this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
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153
Why Half-Life 3 speculation is reaching a fever pitch again (arstechnica.com)
submitted 6 months ago by ptz@dubvee.org to c/games@lemmy.world
59 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The more than two decades since Half-Life 2's release have been filled with plenty of rumors and hints about Half-Life 3, ranging from the official-ish to the thin to the downright misleading. As we head into 2025, though, we're approaching something close to a critical mass of rumors and leaks suggesting that Half-Life 3 is really in the works this time, and could be officially announced in the coming months.

The latest tease came just before the end of 2024 via a New Year's Eve social media video from G-Man voice actor Mike Shapiro. In the voice of the mysterious in-game bureaucrat, Shapiro expresses hopes that "the next quarter century [will] deliver as many unexpected surprises as did the millennium's first (emphasis added)... See you in the new year."

...

On its own, a single in-character post from a voice actor would probably be a bit too cryptic to excite Half-Life fans who have seen their sequel hopes dashed so often over the last two decades. But the unexpected tease comes amid a wave of leaks and rumors surrounding "HLX," an internal Valve project that has been referenced in a number of other Source 2 engine game files recently.

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[–] EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I can't speak for everyone, but I think more and more people who aren't in the probably 80% of people who could be considered "casual" gamers are disnechanted with and turning away from the AAA industry and looking more and more to the indie scene. The industry is as stagnant as Hollywood, and for the same reasons. Some of the most popular games in the past few years have been projects made by a single dev that popped up out of nowhere.

Looking at my Steam wishlist, the games coming out this year on there are: Hyper Light Breaker, SYNDUALITY, Space Engineers 2, ERA ONE, KAISERPUNK, The Alters, Gravnir, The Necromancer's Tale, MENACE, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 (yeah, right), Paralives, Mecha BREAK, Dolls Nest, FBC: Firebreak, and Nightreign (and if that wasn't FromSoft, I wouldn't have even finished watching the trailer).

The only game on there that could even be considered close to a AAA game is a spin-off experimental game from FromSoft, who is really a AA studio that's becoming popular enough to be debated as being AAA.

I won't buy from most of the big companies on principle. EA, Activision, Ubisoft, and Rockstar are all on my shit list for horrible business practices and worse working conditions, and Sony is conditional based on whether or not I have to deal with a PSN account - there were several games I was excited for last year releasing on PC that I didn't buy because they require a PSN account for a single player game.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Well, I didn't think the scope of this conversation started and ended with AAA. I largely agree with the pessimism for AAA, but some good stuff still comes through, like Indiana Jones and Shadow of the Erdtree this past year. Things you might consider AAA that I'm still looking forward to this upcoming year include Death Stranding 2, Elden Ring: Nightreign, Judas, Civilization, Mafia, and a couple on the borderline like Avowed, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, and Outer Worlds 2. Truthfully though, the games I'm probably most excited for are Mina the Hollower and Mouse: P.I. for Hire. Then after that, there's the likes of Earthblade, Descenders Next, Duck Detective's sequel, Knights in Tight Spaces, and more. I don't consider them to be any less exciting just because the developers spent less money making them.

And if I might save you some heartbreak now, unless it's a morbid curiosity, the latest gameplay videos for Bloodlines 2 look very far removed from Bloodlines 1.

[–] EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think when a lot of people talk about video games, the conversation largely revolves around the AAA industry. Especially considering how difficult it is still to get indie games on consoles, which locks the majority of gamers out of the space entirely. There's definitely some good stuff in the AAA industry, but it often seems like sleeper hits rather than big-name titles. Compare Astro Bot to whatever Call of Duty came out this year, or my favorite to point out, the first Splatoon being the best-selling shooter in a year where both a Battlefield and a Call of Duty game came out. Both games that really came out of nowhere to critical acclaim rather than games people were excited for a year before release.

The games I play and enjoy the most seem to largely be from small developers that I never heard about until after they've already released.

As for Bloodlines 2, I'm not surprised. It's in the same development hell as Duke Nukem Forever as far as I'm concerned, and I'd be surprised if it ever releases at all.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

It still seems strange to say that there's nothing to be excited about (except for all the stuff to be excited about), you know? And even if we were only talking about AAA games that were already announced, Monster Hunter and GTA would still be sucking all of the oxygen out of the room for 2025.

And Bloodlines 2 graduated beyond development hell. They gave it to another developer, a developer known for walking sims, and it looks like they're making something like a small-scale vampire Dishonored rather than an RPG.