Gabe Newell reveals regret for previous Half-Life titles and interest in brain-computer interfaces

Valve’s managing director Gabe Newell answered questions by fans, gamers and journalists in a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) thread. Yes, Half-Life was high on the priority list, but we will come to that in the bit. The development of original titles by Valve has not stopped. Dota 2 is the last major title, released in 2013 and it was ported to the Source 2 engine in 2015. In 2016, Valve released a VR experience for the HTC Vive called “The Lab” that is set in the Portal universe.

In the AMA, Newell said that Valve is working on a “some unannounced products” on the Source 2 engine. Valve is also working at making the Source 2 engine available to more people. A priority for Valve was to broaden the range of options it has for creating titles, which involves creating the hardware and the controllers for the games as well. Personally, Newell said that he was looking at research in brain-computer interfaces. Valve is working on its own VR titles. Games made by Valve tend to have a long shelf life, with Dota 2, Team Fortress and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive all being incredibly popular titles that continue to get content update years after release.

Now about Half-Life. It recently came to light that momentum for the next Half-Life title repeatedly fizzled out at Valve. Only two of three planned episodic sequels for Half-Life 2 were released, with Half-Life 2: Episode 2 ending in an unresolved cliffhanger. Half-Life 3 has been a mythical beast in gaming circles, a widely anticipated title that we now know is probably never going to get released . However, Newell did not explicitly rule out another Half-Life game, he did say that he regretted the games that were already released.

The regret is despite Half-Life recieving a number of game of the year awards and being hailed as one of the best games ever made. Newell said that he would rather enjoy franchises as a fan, than as someone who got to make the games. The regret is over the things that got left out of the games, instead of what was put in. The list of things that got thrown increased and piled up over the course of the development of Half-Life titles. A particular enemy that Newell misses were Xen creatures.

The Charger was a small demonic bipedal monster with wings. The creature would attack the player on the legs, or spout a toxic substance from its mouth. The creature was cut from the game, but appeared in the SDK files. Another cut enemy was Mr Friendly, also available in the game files, with animations. The creature could disarm the player, or cause Gordon Freeman’s glasses to fly off. This attack would make the player go through the game with blurry vision, a feature that would have been difficult to implement at that time. Some enemies never made it past the concept stage.

Newell said that every choice was a trade-off. Anything that finally made it to Half-Life is a reminder of all the things that were sacrificed instead. In the Half-Life series, a much higher percentage of painful decisions were made. The way Valve works involves dropping a lot of things much later in the development cycle. More information is available in the now discontinued coffee table book,  Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar . The book chronicles the development of the early Valve titles including Day of Defeat, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Team Fortress and Counter Strike.