Valve Delays Portal 2, Squashes Duke Nukem Rumors 135
SKYMTL writes "In a tongue-in-cheek commentary, Valve has announced the delay of Portal 2 and thrown water on the rumor fires regarding its E3 'surprise.' This surprise was rumored to be either Half-Life 3 or the revival of Duke Nukem, and it looks like neither will happen anytime soon."
Half-Life 3? (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't they get Half-Life 2 Episode 3 done first?
Re:Eh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you have the Slashdot/Games section on if you don't care about games?
Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Half-Life 3? (Score:2, Insightful)
I thought the whole point of episodic releases were that they reduced the time for releasing the product? You know, smaller chunks of the game more often?
HL2 - Nov 2004
Ep1 - June 2006
Ep2 - Oct 2007
Ep3 - its goddamn mid 2010 and still no sign of it.
Hmmm, that worked out well then. Think of this Valve - people expected ep3 out at the end of 2008. Each year you put the damn game back, all your customers expect even more for the game to be. By the time this actually comes out, there is no way you could ever live up to their expectations - 3+ years is enough time to create a standalone game from scratch.
Oh well, I'll get the popcorn on standby for when they actually release it - knowing them, it'll be slightly longer than ep2, and there'll be a lot of fanboys trying to justify that a slightly higher texture resolution/lens flare/slightly more complicated physics puzzle is enough to justify the extra 2 years wait.
Re:Half-Life 3? (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember saying almost this exact same thing while Half-Life 2 kept getting pushed further and further back: they'd waited too long, any hopes of a franchise were dashed, nobody cared, etc. etc. Remember, it was a delay of almost six years between HL and HL2. And imagine how foolish I felt when I actually played HL2, it sold extremely well, and I ultimately had to eat those words. The franchise is gonna be fine, even if it takes them another year to release it. People will still buy it. The fact that people are so pissed about the delay just goes to demonstrate that.
Valve has become more open in the past two years, but they're still a pretty mysterious company that is often reticent to publicize ongoing development efforts. So we've got no way of knowing what they're currently working on or how close to release it may be.
Re:Half-Life 3? (Score:4, Insightful)
If it comes out this year, or in 2011, will people still want it? I'm sure it will hurt them, the engine is getting old, fans are feeling alienated. Way to blow a fantastic franchise Valve.
And yet people still put faith into Activision/Blizzard that by the time they get around to the third installment of Starcraft2, they won't have lost interest/developers/goodfaith and will put out something at the same quality (if they ever get around to it) as the first 'third' of the game.
Re:Half-Life 3? (Score:3, Insightful)
To be fair, Starcraft is ENTIRELY an anomaly in the entire history of video gaming. Blizzard have a pretty good idea that people are and will be interested in Starcraft... because the game is still selling.
Seriously, the game came out 11 years, 2 months, and 10 days ago. Literally a week ago, I was in a GameStop and saw a brand new, in box copy of the starcraft battlechest edition on the shelf, for sale.
I cannot think of any other game that is still being sold as new that's anywhere NEAR that old - discounting things like the Civ anniversary pack or the C&C: First Decade pack, and other re-releases. This game has real staying power.
Anyway, like Yahtzee said: The point of episodic content is to release smaller sections of game, more frequently, at a lower cost. Valve have gotten the small sections and lower cost down, but the frequency is downright glacial. Half Life 2 Episode 2 Manchester United 1 took years for about 5-6 hours of gameplay. So, IMO, I hope they're releasing Ep3 via announcement at E3, but it wouldn't surprise me if they took another 18 months for ep3, and then another 3-4 years for HL3.
Stupid Valve. WE WANT GAMES, WE WILL PAY.
~X