A recent spate of rumours about Half Life 3 started recently, claiming that while the script of the game was in fact complete, the title hadn’t even started development yet, and never would, due to Valve’s paralysis of fear regarding how the title would be received by long time fans of the franchise.
Today, Valve’s Marc Laidlaw has responded to this rumour, and, characteristically, he has shot it down forcefully, meaning we are back to knowing, well, nothing about Half Life 3.
“Anonymous sources have been posting speculation masquerading as inside knowledge since the Half Life 1 days, and that fear is the last thing that would ever drive a decision about what to work on.”
He also pointed out just how absurd the rumour was to begin with.
“The story is created through the process of trying to figure out how to best use the features of the engine within the interesting set of constraints it poses. The story is part of the game. It doesn’t exist as a separate script that is handed off to game designers which they are expected to somehow make compelling through puzzles and combat.”
At the very least, he is making sense here. Still, I can’t say I am too happy about knowing squat about Half Life 3.