It is of note that Epistle 3 has another mod called Infinite Finality announced this year that's supposed to be of a more manageable scope than Project Borealis or Boreal Alyph (Which have gone silent and died respectively). We'll have to see if that pans out.
Half Life has the same problem a lot of tv shows have nowadays. They made the story too deep and obscure without knowing how to properly end it. Epistle 3 was bleak and miserable. Now with the VR game they retconned the story with time travel like the Marvel movies. They had so much to work with and so many passionate fans like myself to support it.
@@baconsoup8346 For sure. The original story was so simple and badass. Just get to the surface and get tf outta there! Haha. Half-Life 2 is definitely fun and compelling but introducing an intergalactic superpower was a mistake imo.
Im genuinely convinced we won't see Episode 3. And it's tragic that a lot of the fans of Half Life ep 1 and 2 may have actually passed away since then.
Gabe Newell and valve *suck*. HL's nothing but a meme factory for zoomers at this point, and their last so-called "game" in the series was a tech demo for 1% of the 1% who have vr gear. God, they might as well have released it so it only runs on a Bugatti in-dash display for all the good it did. Also, Laidlaw > anyone at Valve as far as "the HL story" is concerned. Epistle 3 is where HL ends as far as I'm concerned.
All of you did a great job. Love hearing Clint from LGR. Kinda sad but glad someone cared enough to rescue the pictures and collect all of this. Its sad how valve (/Gabe) has wasted so many peoples time by just cancelling projects. We could have had 5-10 short games but instead they had to focuse on more important stuff like a card game (with the most horrible money making scheme) and a vr game that nukes Episode 2s story as well as only being available for vr. Also i think its not directly vnn restoring anything but rather modder friends of his.
Valve’s track record is near flawless with their later titles, though, you gotta admit they are just extremely judicious in not releasing a bad game (this tracks with their Steam income becoming an infinite well of money). I hope EVENTUALLY they will release at least some HL’s history, with the community coming in clutch by polishing it.
I wouldn't say canceled games are a waste of time. Those people were paid, earned a ton of experience, and got to work with a series they loved. It's sad that we don't have more Half-Life and that those devs couldn't get their own interpretation into official canon, but their time wasn't wasted.
@@KingSigy Well they dont have anything to show for it. Anything written by Marc Laidlaw for example might help him as a writer but he is no longer with valve so it wont improve their stories. At one time 3 of valve writers had left and you notice the difference in writing for half life alyx. Not to mention these studios could never make money with these projects and might not even be able to show it to a future company they want to start at. I mean you could hear from some of these people that it was rather far in production. Not to mention they let that one guy sell hunt down the freeman yet somehow the other titles couldnt be allowed to get finished?
@@zaxbit Its anything but flawless. Sure in terms of games they dont release a broken mess but they have done some terrible work both with steam and with their own projects. Attempting to make money with mods without proper prove of ownership or for mods that may need other mods. They also didnt ask people who had far more experience before launching that feature. As for some other examples Steam os/machines, artifact, dota underlords(both of these just attempting to cash in on a trend) reducing what creators get payed, removing steam gifts (replaced with new worse options) as well as many other anti consumer decisions. Valve has done some great things for gaming, steam is the best most feature rich option we got (mobile app and some terrible functions excluded)as a launcher but there is no need for them to ever give 100 percent ever again. Its good they avoid overworking any team member but they also dont give any important tasks out. Work on what you want is a terrible idea and in the case of some titles/projects a lie. Work longer for them (core member of the company) or your name is Gabe and guess why we never see a space pirate game from valve for example (Gabe himself talked about that situation and how he/they decided it wasnt worth it). Another good example is that over a decade ago valve was asked by several governments/rating systems (as well as fans) to introduce a proper age verification. Instead they just geoblock certain content these days not that this is even supposed to be possible within the EU.
From what I've learned is that, when the creators will refuse to reveal the motive or reason why someone does something, it usually means they don't know either. I truly believe Gman was in there just to be a mystery for mystery sake.
@@Bhjdk I never played Alyx, but the alternate realities thing is a reference to the multitudes of different abandoned HL3's. Alyx is not part of that statement.
@@Bhjdkalyx was a key part to getting to the cliffhanger of episode 2. Because we are still at that part of episode 2 and not an alternate timeline because alyx was taken away, many people have taken that there are multiple realities.
ThreeWave CTF would not fall under the umbrella of Half-Life titles, at least any more than Counter-Strike or Day of Defeat would, and there's no confirmation this unreleased project was made by Valve. ThreeWave CTF was an extension of the existing Deathmatch Classic mod, and the development of DMC was outsourced by Valve to the mod team that created Holy Wars, a completely unrelated independent Half-Life mod, who they ultimately did not credit. They were even the second team Valve outsourced Deathmatch Classic to to boot, right after Barking Dog Studios dropped it. Hence, ThreeWave CTF cannot be positively attributed to Valve, and "Half-Life: ThreeWave" is a label that was simply made up by fans which actually contradicts all of its internal designations, thus never being considered a Half-Life title by whoever made it.
7:21 It's stuff like this that truly opens my eyes to just how crazy the butterfly effect is. Imagine, had Tom Kurdika been a likeable guy and HL: Hostile Takeover came out, Infinity Ward wouldn't exist which means Call of Duty would never exist, but we'd have more Half Life expansions. Wild.
It was released almost a year ago. Theres a guy who collects valve memorabilia and knows valve employees. Had them for a long time without saying anything.
Hearing there was a "to be destroyed room" with stacks of concept art from previous and unreleased games, most of which left behind, literally made my heart and jaw drop, that is beyond devastating oh my god
It really annoys me that all companies sit on troves of unreleased concept art, beta builds, etc. like why not release them? People are interested and it's not like people are going to not buy your products because you repurposed some old material in a new game. There's so much cool stuff sitting in a filing drawer somewhere waiting to decay into uselessness.
@@bluegum6438 fr i will never understand why companies are so protective of production art and beta stuff but never show the public and will just treat it like trash, i really hope something in the industry changes that in the future
@@bluegum6438probably because its 1. Not gonna make them money. And 2. Why would they release everything? Its just concept art for them to come up with ideas for the final build
I like how in HL: Decay the player character still gets the cart delivered to them from below, inferring that there is yet ANOTHER Black Mesa employee that pulled it out of storage and stuck it on the cart.
I played Decay in the early 2000's on a rental -- I just used two controllers and died a lot. It felt _super_ different from regular Half Life, definitely worth a playthrough. The single player version looks rad.
I actually emulated it, and fun fact, you can play it singleplayer with 1 controller, there is a button that lets you switch characters. I often just used cross as a portable turret.
Knowing we almost had a half life game from the genius of Warren Spector breaks my soul. The philosophy he had when designing games is incredible. Knowing that he almost gave us a half life episode is so cool yet so sad
It's interesting how Valve planned some link between half life with other titles such as the implied connection with Counter-Strike in Condition Zero and Team Fortress with that cancelled game. Imagine if they found a way to tie in Day of Defeat and Ricochet.
The curse is Valve. They kept cancelling everything like most of the way through. Valve’s only saviour was the wild accident that was Steam. Otherwise their laughably hilarious business practices would just be looked at as naive after their inevitable bankruptcy.
The abortion that is Alyx only exists to sell their hardware, and the main reason they needed a game to sell their hardware, was because they needed to sell it's massive markup "justifying" gimmick of four finger grip detection.
I feel it's worth noting: 1. Mark Laidlaw has stated he regrets releasing Epistle 3, saying "All the real story development can only happen in the crucible of developing the game." 2. In the text, Gordon is referred to as Gertie Fremont. While we can reasonably assume this is Gordon, I noticed while "quoting" Epistle 3 this video swapped the text to "Gordon Freeman" without mentioning the edit was an editorial one made by DYKG. I'd argue it's relevant to know that Laidlaw name-swapped all characters, making Epistle 3 more wink-nudge and less "direct" than this video might otherwise imply. It's always good to make it clear if you've edited the original text when appearing to quote it.
Another comment on this video said that it was originally Gordon and the HL2 cast of characters but Marc Laidlaw changed the names and genders less than 24 hours later to avoid legal issues. Don't know if that's true, but if it is, that could explain the use of the real character names in DYKG's quote.
I think not many people is giving DYKG enough credit for giving the money for the scans, they payed for something so they could give it to everybody for free. Thanks for that, it's part of gaming history.
So they could give it to everybody for free in a way that would bring them more RUclips revenue, yes. It was great of them, but let's not pretend they didn't benefit monetarily from it.
I fondly remember playing HL Decay on PS2 with an elementary schoolmate. We were both huge HL fans. I remember that if you didn’t have a buddy to play with, you could still play Decay in single player. You would have to press the “select” button on the controller to switch between Gina and Colette, but some sequences were still near impossible to complete on your own. I’m sad that I sold all of my PS2 stuff a long, long time ago, but I’m glad that I can at least watch it all on RUclips.
To be fair, Episode 3 was made during the zombie craze era And seeing how most of the enemies are made out of zombies or zombie-like creature, it seems understandable that Valve wants to cancel it
@@CamiloSinger To be fair... There are two parts of Arkane, Lyon and Austin. Austin, who made Redfall, was originally just a support studio however they did make Prey by themselves. The game was pushed on them by Zenimax, and of course they wanted microtransactions. Many of the staff including It's lead then left, leaving Arkane Austin understaffed. They were acquired by Microsoft and were hoping that Microsoft would cancel the game, unfortunately Microsoft didn't. A lot of people want to blame MS but it seems like MS gave them a lot more time and told them to remove microtransactions. Maybe MS should have been more hands on and cancelled the game and helped restructure Arkane Austin. So the *original* Arkane is still around, Deathloop might not have quite been as good as their previous works but the Arkane DNA in the game is present. At this point with an understaffed Austin I think they should just go back to being a support studio. Seems like plenty of people forget that Arkane has two studios under It's banner.
Half Life is such a cursed IP. Even the lack of transparency between Valve and the devs seem pretty strange. I'm assuming Valve is just scared of the IP being tainted by a single mediocre game.
Laidlaws letter was originally titled Episode 3 and had all the character names from HL, but he changed it less than 24 hours later to make sure it wasn’t taken down for legal reasons.
I haven't watched a DYKG episode for a long time. But hearing Clint from LGR narrating this was a welcome return and I never realized how enjoyable DYKG episodes were for me.
"Sure, the company I'm subcontracting with is doing good work, but I am personally annoyed by one guy there so I'm gonna cancel this project, rather than just letting them finish it and *then* cutting ties with that one guy"
I feel bad for Tom Kurdika. I mean don’t get me wrong he was probably an ass hat. But bro was struggling with mental issues and so he lost a whole line of games in a franchise and his team left him to just make the same company but better. I know it’s a competitive industry and you probably aren’t suited for it in a leadership position if you have issues. But man was just tryna live.
19:17 it’s always interesting when people somehow stumble upon these in online art portfolios. How did they find something like that? We’re they looking in it for other reasons?
Holy crap I was looking for those full res scans of the Ep3 and Stars of Blood concept art last week, thank you for helping preserve a special part of gaming history!! Also big shoutouts to Tyler McVicker and NoClip for being such huge contributors to a big chunk of these years ago. Please follow them.
Valve some times uses details form past Ideas I wonder if any ideas for allied processing may have contributed to the portals aperture labs. maybe. maybe not.
MAN, getting to know these unreleased games is both relieving and depressing. Valve developed lots of amazing games, but they cancelled just as many. To never show us, to destroy these developers' work, and to then eventually give up and never make another game for their franchises, were crimes against art. It's infuriating, but well, I'm sure they had their reasons. But it is frustrating to see how one or a few people can decide the fate of other people's work.
I wonder how the Team Fortress Classic crew being in a Half Life game would've impacted TF2. It likely would've at least been brought up in the comics, since the characters from TFC show up as a major plot element in them, but just having the games be directly connected like that could've had a major effect, methinks.
How can they justify being so casual about the destruction of actual fucking artwork!?? This is infuriating to me! That's not ok and it's absolutely wrong on every level. I need answers. Who decided to destroy art like it's Nazi Germany
They cancelled Ravenholm... because of money? Are you fucking kidding me??? Valve, one of the most profitable gaming companies in the world, couldn't fund a stand alone expansion for HL2? you gotta be joking...
Valve continues to disappoint me as a game developer. I have to accept that they're a tech company now, not a game developer. They just happen to have designers.
Just me rambling here, but one area of the Half-Life universe that I would love to be explored is the different planets/dimensions that are under combine control. We know from the already existing lore that the Universal Union is a massive monolithic bureaucracy that spans many planetary systems, all of which are taken over so the combine can assimilate the local technology and natural resources in order to facilitate further expansion and technologic advancement. So it seems reasonable to assume that there are hundreds if not thousands of other planets that have been taken over by the combine, hence there would be planets where the combine technology and "boots on the ground" forces would take a different appearance to those on Earth, whilst still retaining some overall common aesthetic. Especially as the overwatch soldiers are essentially modified human clones, then on other worlds there most definitely are other forms of foot soldiers that are tailored to the local environment (e.g the combine super soldier that was cut from the beta). A game like this could really explore what Laidlaw was trying to get into with the ending of his epistle 3 storyline in terms of showcasing the true size of the combine empire. Maybe it could take place on a punishment/prison colony (perhaps the place alluded to by Breen when he tries to send Eli and Alyx through the portal in the citadel before being stopped by Mossman), and the protagonist could be an alien species with their own special abilities. Would definitely be hard to accomplish by a team of modders though, as it would mean cultivating completely new environments without relying on HL2 textures. Just a cool idea I thought of lol
Don't like the implication that having ADHD and being bipolar makes you difficult to work with. Sure, they could have contributed to it, but the way it's presented here makes it sound bad
6:06 Triage at Dawn could make even the most stupid conversation epic and tragic at the same time, and, the way it's used in this video is perfect, it makes the scene sad because, our man Benson here, is narrating the story of what could have been, but never was because of Valve, but at the same time, it give us hope that, maybe, one day in the future, we will be able to play it. who knows, maybe on one of those USBs there's still a working build of HL:HT that it's waiting for us! amazing video, man, also great collab!
Haha thanks McKenzie, I'm the guy who wrote the video. Triage at Dawn was a last-minute change in editing. It was originally a track from the original DOOM (1993), but swapped it out with Triage at Dawn last minute. Had kind of a hard time finding HL music that worked well as background music tbh. So much of it's either too hard or too ambient, doesn't work well for BG music.
Destiny-like type game in half-life universe would've been as amazing as having EP3. Also sucks they decided to kill off Gina, wished if we ever got hl3 Chell,Adrian, Gina and Colette to meet with gordon as rebels or something.
Heya, I wrote this video. Been playing Half-Life since I was 10 back in the late 90's. Replayed them all recently. Well, except Alyx cause I don't have a VR setup. I like Half-Life.
I like how this video began with "Did you know that a Half-Life title was cancelled because Gabe Newall didn't like a guy?". It made me picture an E3/Comicon-type panel where someone asks Gabe "Why have we not got a conclusion to Half-Life?" and Gabe looks to his left and says "Yeah, DAVE! Why don't we have a Half-Life 3? You asshole!"
All these companies Valve worked with went on to be pillars of the gaming world. Valve really knows how to pick them; too bad they don't know how to complete a project.
@@Jws20 Gotta confess lol, I wrote the script. I checked and I had actually written "Seven Year" not "Seven Hour." I knew it was hours, especially since I did a playthrough/replay of every HL game right before writing this video (except Alyx). Just goofed while writing that sentence. Didn't notice, and neither did any proofreaders. Slipped through the cracks.
We put hundreds of hours of research into this video. Giving it a like, comment or a share would help us out a ton. Cheers 👍
Thanks for having me on-board again!
HUNDREDS ????
@@sofluffer It's Valve, man... I'm surprised they didn't employ thousands
A lot
Disclosing someone's medical history is a scumbag move. You didn't need to do that.
Note to self: if ever subcontracted by Valve, do not add monkey monsters into a project.
ngl the description of the zombie monkeys sound a lot like the fast zombies in HL2
@@Charades. that explains everything.
Have you seen an animal call "monkey"? I have. -Gabe Newell
We were going to add a headcrab zombie gorilla to this game, but then I thought "Nah that's too cool, lets make this game suck more" -Gabe Newell
monkey zombies sounds dope tbh
I gotta say, this channel's transition from trivia to preservation is absolutely amazing. I'm loving it! Keep up the great work!
It is of note that Epistle 3 has another mod called Infinite Finality announced this year that's supposed to be of a more manageable scope than Project Borealis or Boreal Alyph (Which have gone silent and died respectively). We'll have to see if that pans out.
At this point I’d just be happy to find out what happened to Barney after the end of episode 1
Half Life has the same problem a lot of tv shows have nowadays. They made the story too deep and obscure without knowing how to properly end it. Epistle 3 was bleak and miserable. Now with the VR game they retconned the story with time travel like the Marvel movies. They had so much to work with and so many passionate fans like myself to support it.
@@baconsoup8346 For sure. The original story was so simple and badass. Just get to the surface and get tf outta there! Haha. Half-Life 2 is definitely fun and compelling but introducing an intergalactic superpower was a mistake imo.
crazy how much the quality of this channel randomly jumped, awesome stuff.
This is a joy to watch with me knowing very little about unreleased content other than HL2 Beta
Im genuinely convinced we won't see Episode 3. And it's tragic that a lot of the fans of Half Life ep 1 and 2 may have actually passed away since then.
What? Sorry to break it to you but the creators of Half Life are probably going to die earlier than the fans.
It's crazy how after valve cancelled on some of these studios, they made better rated games than what they made in the last few years
Gabe Newell and valve *suck*. HL's nothing but a meme factory for zoomers at this point, and their last so-called "game" in the series was a tech demo for 1% of the 1% who have vr gear. God, they might as well have released it so it only runs on a Bugatti in-dash display for all the good it did. Also, Laidlaw > anyone at Valve as far as "the HL story" is concerned. Epistle 3 is where HL ends as far as I'm concerned.
very interesting stuff!
“The right man in the wrong place makes all the difference…”
All of you did a great job. Love hearing Clint from LGR. Kinda sad but glad someone cared enough to rescue the pictures and collect all of this.
Its sad how valve (/Gabe) has wasted so many peoples time by just cancelling projects.
We could have had 5-10 short games but instead they had to focuse on more important stuff like a card game (with the most horrible money making scheme) and a vr game that nukes Episode 2s story as well as only being available for vr.
Also i think its not directly vnn restoring anything but rather modder friends of his.
Valve’s track record is near flawless with their later titles, though, you gotta admit they are just extremely judicious in not releasing a bad game (this tracks with their Steam income becoming an infinite well of money). I hope EVENTUALLY they will release at least some HL’s history, with the community coming in clutch by polishing it.
I wouldn't say canceled games are a waste of time. Those people were paid, earned a ton of experience, and got to work with a series they loved. It's sad that we don't have more Half-Life and that those devs couldn't get their own interpretation into official canon, but their time wasn't wasted.
@@KingSigy Well they dont have anything to show for it. Anything written by Marc Laidlaw for example might help him as a writer but he is no longer with valve so it wont improve their stories. At one time 3 of valve writers had left and you notice the difference in writing for half life alyx. Not to mention these studios could never make money with these projects and might not even be able to show it to a future company they want to start at. I mean you could hear from some of these people that it was rather far in production. Not to mention they let that one guy sell hunt down the freeman yet somehow the other titles couldnt be allowed to get finished?
@@zaxbit Its anything but flawless. Sure in terms of games they dont release a broken mess but they have done some terrible work both with steam and with their own projects.
Attempting to make money with mods without proper prove of ownership or for mods that may need other mods. They also didnt ask people who had far more experience before launching that feature. As for some other examples Steam os/machines, artifact, dota underlords(both of these just attempting to cash in on a trend) reducing what creators get payed, removing steam gifts (replaced with new worse options) as well as many other anti consumer decisions.
Valve has done some great things for gaming, steam is the best most feature rich option we got (mobile app and some terrible functions excluded)as a launcher but there is no need for them to ever give 100 percent ever again. Its good they avoid overworking any team member but they also dont give any important tasks out.
Work on what you want is a terrible idea and in the case of some titles/projects a lie. Work longer for them (core member of the company) or your name is Gabe and guess why we never see a space pirate game from valve for example (Gabe himself talked about that situation and how he/they decided it wasnt worth it).
Another good example is that over a decade ago valve was asked by several governments/rating systems (as well as fans) to introduce a proper age verification. Instead they just geoblock certain content these days not that this is even supposed to be possible within the EU.
Cool to see lgr here !
From what I've learned is that, when the creators will refuse to reveal the motive or reason why someone does something, it usually means they don't know either. I truly believe Gman was in there just to be a mystery for mystery sake.
Lol. I was confused. Is this new LGR channel😂😂
If they make another half life vr game, I hope they make the controls not shit this time...
It's kind of ironic when you think about it, just like the borealis, episode three is constantly blinking in and out of existence.
Alternative realities of it as well. It's very Hal-Life.
I never thought of it like that. Kind of beautiful
@@LegendStormcrowwhy do people think the ending to alex means multiple timelines? I always took it as a retcon
@@Bhjdk I never played Alyx, but the alternate realities thing is a reference to the multitudes of different abandoned HL3's.
Alyx is not part of that statement.
@@Bhjdkalyx was a key part to getting to the cliffhanger of episode 2. Because we are still at that part of episode 2 and not an alternate timeline because alyx was taken away, many people have taken that there are multiple realities.
LGR and DidYouKnowGaming, the perfect crossover. What an extremely enjoyable episode as always 10/10.
Especially for this project.
Really through me off there for a sec.
LGR is mundo cringo....
ThreeWave CTF would not fall under the umbrella of Half-Life titles, at least any more than Counter-Strike or Day of Defeat would, and there's no confirmation this unreleased project was made by Valve. ThreeWave CTF was an extension of the existing Deathmatch Classic mod, and the development of DMC was outsourced by Valve to the mod team that created Holy Wars, a completely unrelated independent Half-Life mod, who they ultimately did not credit. They were even the second team Valve outsourced Deathmatch Classic to to boot, right after Barking Dog Studios dropped it. Hence, ThreeWave CTF cannot be positively attributed to Valve, and "Half-Life: ThreeWave" is a label that was simply made up by fans which actually contradicts all of its internal designations, thus never being considered a Half-Life title by whoever made it.
My brain can’t comprehend what you just posted, but thank you for this info anyway.
DMC was made by the Holy Wars team? Holy moly I learn new things from the great marph every comment!
No way they made devil may cry
Nice to see you here and giving more info!
wow, holy wars, i totally forgot about that one.
Thanks so much for the shoutout guys! We really appreciate it!
Thanks for lettin us use the footage. Great work btw :)
thank you for the work you've done!
7:21 It's stuff like this that truly opens my eyes to just how crazy the butterfly effect is. Imagine, had Tom Kurdika been a likeable guy and HL: Hostile Takeover came out, Infinity Ward wouldn't exist which means Call of Duty would never exist, but we'd have more Half Life expansions. Wild.
Maybe more hl2 expansions too.
And maybe even Medal of Honor would have died much sooner without Allied Assault (the Call of Duty before Call of Duty)
Canon event
you just made me hate COD, even the good ones.
I can't believe they got brand new unreleased concept art for this, that's insane
It was released almost a year ago. Theres a guy who collects valve memorabilia and knows valve employees. Had them for a long time without saying anything.
@@TheDakine911 But that guy just released a bunch more right?
“Gordon says” is a cursed phrase. Also I love LGR’s narration.
Hearing there was a "to be destroyed room" with stacks of concept art from previous and unreleased games, most of which left behind, literally made my heart and jaw drop, that is beyond devastating oh my god
Modern day Library of Alexandria
It really annoys me that all companies sit on troves of unreleased concept art, beta builds, etc. like why not release them? People are interested and it's not like people are going to not buy your products because you repurposed some old material in a new game. There's so much cool stuff sitting in a filing drawer somewhere waiting to decay into uselessness.
@@gm4765 literally the best way to put it as half-life fans 😭
@@bluegum6438 fr i will never understand why companies are so protective of production art and beta stuff but never show the public and will just treat it like trash, i really hope something in the industry changes that in the future
@@bluegum6438probably because its 1. Not gonna make them money. And 2. Why would they release everything? Its just concept art for them to come up with ideas for the final build
DidYouKnowGaming is the real MVP for saving the concept art
LGR is a great fit for this VO, I'd like to hear more of this collaboration.
Did You Know for The Sims with Clint pls 🙏
@@onyxospreyyesss, or Duke Nukem, did they do that one already?
@@Minnevan I have good news for you, they already partnered with LGR for a Duke Nukem one!
@@onyxosprey Still need him for a Sims episode though and boy will that be a fun one. Though hasn't DYKG done a Sims episode?
@@Arcanua They did one on the original 9 years ago with BrutalMoose. A Sims 2 video with LGR would be a fun followup!
Man, there are more cancelled Half-Life games than there are released games by Valve.
Obviously
I like how in HL: Decay the player character still gets the cart delivered to them from below, inferring that there is yet ANOTHER Black Mesa employee that pulled it out of storage and stuck it on the cart.
"and they made epic mickey for the wii instead" shouldn't have been such a funny sentence to me but it was
ikr LOL
I played Decay in the early 2000's on a rental -- I just used two controllers and died a lot. It felt _super_ different from regular Half Life, definitely worth a playthrough. The single player version looks rad.
ive played it with friends in Sven co-op on PC. VERY well done, absolutely a must play for any half life fan. grab a friend
I actually emulated it, and fun fact, you can play it singleplayer with 1 controller, there is a button that lets you switch characters. I often just used cross as a portable turret.
I played it with a buddy, it was awesome. Get a buddy.
Knowing we almost had a half life game from the genius of Warren Spector breaks my soul. The philosophy he had when designing games is incredible. Knowing that he almost gave us a half life episode is so cool yet so sad
It's interesting how Valve planned some link between half life with other titles such as the implied connection with Counter-Strike in Condition Zero and Team Fortress with that cancelled game.
Imagine if they found a way to tie in Day of Defeat and Ricochet.
It’s upsetting to learn that there was so much Half Life content that we missed out on. Interesting to learn about, but upsetting.
A space pirate game that's taking place during a Combine invasion of a spacefaring civilization would be so cool
I swear that Half-Life had some kind of curse put on it around 2005. I'm surprised Alyx even exists.
Half-Life is a SCP Keter Class object xD
The curse is Valve. They kept cancelling everything like most of the way through. Valve’s only saviour was the wild accident that was Steam. Otherwise their laughably hilarious business practices would just be looked at as naive after their inevitable bankruptcy.
The abortion that is Alyx only exists to sell their hardware, and the main reason they needed a game to sell their hardware, was because they needed to sell it's massive markup "justifying" gimmick of four finger grip detection.
@@JohnSmith-fq3rgIt sucks they didn't at least try porting that for PC or consoles, like... not even today... It's fuckin vr exclusive still
Hearing Clint say 'Did you know' was more chilling than expected.
Yesssss to LGR! I'll listen to him talk about anything. He could do a 'did you know' about the history of toasters and I'd watch every minute.
Technology Connections did a very good video about toasters.
I feel it's worth noting:
1. Mark Laidlaw has stated he regrets releasing Epistle 3, saying "All the real story development can only happen in the crucible of developing the game."
2. In the text, Gordon is referred to as Gertie Fremont. While we can reasonably assume this is Gordon, I noticed while "quoting" Epistle 3 this video swapped the text to "Gordon Freeman" without mentioning the edit was an editorial one made by DYKG. I'd argue it's relevant to know that Laidlaw name-swapped all characters, making Epistle 3 more wink-nudge and less "direct" than this video might otherwise imply. It's always good to make it clear if you've edited the original text when appearing to quote it.
Another comment on this video said that it was originally Gordon and the HL2 cast of characters but Marc Laidlaw changed the names and genders less than 24 hours later to avoid legal issues. Don't know if that's true, but if it is, that could explain the use of the real character names in DYKG's quote.
being a half life fan is suffering
Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman
....Rise and shine
*Dr.
I hope we get to hear those words one more time, for a story closure at the very least.
No
Rise and shine Mr Newell, not to imply you have been sleeping on the job.
I think not many people is giving DYKG enough credit for giving the money for the scans, they payed for something so they could give it to everybody for free.
Thanks for that, it's part of gaming history.
So they could give it to everybody for free in a way that would bring them more RUclips revenue, yes. It was great of them, but let's not pretend they didn't benefit monetarily from it.
I fondly remember playing HL Decay on PS2 with an elementary schoolmate. We were both huge HL fans. I remember that if you didn’t have a buddy to play with, you could still play Decay in single player. You would have to press the “select” button on the controller to switch between Gina and Colette, but some sequences were still near impossible to complete on your own.
I’m sad that I sold all of my PS2 stuff a long, long time ago, but I’m glad that I can at least watch it all on RUclips.
Valve doing Arkane dirty is one of the biggest tragedies in gaming.
That and Arkane releasing the absolute trainwreck that is called Redfall. How the mighty have fallen :(
@@CamiloSinger
It probably wouldn’t have happened, if they’d gotten their studio attached to Half-Life.
@@CamiloSinger that's what happens when good studios are owned by bad parent companies. :(
To be fair, Episode 3 was made during the zombie craze era
And seeing how most of the enemies are made out of zombies or zombie-like creature, it seems understandable that Valve wants to cancel it
@@CamiloSinger To be fair...
There are two parts of Arkane, Lyon and Austin. Austin, who made Redfall, was originally just a support studio however they did make Prey by themselves. The game was pushed on them by Zenimax, and of course they wanted microtransactions. Many of the staff including It's lead then left, leaving Arkane Austin understaffed. They were acquired by Microsoft and were hoping that Microsoft would cancel the game, unfortunately Microsoft didn't.
A lot of people want to blame MS but it seems like MS gave them a lot more time and told them to remove microtransactions. Maybe MS should have been more hands on and cancelled the game and helped restructure Arkane Austin.
So the *original* Arkane is still around, Deathloop might not have quite been as good as their previous works but the Arkane DNA in the game is present. At this point with an understaffed Austin I think they should just go back to being a support studio.
Seems like plenty of people forget that Arkane has two studios under It's banner.
Half Life is such a cursed IP. Even the lack of transparency between Valve and the devs seem pretty strange. I'm assuming Valve is just scared of the IP being tainted by a single mediocre game.
Laidlaws letter was originally titled Episode 3 and had all the character names from HL, but he changed it less than 24 hours later to make sure it wasn’t taken down for legal reasons.
Gabe is a just a clueless child, a lucky one
I haven't watched a DYKG episode for a long time. But hearing Clint from LGR narrating this was a welcome return and I never realized how enjoyable DYKG episodes were for me.
"I have what is most likely the only surviving copy of an extremely historically relevant unreleased work, but I'm too fucking lazy to find it"
christ
"Sure, the company I'm subcontracting with is doing good work, but I am personally annoyed by one guy there so I'm gonna cancel this project, rather than just letting them finish it and *then* cutting ties with that one guy"
The hostile takeover guy should give it to the community to get it to work if it doesn’t out of the box.
Maybe if Tom Kurdika was less difficult we would have gotten HL: Hostile Takeover instead of Call of Duty
I feel bad for Tom Kurdika. I mean don’t get me wrong he was probably an ass hat. But bro was struggling with mental issues and so he lost a whole line of games in a franchise and his team left him to just make the same company but better.
I know it’s a competitive industry and you probably aren’t suited for it in a leadership position if you have issues. But man was just tryna live.
Damn I just looked it up. Tom died in 2020
I played the original Decay on PS2. You *could* play alone. There was a button combo that would switch you to the other character.
19:17 it’s always interesting when people somehow stumble upon these in online art portfolios. How did they find something like that? We’re they looking in it for other reasons?
How many valve employees are watching this as like a trip down memory lane?
I don't understand how a gaming company like valve can be so anti gaming
Holy crap I was looking for those full res scans of the Ep3 and Stars of Blood concept art last week, thank you for helping preserve a special part of gaming history!! Also big shoutouts to Tyler McVicker and NoClip for being such huge contributors to a big chunk of these years ago. Please follow them.
I literally screamed when I noticed it was LGR narrating this episode!
I screamed when you screamed. You scared me dude.
Valve some times uses details form past Ideas I wonder if any ideas for allied processing may have contributed to the portals aperture labs. maybe. maybe not.
MAN, getting to know these unreleased games is both relieving and depressing. Valve developed lots of amazing games, but they cancelled just as many. To never show us, to destroy these developers' work, and to then eventually give up and never make another game for their franchises, were crimes against art. It's infuriating, but well, I'm sure they had their reasons. But it is frustrating to see how one or a few people can decide the fate of other people's work.
This is amazing and very informative. Well done for getting some new juice out of Valve!
I wonder how the Team Fortress Classic crew being in a Half Life game would've impacted TF2. It likely would've at least been brought up in the comics, since the characters from TFC show up as a major plot element in them, but just having the games be directly connected like that could've had a major effect, methinks.
Sounds like Stars of Blood would have been a Valve take on what Starfield wants to be, another massive shame to never see it made.
LGR and DidYouKnowGaming collab is 10/10. 😁❤
How can they justify being so casual about the destruction of actual fucking artwork!?? This is infuriating to me! That's not ok and it's absolutely wrong on every level. I need answers. Who decided to destroy art like it's Nazi Germany
7 year war? Do you mean 7 **hours** war? 11:10
They cancelled Ravenholm... because of money?
Are you fucking kidding me??? Valve, one of the most profitable gaming companies in the world, couldn't fund a stand alone expansion for HL2? you gotta be joking...
Valve continues to disappoint me as a game developer. I have to accept that they're a tech company now, not a game developer. They just happen to have designers.
The only thing missing from this? Ross Scott, in character as Gordon Freeman, interrupting the end credits with a rant.
Every video on half life sequels is horribly depressing lmao
Just me rambling here, but one area of the Half-Life universe that I would love to be explored is the different planets/dimensions that are under combine control. We know from the already existing lore that the Universal Union is a massive monolithic bureaucracy that spans many planetary systems, all of which are taken over so the combine can assimilate the local technology and natural resources in order to facilitate further expansion and technologic advancement. So it seems reasonable to assume that there are hundreds if not thousands of other planets that have been taken over by the combine, hence there would be planets where the combine technology and "boots on the ground" forces would take a different appearance to those on Earth, whilst still retaining some overall common aesthetic. Especially as the overwatch soldiers are essentially modified human clones, then on other worlds there most definitely are other forms of foot soldiers that are tailored to the local environment (e.g the combine super soldier that was cut from the beta).
A game like this could really explore what Laidlaw was trying to get into with the ending of his epistle 3 storyline in terms of showcasing the true size of the combine empire. Maybe it could take place on a punishment/prison colony (perhaps the place alluded to by Breen when he tries to send Eli and Alyx through the portal in the citadel before being stopped by Mossman), and the protagonist could be an alien species with their own special abilities. Would definitely be hard to accomplish by a team of modders though, as it would mean cultivating completely new environments without relying on HL2 textures. Just a cool idea I thought of lol
Don't like the implication that having ADHD and being bipolar makes you difficult to work with. Sure, they could have contributed to it, but the way it's presented here makes it sound bad
So basically Valve won't make a new half life game until Gaben dies 😑 just like we won't have a real Paper Mario until Miyamoto dies 🙁
dude casually has literal history sitting in a drive and hasn't shared it because "idk lol"
He probably hasn't shared it since there would probably be legal issues surrounding it.
6:06
Triage at Dawn could make even the most stupid conversation epic and tragic at the same time, and, the way it's used in this video is perfect, it makes the scene sad because, our man Benson here, is narrating the story of what could have been, but never was because of Valve, but at the same time, it give us hope that, maybe, one day in the future, we will be able to play it.
who knows, maybe on one of those USBs there's still a working build of HL:HT that it's waiting for us!
amazing video, man, also great collab!
Haha thanks McKenzie, I'm the guy who wrote the video. Triage at Dawn was a last-minute change in editing. It was originally a track from the original DOOM (1993), but swapped it out with Triage at Dawn last minute. Had kind of a hard time finding HL music that worked well as background music tbh. So much of it's either too hard or too ambient, doesn't work well for BG music.
@@DJIVision wow man, good job!
last minute choices are alway the best one
Not gonne lie, the first story makes Valve look very petty. Canceling the work of a whole team because you dislike one guy.
In a way, Half Life is made more special by having the end never be made.
Its' potential energy survives.
I never knew about the rumoured release of hostile takeover, what an interesting vid!
It's funny how over the years some dudes on the internet know more than Tyler ;-)
Destiny-like type game in half-life universe would've been as amazing as having EP3. Also sucks they decided to kill off Gina, wished if we ever got hl3 Chell,Adrian, Gina and Colette to meet with gordon as rebels or something.
seems like Valve tricked themselves out of some great content to extend the breadth and depth of their IP. I mean the team that made Dishonored!
ive seen your main channel, you dont even like half-life, why are you making videos about it???
Heya, I wrote this video. Been playing Half-Life since I was 10 back in the late 90's. Replayed them all recently. Well, except Alyx cause I don't have a VR setup. I like Half-Life.
I like how this video began with "Did you know that a Half-Life title was cancelled because Gabe Newall didn't like a guy?". It made me picture an E3/Comicon-type panel where someone asks Gabe "Why have we not got a conclusion to Half-Life?" and Gabe looks to his left and says "Yeah, DAVE! Why don't we have a Half-Life 3? You asshole!"
Can we get more LGR/DYKG collabs? This was epic.
Istg there are more cancelled HL games than HL games
Seems like valve is pretty good at wasting other developers time lmao
Decay is awesome in 2 player on PS2. Solo? No thanks.
12:22 A skip button for those of us already up to date on Epistle 3 but wanna see the new stuff.
Man valve sure loves to cancel projects with literally 0 explanation
you could have LGR narrate ANYTHING and i would watch it!
First dude casually talking about creating lost media like it's nothing :( junior gman in training sounds like such a vibe
Wait, wait, wait, wait. Random LGR content thrown into my ear-hole without my knowledge! I'll take it but I'm still shocked.
In the universe where Gabe got things done Valve would have gone way militaristic in their games. That would have been weird.
The moment I saw LGR in the title, I just had to click. Easily one of my favorite tech channels.
2:11 I NEED IT!!!!!!!!!! I NEED IT!!!!!!!!! I NEED IT SO BAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love when my favourite youtube channels work together! Hi LGR!
All these companies Valve worked with went on to be pillars of the gaming world. Valve really knows how to pick them; too bad they don't know how to complete a project.
I waited years for a did you know gaming video on Half-Life and then I hear "7 year war"....
It's a typo mate
@@DJIVision more like a slip of tongue
@@Jws20 Gotta confess lol, I wrote the script. I checked and I had actually written "Seven Year" not "Seven Hour." I knew it was hours, especially since I did a playthrough/replay of every HL game right before writing this video (except Alyx). Just goofed while writing that sentence. Didn't notice, and neither did any proofreaders. Slipped through the cracks.
@@DJIVision oh, well then I guess it is a typo
I long wondered why there was no Gman game or mod. His lore has so much potential!