Yesterday we wrote that Gabe Newell was going to host a Reddit AMA, and that we obviously would get questions about the mythical Half-Life 3. Turns out he even answered those questions. Kind of...
He actually answered a few interesting questions in one single comment:
"The number 3 must not be said. Yes. I personally believe all unidentified anonymous sources on the Internet. 20-30. Same as always. We're adding servers all the time."
Now to make this understandable, let's specify what questions he answered with the two first sentences.
• What is the status of Half Life 3/Half Life 2 Episode 3? The number 3 must not be said. We've been joking about Valve never releasing a game with the number three in it for years, so he decided to somewhat evade the questions by using our own words against us. Well played, mr. Newell.
• Is Valve still working on any fully-fledged single player games? Yes. Again, not exactly a very detailed answered, but it's still great to hear that they're working on single player games.
Another highly-requested sequel is Left 4 Dead 3, to which he replied:
"Products are usually the result of an intersection of technology that we think has traction, a group of people who want to work on that, and one of the game properties that feels like a natural playground for that set of technology and design challenges.
When we decided we needed to work on markets, free to play, and user generated content, Team Fortress seemed like the right place to do that. That work ended up informing everything we did in the multiplayer space.
Left 4 Dead is a good place for creating shared narratives."
Are we the only ones somewhat encouraged by that answer?
Obviously, Newell didn't just talk sequels during the AMA. Here are a few other tidbits from the thread:
• Right now Valve is seeking to broaden its range of options they have in creating new experiences, and that they're doing this by investing in hardware. Some of the examples he mentions are how artificial intelligence works and research in brain-computer interfaces.
• The reason for the company being so secretive and silent is that they want their products to do the talking, and that they prioritise actually making things instead of talking about them all the time. Another reason is that they don't want to announce something that isn't set in stone, as it might lead to disappoint if the plans changed.
• Newell once again confirmed that the Half-Life and Portal films are still in the works.
• His favourite Valve games are Dota 2 and Portal 2.
• They want every future Valve game to use the same engine, so right now most of them are using Source 2.
These are some of the details we found most interesting, but you can see if there are other details that interest you right here.