Half-Life is a franchise that developed between the second half of the 90s of the last century and the first five years of the new, in what has been the most flagrant case of abandonment of a saga of successes that its creator did not wanted (or could not) explode. Now, what is the reason that currently this series starring Gordon Freeman does not have a greater number of cult titles in our saints? Then we tell you everything.
Revive the PC or keep Half-Life?
Gabe Newell is the brain behind Valve practically since its inception, when its games came through the legendary Sierra label, created in the 80s by the famous Roberta Williams. Those were times when the shooter genre was experiencing its particular boom and the Americans didn’t want to miss it. Their success was quickly rewarded and, as is the norm and custom of the house, they exploited the vein by developing all kinds of variants of the same game. They even allowed the community to tweak the title itself to make it better with mods and other add-ons. Don’t names like Garry’s Mod (or Gmod) ring a bell?
Then it was time to think about a Half-Life 2 , which hit the stores in 2004, and did it in a unique way that would mark the fate of the PC for the remains: Valve took the opportunity to release it the same day it went on sale your Steam digital store. Does it ring a bell? So controversial was the release that many stores complained that even the physical format of the game required activating a key online, something never seen in a mainstream release up to that point. A whole revolution.
And from then on there was silence. Just two more expansions and a thick veil fell on a franchise that was destined to be a benchmark in the shooter scene. Although the truth is that this success, that of the Steam store, is what has saved the PC from remaining a gaming platform today, so in those first moments it must have required all the efforts on the part of the studio, which From that moment on, she put aside her vein as a creator of video games and considered it secondary to spend efforts and economic resources on new projects.
Games ahead of their time
We owe Valve not only the creation of Steam and, therefore, that transformation of the market from the physical to the digital format in a way that not even consoles have experienced, but it was ahead of its time with the Half-Life saga . So much so, that there are three aspects in which they hardly have any competition when we look at all the titles that make up the series: on the one hand, their mechanics, which are original, fresh and completely innovative, with never-before-seen weapons and tools that move objects, modify them or they create portals that we can go through (hence the great Portal with GladOS), as well as the ingenuity to use physics in all of them with amazing realism. In addition to enjoying thanks to its engineSource of a graphic section that still seems current to us today.
Half-Life 2 , specifically, was a real milestone that marked the way for many studios on how the visual narrative of a shooter should be that is not satisfied with just having extraordinary graphics. The formula for its success was also based on the mechanics and making us think to overcome certain key moments in the story. Obviously, most of the time we are shooting, but the gamer does not live by bullets alone: we also carry levers, nails to hang (literally) the enemies on the walls, etc.
A list of anthology games
Here is the list of the (few) games that Valve made of what is to date its best-known saga in history (with the permission of CSGO fans and their Team Fortress, more focused on multiplayer):
Half Life (1998)
The story of the laboratory that accidentally opens a kind of dimensional portal through which strange creatures appear that invade everything, laid the first brick of a spectacular saga. The protagonist is Gordon Freeman, a scientist specializing in theoretical physics from MIT who will have to bring order to Black Mesa and control the invasion. A wonder with an extraordinary narrative section and that already offered in those times original gameplay modes with weapons never seen in other titles with a similar theme.
Over the years he saw different versions arrive, some with cooperative game modes ( Opposing Force ) or a Blue Shift edition. Although the real leap was made in 2004 when, to celebrate the launch of Half-Life 2, Valve developed a kind of remake (as they would call it today) with graphics generated with Gabe Newell’s Source engine, which came to replace the old GoldSrc, variant of the mythical Quake Engine. Quite a milestone and an extraordinary facelift for a title that at that time was already considered a classic.
Half Life 2 (2004)
The world is subjugated by an organization called the Alliance and Gordon Freeman, two decades after the events of Half-Life , wakes up from hibernation. The game, running on Valve’s own Sourde engine, is a true marvel that not only enhances the visual aspect of the whole, but also takes it to a new dimension with extraordinarily elaborate gameplay mechanics.
As we tell you, the key will not only be the confrontations, shots and shootouts, but other parts in which we have to use our heads and physics with devices capable of modifying gravity, for example. From that spirit of the game , a kind of spin-off focused only on solving puzzles, such as Portal , will be born in 2008 , although it will not be until 2011 when that idea reaches its zenith thanks to Portal 2 and that corrosive humor of GladOS, which have made this universe in one of the best in the history of video games.
Half-Life 2 Episode One (2006)
With the arrival of the first expansion of Hal-Life 2 , we all rubbed our hands because not only could we see what happened to Gordon Freeman and his companion Alyx Vance once the second game was over, at the gates of Citadel 17 of the Alliance , but Valve was still experimenting with new mechanics and, above all, improving its extraordinary Source graphics engine. This title leaves us with some of the most beautiful settings seen in the saga and left things unfinished for a new installment that would arrive… just a year later.
Half-Life 2 Episode Two (2007)
Indeed, the fact that Valve only waited a year to delight us with the second episode gave us a glimpse that we were going to have Half-Life for a while, but it was not like that. This second episode is, to this day, the last we saw of the franchise since the rumored Half-Life Episode 3 never came to market. That will remain in Valve’s conscience, not having continued the saga on a regular basis, even if it was in the hands of an external studio that Gabe Newell controlled. But no, with that escape in search of a new rebel refuge by Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance, the Americans cut off any possibility of return., which (figuratively) killed millions of fans of the series around the world who were left with a span of noses.
Half-Life Alyx (2020)
After a 13-year hiatus, Valve decided to pull Half-Life out of the box to try to give its Steam virtual reality a bigger boost . It happened right at the gates of the pandemic in the West, in March 2020 when Half-Life Alyx went on sale to tell us about the events that occurred between the first two games. What’s more, this is the first time that Alyx Vance is the character we control, accompanied by her father Eli de ella as they fight against the Alliance’s planetary occupation. This title showed the world the Source 2 graphics engine and is compatible with viewers that can be used within SteamVR. A unique opportunity to revive an updated Half-Life .
As we tell you, Half-Life is one of the best shooter sagas in all of history but, at the same time, one of the most wasted as well. The blame? Surely it is due to a combination of circumstances and a company that was at the crossroads of having to choose between giving up its soul as a developer of (superb) video games, or maintaining a business that was going to mark the history of gaming on PC during the following decades. What would you have done?