Half-Life 3 Could Have Been an RTS, Says Insider Source
By John Jacques 11 January 2017
During a recent podcast, Andrew Reiner reveals that he spoke to a Valve employee who confirmed that Valve toyed with the idea of Half-Life 3 being an RTS game.
No game has ever seen as much build up and public focus from fans who haven’t actually seen any proof of its existence than Half-Life 3, the long-awaited follow up to one of the most famous videogame titles of all time. Its predecessors each recieved expansion packs no longer than a year after the last release, and counting their expansions both Half-Life and Half-Life 2 are only separated by 3 years – which is something that has made the long wait for Half-Life 3 more unbearable for fans of the popular first person shooter.
On a recent episode of the Game Informer Podcast, executive editor Andrew Reiner doled out an interesting anecdote from his experience trying to get the scoop on Half-Life 3. Speaking with someone involved in the project, Reiner discovered that Valve had multiple prototypes in concurrent development, and that one of them was even a Real-Time Strategy game. Given that the previous Half-Life experiences have all been first person shooters with the main storyline being told through the eyes (and not the mouth) of Gordon Freeman, a change to the RTS genre would have been an extremely surprising move.
The first Half-Life title delivered one of the most polished 3D experiences ever seen in 1998, and its sequel delivered a physics engine which was years ahead of its time. Fans have high expectations for what the long-awaited Half-Life 3 will bring to the table, so it’s easy to see why an RTS game would have been such a shock. As with anything regarding Valve’s secretive crown jewel, however, any news on how far along the RTS version got in the development process is a secret for a select few Valve employees, and they aren’t talking.
Reiner also revealed that Valve was toying with hiring real actors to implement into a new kind of action-adventure game, though this too seems to have died in the development process. Whether this meant that Valve was thinking about Command and Conquer style cutscenes or, as Reiner said, a ‘Night Trap but far advanced’ style of gameplay, it seems like fans won’t be seeing Gordon Freeman anytime soon outside of a potential movie or new fan-made content like Black Mesa.
Fans were left on a cliffhanger note from 2007’s Half-Life 2: Episode Two, which ended with Gordon, Eli, and Alyx being ambushed by the Combine shortly before they were due to search for the Borealis, an Aperture Science ship. It’s clear that the plot was reaching an evident climax if Gordon was preparing to take the fight to the Combine, and fans had expected Episode Three to come somewhat shortly after. It never came.
What do you think about Half-Life 3 potentially being an RTS, Ranters?
Half-Life 3 has reportedly been in development since 2004.
