Gabe Newell says Half-Life 2: Episode 3 didn’t happen because he was ‘stumped’

Concept art for Half-Life 2: Episode 3, from the Half-Life 2 20th Anniversary Documentary. | Screenshot: YouTube

Unsurprisingly, yesterday’s big Half-Life release wasn’t the sequel to Half-Life 2 or even the third Half-Life 2: Episode entry, but a 20th-anniversary update to Valve’s legendary 2004 game. And given what studio co-founder Gabe Newell has to say on the subject in a 2-hour documentary that the company released in tandem with the update, it seems less likely than ever that we’ll be seeing either follow-up anytime soon.

Newell explains what he calls his “personal failure” near the end of the video:

You can’t get lazy and say, “oh, we’re moving the story forward.” That’s copping out of your obligatiion to gamers, right? Yes, of course they love the story. They love many, many aspects of it. But sort of saying that your reason to do it is...

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