Latest news with #Half-Life
Geek Culture
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Culture
'Half-Life 3' Leaks Suggest Unannounced Sequel Is Already In A Completely Playable State
Valve, a studio well-known for its aversion to making part three of its games, might finally be breaking the pattern, according to recent leaks suggesting that Half-Life 3 , the eagerly anticipated sequel to its classic shooter franchise, is not only in development but also in a completely playable state. These leaks come from Valve insider Tyler McVicker, who hosted a live-stream Ask Me Anything (AMA) session regarding the unannounced Half-Life sequel, codenamed HLX , which he previously uncovered via datamining and further evidence from the resume of Natasha Chandel, a voice actor who was supposedly working on the project. Half-Life 2 (2004) In his AMA session, McVicker claims that the upcoming game will not be a VR title like 2020's Half-Life: Alyx , but a full-fledged sequel. 'This is the furthest ( HLX ) has ever been. Period,' he said, 'The game is playable – end to end. Period. [Other Half-Life 3 projects have] never been that far. And they're optimising, polishing, and they're probably content-locked, and if they're not, then they're mechanic locked.' As for specific details of the game, McVicker avoided potentially spoiling the game, but did give some information regarding previous rumours that the game would use a procedural generation system. 'The way that Valve is going about doing that is akin to the [AI Director] in Left 4 Dead 2 and making it significantly more powerful. It's not changing geometry. It's instead changing entity placement [like] doors, physics props, enemies, items or NPCs of any kind.' He also added that he doesn't think this procedural generation technology will extend to the game's story. Finally, McVicker guessed that Half-Life 3 would be announced in the Summer of this year, followed by a Winter release, but as with all game leaks, especially for ones regarding major franchises like Half-Life, these rumours should be taken with a grain of salt, and fans should refrain from getting their hopes up until official confirmation comes from Valve itself. Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise 'duds' like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3 . He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying. Half-Life Half-Life 3 Valve
Metro
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Half-Life 3 could finally be released after 18 year wait says insider
Valve might be in the closing stages of development on Half-Life 3, as speculation continues to snowball around its existence. Half-Life 3 rumours have been a constant part of everyday life since 2007's Half-Life 2: Episode Two, but they've definitely increased over the last 12 months. In 2024, dataminers discovered several files in other Valve games, like Deadlock and Dota 2, for a project codenamed HLX. Several insiders have claimed this is actually Half-Life 3, although Valve has not officially announced any new project. One of these insiders, YouTuber Tyler McVicker, now claims the rumoured Half-Life 3 is 'playable end-to-end' and is in the 'polishing' phase at Valve. McVicker, who has been leaking news about Valve titles for years now, answered various questions about HLX in a livestreamed Q&A, where he reiterated his claims that, unlike 2020'S Half-Life: Alyx, Half Life 3 'is not a VR title'. 'HLX is being playtested so religiously and so widely that there are individuals that will just talk,' McVicker said. 'I personally have a policy of avoiding any story-related questions or information where possible, so I currently have avoided all of them. But I've been offered it by people whom are trustworthy and I know some of my contemporaries have been given it, so there is information out there about the plot.' He added: 'This is the furthest [HLX] has ever been. Period. The game is playable end-to-end. Period. [Other Half-Life 3 projects have] never been that far. And they're optimising, polishing, and they're probably content-locked, or if they're not then they're mechanic locked.' McVicker went on to suggest Half-Life 3 could be announced during the summer and released later this year, but stresses this is entirely speculation on his part. More Trending Valve has cancelled multiple iterations of Half-Life 3 over the past 18 years, and while these more recent rumours suggest a new Half-Life project does exist, there's nothing to guarantee it won't be canned before release as well. Last year, McVicker claimed two Half-Life projects were in development at Valve, with one being the aforementioned HLX. The other is said to be a VR title designed to showcase the company's rumoured new Deckard VR headset, which is tipped to launch this year. Back in 2020, Valve stated Half-Life: Alyx was a 'return to this world, not the end of it', so it's certainly possible we could see another Half-Life entry soon – even if it's unclear exactly what form it will take. Like Nintendo and Rockstar Games, Valve is difficult to predict but, if we're feeling optimistic, it's possible we could see some sort of announcement during Summer Game Fest on June 6. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Call Of Duty 2025 will lock game modes behind battle pass claims insider MORE: How to get Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga for free – but you have to be quick MORE: Best new mobile games on iOS and Android – May 2025 round-up
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The BAFTAs declares Shenmue and a game that came out 2 months ago more influential than Tetris and expects us to all just go along with that
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A couple of months back, the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs, more or less the British Oscars) got bored of figuring out which things were good by itself. Instead, it decided to ask you, the humble gaming public, to divine the most influential game of all time. And boy, you've really made a hash of that. In results announced today, the BAFTAs declared, with an entirely straight face, that Yu Suzuki's 1999 Dreamcast opus is the most influential videogame ever made, according to the results of its poll. The academy calls Shemue "a pioneer for open-world gameplay and laid a roadmap that others continued on in the years that followed," and credits/blames it for popularising "the use of Quick Time Events (QTEs)" in games that came after. None of which, I suppose, is necessarily untrue, but the game bringing up the rear in second place is literally Doom, and even if you're absolutely bonzo-dog doo-dah nuts for forklift simulators and characters who say things like "Years ago I was Chinese", I still don't think you can credit Shenmue with greater and longer-lasting influence than the game that codified the FPS as a genre. It only gets loopier as the list goes on. Third place belongs, sensibly enough, to Super Mario Bros. Fourth goes to Half-Life, which is reasonable. Fifth and sixth? Ocarina of Time and Minecraft, which can both hold their own in the history books. And then, well, apparently the seventh most-influential game of all time is Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which released two months ago. They're not even done patching it yet. This is, I think, possibly even more absurd than calling Shenmue the medium-defining benchmark for videogames as a whole. I love KCD2, don't get me wrong: I gave it 90% in our KCD2 review, but it has literally not existed on this Earth for long enough to influence much of anything yet. But according to John Q Public, it's easily more influential than Super Mario 64, Half-Life 2, The Sims, and Tetris. Tetris. Tetris! So I think what we have here is a bunch of poll respondents who interpreted 'Which videogame is most influential?' as 'Which videogame do you think is good?' Is this a searing indictment of the democratic process? Yes. But also, it's mostly just funny, and serves as a striking example of how ultimately hollow these attempts to crowdsource plaudits are in the grand scheme of things. Far better to rely on panels of experts, like us at PC Gamer, to do this stuff properly. We'd never make a wild, controversial decision that pursues us for the rest of our days. The BAFTA most influential list in full: Shenmue Doom Super Mario Bros Half-Life The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Minecraft Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Super Mario 64 Half-Life 2 The Sims Tetris Tomb Raider Pong Metal Gear Solid World of Warcraft Baldur's Gate 3 Final Fantasy VII Dark Souls Grand Theft Auto 3 Skyrim Grand Theft Auto 2025 games: This year's upcoming releasesBest PC games: Our all-time favoritesFree PC games: Freebie festBest FPS games: Finest gunplayBest RPGs: Grand adventuresBest co-op games: Better together
Forbes
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Shenmue' Named BAFTA's Most Influential Game Ever In Shock Poll
'Shenmue' takes a surprise gold in the latest BAFTA poll. Shenmue, Sega's groundbreaking forklift truck-driving simulator, has been crowned the 'most influential game of all time' in a new poll conducted by BAFTA ahead of its 2025 Games Awards on 8 April. Really, though, this isn't the biggest surprise on the list. This year's BAFTA survey had over 2,800 respondents who replied in a free-text format, meaning games weren't pre-picked. Still, an apparent fan campaign helped Shenmue triumph over FPS pioneer Doom, platforming royalty Super Mario Bros., the groundbreaking Half-Life, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which is generally agreed to be the greatest game ever. The best-selling game in history, Minecraft, was edged out of the top five. Personal feelings aside, Shenmue was instrumental in the industry's push towards open-world gaming, it pioneered quick-time events, and also taught players the value of hard work, all on a shockingly underrated console. It definitely deserves to be mentioned somewhere, but first? Still, Shenmue's position at the top of the pile really isn't the most shocking thing in this 'most influential game' poll. This year's final 21 is pretty weird, and appears to have been affected by collective amnesia; let's look at the finalists. There isn't a fighting game, including beat 'em ups like Streets of Rage. The entire horror genre has been omitted — Resident Evil 4 didn't even make the list — unless you expect the haunted piano from Super Mario 64 to do some heavy lifting. Where are the top-down strategy games like StarCraft, C&C, or Age of Empires? Racing and sports games don't feature in the top 21 — Mario Kart certainly deserves a mention. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Most bizarrely, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 — a game released on February 4, less than two months ago — placed seventh. Voters clearly misunderstood 'most influential' as 'my favorite thing right now.' The only thing Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has truly influenced in its 58-day lifespan is meal planning. You could even argue that Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't deserve a place on this list — not yet, anyway. There's no doubt it's a phenomenal game, and arguably sets the bar for modern experiences, but how has it had a greater influence over the industry than, say, Donkey Kong, GoldenEye 007, Pac-Man, Pokémon, or even Time Crisis? In real terms, it's hard to question with others on the list, even if your order may be very different. You could probably argue the toss over having two Half-Life or Grand Theft Auto games, but I personally wouldn't; then again, I grew up seeing all four of them break the mold, and they also highlighted just how quickly things can transform with the right combination of creativity and technology. This year's BAFTA survey follows another surprising ballot from last year, which named Lara Croft as the most iconic game character of all time. That result wasn't hugely surprising, given it's a British organization, and the brilliant Tomb Raider 1-3 remaster successfully landed just a few weeks before.
New York Times
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Burned-Out Designer Tried to Heal by Making a Cozy Game
Nothing moves quickly in Wanderstop. To make a single cup of tea in the new video game is a meditative ritual of deliberate steps. The recovering hero, Alta, has to forage for tea leaves, dry out those leaves, plant seeds for fruit to flavor the tea, water those seeds, watch the plant grow, harvest the fruit individually, and then, with a fantastical apparatus the player traverses using rolling ladders, heat up the water, drain it into a brewing pot, throw the ingredients in one by one, go to a shelf of bespoke mugs, select one, place it under a tap and — finally — pour. There is recognition for doing so without spilling a single drop but no punishment if it is not perfect. It is not that kind of game. Davey Wreden, the 36-year-old writer and director of Wanderstop, has not released a stand-alone game in a decade. He burned out after commercial success with The Stanley Parable (2013), an absurd meditation on cubicle life and choice that has been cited as an inspiration for the TV show 'Severance,' and artistic acclaim with the game's follow-up. Wanderstop was supposed to be different from those mind-bending works, a calming experience set at a woodland tea shop. It did not end up that way. 'I started out trying to make this game in a way that it wasn't going to be a complex story about me and my life, and I failed to do that,' Wreden said. 'The more that I began having Alta speak the words in my own head, the more compelling it got.' The Stanley Parable was intended as a job application but became a career. In the 2000s, the dream gig for cerebral gamers was at Valve, a studio known for games like Portal and the Half-Life series that paired innovative gameplay with witty but affecting writing. Landing a job at Valve was the only goal for Wreden, who grew up in Sacramento and always wanted to make video games. When he started working on The Stanley Parable in his junior year at the University of Southern California, it was not a full game but rather a mod formed out of the building blocks of Valve's game engine. It was set in an office because he used some assets from Half-Life's research facility. Stanley's job is to follow instructions and push buttons. But one day, as a genteel British narrator notes, something peculiar happens. The orders disappear, as do his co-workers. The player explores the empty office to find answers, but encounters choices to abide by the path announced by the narrator or to divert from it instead. The alternatives lead to branching endings: Stanley can find freedom, be blown up or lose his mind. After working over Skype with a teenage level designer, William Pugh, to create an aesthetic, Wreden released the full version of The Stanley Parable in October 2013. Its offbeat writing made it a hit with critics and players. But Wreden now describes those days, which should have been a triumph, as an indistinguishable brown mush. The Stanley Parable existed, Wreden later said at a public talk, because he felt like Stanley: completely alone. He said it came from a 'Look at me!' desperation. But being looked at did not help. In a comic he drew after receiving industry accolades, Wreden compared winning awards for his art to being given the sun: 'No matter how you dress it up, the gift is ultimately intangible, distant, trying to hold onto it will kill you.' Six months after the game was released, Wreden started therapy. To relax, he took months of drawing lessons, repeatedly sketching woodland scenes that he later channeled into Wanderstop. Cozy games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, with their cute environments and achievable tasks like delivering gifts and farming, became escapist havens during stressful times like the coronavirus pandemic. But the pull of productivity still trickles in. Crops, fruits and fish are sold for gold. Daily cycles keep players running around to complete tasks before nightfall. Wanderstop subverts many of those mechanics. Although the game is set in a shop, no money changes hands. Even the tutorial urges players to slow down: When they grab a watering can before the tool is introduced, they are gently scolded for rushing ahead. Alta can give each cup of tea to another character or drink it herself; each flavor prompts a different reflection. There are no sudden fourth-wall turns or meta depths, as some fans speculated because of Wreden's earlier work — only sincere emotion. 'That stuff was nothing,' Wreden said of the twists in his previous games. 'Trusting in small moments of humanity to be actually compelling narratively? That's hard,' he said, using an expletive. Balancing the charm of the tea shop with Alta's struggle was a challenge for Wreden, who said writing the character felt at times like mining his own diary entries. His follow-up to The Stanley Parable, The Beginner's Guide (2015), centers on a game designer named Davey, voiced by Wreden, whose friendship with another game designer, Coda, deteriorates after Davey oversteps boundaries with his work. Players speculated how autobiographical the game was, leading Wreden to clarify it was fiction. But it does have roots in the dissolution of relationships after The Stanley Parable. One of Coda's games is about cleaning a house ad infinitum, being asked to straighten up pillows and make up a bed over and over. Instead of monotony, it is a calming domestic scene. 'My place is just to see a bit of peace brought here,' says a figure seated at a table. Coda envisions it as a loop, but Davey edits the game to have an ending. (It was inspired, Wreden said, by a romantic relationship he regrets he could not let himself be happy in.) When Coda confronts Davey in the form of a video game, he directly quotes a former real-life friend of Wreden's: 'When I am around you I feel physically ill.' Davey responds through shaken narration: 'I'm starting to feel like I have a lot of work to do.' Wanderstop feels like a fulfillment of that work. Alta is an undefeated warrior who, one day, finally loses. Her sense of self is shaken and her sword becomes too heavy to lift. She runs through a forest to consult a master but passes out and awakens at a tea shop in a clearing. The man who tends to the shop, Boro, invites her to stay awhile as she recovers; Alta has to quiet every impulse to go faster. Alta was a silent protagonist in a mechanics-driven game until Wreden started having her voice his own fears and his belief that he could power through anything. Wreden and Karla Zimonja, Wanderstop's narrative lead, would dissect Alta's character on hourslong walks, trying to better understand her personality and motivations. She said it was a challenge meeting Wreden's standards for personal writing that did not feel forced; they fretted to make sure Boro's lines did not sound like rote motivational quotes. 'Part of my job, in the editorial capacity, was being like, 'That's it, you got it,'' she said. 'Everybody gets that feeling when you're making something and you're like, 'Is this actually garbage?'' Wanderstop is Wreden's most collaborative work yet and the first game from his studio, Ivy Road. Zimonja interviewed women who practice jiu-jitsu to inform Alta's arena career. Temitope Olujobi, the game's 3-D art director and environment lead, studied the sightlines in botanical gardens for the vistas that Alta contemplates with her tea. Daniel Rosenfeld, who created the ambient score in Minecraft, crafted shifts in music between the serene clearing and livelier tea shop. Yet Wreden's influence on Alta is still clear. In Wanderstop, absurd action novels about a detective named Dirk Warhard are delivered to the tea shop. The scholarly 'Chasing Bullets: A History and Critical Theory of the Dirk Warhard Novels' that arrives seems strange, until it mentions that the author went from crowd pleasers to stories of 'justice cannibalism.' When asked if he felt like a 'justice cannibal,' eating at himself to set something right through his protagonists, Wreden demurred and said Dirk Warhard was just a cool name. (One that shares his initials.) Healing, like tea making, is slow. After 10 years and a lot of therapy, Wreden said he felt more at peace. He spends time outside, riding his bike to the waterfront in Vancouver, British Columbia. Despite Wanderstop's peaceful theme, game development is a punishing job. Wreden, who has the luxury of not really needing to worry about money because of The Stanley Parable's success, plans to take some time off. He does not know how he will be involved in Ivy Road's next game, if at all. He is OK with that. 'It would be really freeing in a lot of ways to begin to release myself from the obligation and the expectation of churning out hit after hit,' Wreden said. 'Even if the obituary comes down for the greatness of my work, I'd like to be able to go to its funeral and grieve it, and then go home and have a cup of tea.'
