, as they had with Gearbox and Opposing Force, providing feedback and technical support. [37] With approximately one year left of development, Valve canceled the project. The Arkane founder, Raphaël Colantonio, believed that Valve decided it would be too expensive. [37] Laidlaw said Valve felt the premise was creatively constrained. [40] [41] [39] Ravenholm was first shown publicly in a 2020 Noclip documentary. [37] Noclip released an hour of gameplay footage in 2022. [42]
Half-Life 3 was in development between 2013 and 2014. Valve planned to use procedurally generated levels alongside a "crafted experience", similar to the Left 4 Dead series; the game would generate different routes through environments each time it was played. The team took new scans of the face of Frank Sheldon, whose likeness was used for the G-Man character in Half-Life 2. The Source 2 engine was still unfinished and the project was canceled early in development. [43]
Before his departure from Valve in 2016, Laidlaw led a virtual reality project on the Source 2 engine, Borealis, set on the time-travelling ship mentioned in Episode Two and Portal 2 . The game would skip between the Combine's conquering of Earth before Half-Life 2 and a time set shortly after Episode Two. A minigame in which players would fish off the bow of the ship was also proposed. [43] Laidlaw said the project ended because it was too early to be working in VR: "When people are struggling with the basic tools they need to rough out a concept, it's hard to convey any sort of vision, and it all evaporated pretty quickly." [44]
Quake III Arena is a 1999 multiplayer-focused first-person shooter developed by id Software. The third installment of the Quake series, Arena differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing primarily on multiplayer gameplay. The single-player mode is played against computer-controlled bots. It features music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly founder Bill Leeb.
Half-Life is a 1998 first-person shooter game developed by Valve Corporation and published by Sierra Studios for Windows. It was Valve's debut product and the first game in the Half-Life series. The player assumes the role of Gordon Freeman, a scientist who must escape from the Black Mesa Research Facility after it is overrun by alien creatures following a disastrous scientific experiment. The gameplay consists of combat, exploration and puzzles.
Valve Corporation, also known as Valve Software, is an American video game developer, publisher, and digital distribution company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. It is the developer of the software distribution platform Steam and the game franchises Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead and Dota.
Phantasy Star Online is an online role-playing game (RPG) developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega in 2000 for the Dreamcast. It was the first successful online RPG for game consoles; players adventure with up to three others over the internet to complete quests, collect items and fight enemies in real-time action RPG combat. The story is unrelated to previous games in the Phantasy Star series.
ChuChu Rocket! is an action puzzle game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega. Released for the Dreamcast in 1999, it was the first game for the system to support online console gaming. Players must place arrows on a board to lead mice into escape rockets while avoiding cats. The game features single-player modes in which a player must save all the mice on a board, and a multiplayer mode in which players battle to collect the most mice.
Team Fortress Classic is a first-person shooter game developed by Valve and published by Sierra Studios. It was originally released in April 1999 for Windows, and is based on Team Fortress, a mod for the 1996 game Quake. The game puts two teams against each other in online multiplayer matches; each member plays as one of nine classes, each with different skills. The scenarios include capture the flag, territorial control, and escorting a "VIP" player.
Half-Life 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It was published for Windows on Valve's digital distribution service, Steam. Like the original Half-Life (1998), Half-Life 2 combines shooting, puzzles, and storytelling, and adds new features such as vehicles and physics-based gameplay. The player controls Gordon Freeman, who joins a resistance to liberate Earth from the Combine, an interplanetary alien empire.
Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve. It debuted as the successor to GoldSrc in 2004 with the releases of Half-Life: Source, Counter-Strike: Source, and Half-Life 2. Other notable third-party games using Source include Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, Dear Esther, and The Stanley Parable. Valve released incremental updates to the engine during its lifetime. In the late 2010s, Valve created the Source 2 engine to replace Source, with it publicly debuting alongside Half-Life: Alyx.
Half-Life: Blue Shift is an expansion pack for the first-person shooter video game Half-Life (1998). It was developed by Gearbox Software and published by Sierra On-Line. Blue Shift was the second expansion for Half-Life, originally intended as part of a Dreamcast port of Half-Life. Although the Dreamcast port was cancelled, the Windows version was released as a standalone product on June 12, 2001 for Windows. It was released on Steam on August 24, 2005.
Marc Laidlaw is an American writer. He is a former lead writer for the video game company Valve, where he worked on the Half-Life series before his departure in 2016. Before joining Valve, Laidlaw was a novelist working in the fantasy and horror genres, and in 1996 won the International Horror Guild Award for his novel The 37th Mandala.
Arkane Studios SASU is a French video game developer based in Lyon. It was founded in 1999, and released its first game, Arx Fatalis, in 2002. Besides the Lyon studio, Arkane Lyon, Arkane Studios operated Arkane Studios LLC in Austin, Texas, from July 2006 until its closure in May 2024. The studio has created the popular Dishonored series as well as developing Prey (2017), Deathloop (2021) and Redfall (2023). Marvel's Blade is under development.
Ravenholm is a fictional ghost town in the first-person shooter game Half-Life 2, developed by Valve Corporation and released in 2004. It serves as the primary setting for the game's sixth chapter, "We Don't Go to Ravenholm", which follows the game's protagonist Gordon Freeman as he journeys through the area after escaping from a Combine attack on Black Mesa East in order to reach a nearby Resistance outpost. Ravenholm is a mining town in Eastern Europe which was destroyed by a Combine headcrab bombardment that turned its residents into hostile zombies. The town's sole survivor, Father Grigori, offers his assistance to Freeman throughout the level, culminating in a last stand at the town cemetery.
Half-Life 2: Episode One is a 2006 first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve for Windows. It continues the story of Half-Life 2 (2004); as scientist Gordon Freeman, players must escape City 17 with Gordon's companion Alyx Vance. Like previous Half-Life games, Episode One combines shooting, puzzles and storytelling.
Half-Life 2: Episode Three is a canceled first-person shooter game developed by Valve. It was planned as the last in a trilogy of episodic games continuing the story of Half-Life 2 (2004). Valve announced Episode Three in May 2006, with a release planned for 2007. Following the cliffhanger ending of Episode Two (2007), it was widely anticipated. Marc Laidlaw, the writer for the Half-Life series, said he intended Episode Three to end the Half-Life 2 story arc.
Half-Life is a series of first-person shooter (FPS) games created by Valve. The games combine shooting combat, puzzles and storytelling.
The Crossing is a cancelled first-person shooter video game by Arkane Studios, which attempted to fuse single-player and multiplayer by threading its single-player campaign through live multiplayer games.
The Orange Box is a video game compilation containing five games developed and published by Valve. Two of the games included, Half-Life 2 and its first stand-alone expansion, Episode One; had previously been released as separate products. Three new games were also included in the compilation: the second stand-alone expansion, Half-Life 2: Episode Two; the puzzle game Portal; and Team Fortress 2, the multiplayer game sequel to Team Fortress Classic. Valve also released a soundtrack containing music from the games within the compilation. A separate product entitled The Black Box was planned, which would have included only the new games, but was later canceled.
Counter-Strike (CS) is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video games in which teams of terrorists battle to perpetrate an act of terror while counter-terrorists try to prevent it. The series began on Windows in 1999 with the release of the first game, Counter-Strike. It was initially released as a modification ("mod") for Half-Life that was designed by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe before the rights to the mod's intellectual property were acquired by Valve, the developers of Half-Life, who then turned Counter-Strike into a retail product released in 2000.
Half-Life: Alyx is a 2020 virtual reality (VR) first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve. It was released for Windows and Linux, with support for most PC-compatible VR headsets. Set five years before Half-Life 2 (2004), players control Alyx Vance on a mission to seize a superweapon belonging to the alien Combine. Like previous Half-Life games, Alyx incorporates combat, puzzles and exploration. Players use VR to interact with the environment and fight enemies, using "gravity gloves" to snatch objects from a distance, similarly to the gravity gun from Half-Life 2.