#Half life 2 chapter full
#Half life 2 chapter series

Much of the past five years or so has been devoted to the Steam box hardware, Steam OS and its SteamVR platform, which works in conjunction with the HTC Vive headset. Valve has significantly reduced the frequency of its new-game launches over the past five years in particular. It seems obvious that more and more resources have been devoted to it, putting more traditional game development on the back burner. Steam also became a huge priority at the end of the last decade, reaching a point where it basically prints money. Valve is notorious for its essentially flat corporate structure, something that allows for great creative freedom but also makes it easy for projects to fall by the wayside. Naturally, myriad theories abound as to what happened to the franchise. Essentially, Valve got us to buy a game that ends two-thirds of the way through - that's a pretty big slap in the face.

#Half life 2 chapter series

I'm talking about the in-game events, but that comment could easily apply to the way the series has been handled the past 10 years. It's sad for the players who love the Half-Life universe and the characters that inhabit it to get no resolution. But there's something especially cruel about teasing fans with an ending like the one in Episode Two and then never following through. Of course, Valve owes me and other fans nothing. One of only a few official pieces of concept art released for Half-Life 2: Episode ThreeДЄt the risk of sounding like a whiny, entitled fan, I still have a hard time letting this go. Combine that with the departures of everyone who wrote the earlier Half-Life games, this summer's 'leak' of a detailed plot treatment for Half-Life 3 from one of those former writers, and Valve's focus on Steam over developing games and it's hard to imagine the series ever being revived. Valve hasn't commented on the game in years, and the silence speaks volumes. (Some fans are stuck on 'angry,' though, and I don't blame them.) Eventually, we knew in our hearts it was never going to happen. We got our hopes up, made jokes about how a full-fledged Half-Life 3 must be right around the corner, and got angry with Valve. With an ending like that, the game's legion of fans were primed and anxious for the trilogy's conclusion. The success is short-lived, however - two nightmarish aliens capture and kill Eli and are about to kill Freeman and Alyx until a last-minute rescue leaves them safe but devastated as the game fades to black. At the end of Episode Two, Freeman, Alyx and Eli experience a temporary victory, closing a portal that traps the Combine aliens on Earth and giving humanity a last shot at freedom.

#Half life 2 chapter full

Throughout one full game and two episodes, protagonist Gordon Freeman is accompanied by all-around badass Alyx Vance, who has worked with her father, Eli, to help humanity resist the aliens that have enslaved the species. Episode Two, on the other hand, had a very Empire Strikes Back ending that begged for resolution. The first Half-Life and its sequel had endings that wrapped up the main story in each game, though both games left players with plenty of unanswered questions. Unfortunately, this is where the Half-Life universe ends. Episode One and Episode Two were released in 20, respectively, with the second ending on a major cliffhanger. It was the second of three announced games that directly continued the story that started in 2004's heavily lauded Half-Life 2. Ten years ago today, Valve released Half-Life 2: Episode Two.