Half-Life and its accompanying sequel make up two slots in most gamers’ greatest games of all-time lists.
The legendary follow-up title specifically is almost unrivaled in how much it pushed the boundaries of the gaming landscape and has stood the test of time to be a beloved game that would still steal your heart today, some 22 years after its initial release.
Since then, fans have been pining after a trilogy – a true one, not the VR spin-off, despite its own qualities – and have been let down at every turn.
Now, it seems that Half-Life 3 could never be further than reality, and former Writer at Valve, Chet Faliszek, has cemented that by claiming there’s one major reason why he ‘wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole’.
Half-Life 2 writer wants nothing to do with a trilogy for one huge reason
Many Half-Life rivals have come and gone, but nothing quite hits like the real deal.
The series has built up a reputation for having one of the best storylines ever, with deep character arcs, background context, and entire universes of world-building.
With so much lore to unravel, Faliszek claimed that he – nor anyone else – could make a trilogy that would be true to the lore of the series.
“When people ask me, ‘Oh, don’t you wish you could-‘ No,” he said in an interview with PCGamesN.
“I almost never want to touch something that already has some kind of lore or back history about it. Not even Left 4 Dead or anything. I don’t want to touch anything old.”
He even revealed that many other writers in the Valve studio didn’t quite grasp the scale of the lore, and summarised that it was nothing more than a planet-hopping hitman game.
“I don’t have to have people who remember stuff better than I do yelling at me about changing some history or lore from 50 years ago at this point.”
That’s his stance for the Half-Life 2 writers to have a crack at writing a trilogy, and the point stands if an entirely new team took over.
“Any sequel to me is just a disaster nightmare that I never want to do,” he added.
“So I’m not going to. That’s one of the good things in my life, I can decide that – or it’ll be decided for me – but, no, I don’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole, or even a grav gun separating me from that ten-foot pole. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it with Dog’s arms.”
The sequel itself was so convoluted that some content was axed and then re-added as a bonus.
With the reputation of the Half-Life franchise, a trilogy would have to be one of the most extraordinary scripts ever, and it would be a brave writer to tackle the expectations of an entire industry and still get decades of lore perfect.
