The 1993 release of Doom, a pulsating first-person shoot ‘em up, began an exciting new era of 3D gaming for both the Windows PC and console platforms. This game left a lasting impression on Gabe Newell, a Microsoft employee who ported Doom to Windows 95, convincing him that video games were the future of entertainment. Newell started dreaming about how he could make his mark in the gaming industry with something bigger and better than Doom. This is how Valve conquered the PC gaming industry with the Half-Life game series Newell’s company launched in 1998.
Gabe Newell Founds Valve
Although Gabe Newell had a big salary at Microsoft, this was not enough to keep him loyal to the big M. Newell and Mike Harrington left Microsoft during the mid-1990s to establish a new game company called Valve in August 1996. The duo visited ID Software to speak with Michael Abrash, another former Microsoft man who was now a part of ID’s Quake team. ID Software agreed to grant Newell and Harrington a Quake engine license for future games.
Newell then recruited new staff at Valve, including numerous developers who had worked with the Quake engine. Former Microsoft, 3DRealms, and Shiny developers also joined Newell’s fledgling new game company. Valve had assembled a talented team of developers to create the company’s first game product.
The Quake game
The other thing Valve needed was a publisher for its first game. Finding a suitable publisher was not straightforward because the bigger ones were reluctant to partner with a new company that did not have a track record in the gaming industry. However, Valve’s ideas for a new first-person shooter game (codenamed Quiver) convinced Sierra to be its publisher.
Valve Releases Half-Life
Valve wasn’t interested in releasing another half-baked Doom clone, which had become increasingly prevalent during the mid-1990s. Although inspired by Doom, Gabe Newell felt the narrow first-person shooter formulae that the game had established restricted the progression of the FPS genre. Newell said, “For a long time, 3D action games seemed to keep treading down the same path – an increasing focus on a narrow definition of gameplay and a focus on the rendering [graphics] instead of the gameplay.”
A more story-driven first-person shooter than what had gone before was part of the big idea for Half-Life. Most first-person shooters of the time paid scant attention to story and character development. This was something Valve wanted to change, and the company hired the novelist Marc Laidlaw to shape the game’s storyline. Laidlaw said: “In a lot of shooters, for all you know, you could be a weapon walking around a level. It’s pretty clear in Half-Life that’s not the case.”
Valve showcased a demo of its Half-Life game at E3 1997. This first glimpse of Half-Life generated much excitement. However, Valve still delayed Half-Life’s launch to rework the game so that it could truly fulfill its potential. Valve released Half-Life in November 1998.
Half-Life threw players into the world of Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist assigned to the Anomalous Materials department at the Black Mesa research facility in New Mexico. The Half-Life series began as just another day at the office for Freeman who takes a casual tram ride through the Black Mesa facility to reach his department. He is assigned to participate in a material experiment that goes spectacularly wrong, sparking a Resonance Cascade that opens a rift between planet Xen and Earth. This rift teleports a multitude of aliens into Black Mesa that Freeman must fight his way through to reach the surface. Things get even more complicated when Freeman encounters U.S. Marines sent in to clean up Black Mesa and kill all human witnesses of the incident.
This first Half-Life game was an epic fight for survival that quickly became a massive hit for Valve. With an average Metacritic score of 96 percent, Half-Life is one of the most highly-rated games in history. More than 50 gaming publications heralded Half-Life as the best game of 1996. The game shifted more than half a million copies within eight weeks of its launch, clearly exceeding Valve’s sales expectations. It was the game that put Valve on the map.
What set Half-Life apart from other first-person shooters were its unique scripted narrative sequences. It had no annoying cutscenes that took players out of the action. Added to this was the novelty of fighting two completely different types of enemies in the form of dumb aliens and smarter marines armed to the teeth with military gear. Half-Life also incorporated puzzle elements interwoven with its gripping action. This combined with the game’s more engaging story and immersive world made Half-Life a classic.
The Resonance Cascade in Half-Life
Half-Life Mods Spawn New Hit Games
Valve released a collection of modding tools with Half-Life, such as the Worldcraft level design tool for the game. A full Half-Life SDK kit for the game’s GoldSrc engine became available for players. These tools enabled Half-Life’s players to become amateur developers by making mods for other players to download.
Counter-Strike was among the most notable Half-Life mods made. Minh Lee and Jess Cliffe released a Half-Life Counter-Strike mod for download in 1999. This was a multiplayer first-person shoot ‘em up that pitted terrorists against counter-terrorists for the detonation or defusal of bombs. Thousands of players started playing Counter-Strike, which convinced Valve to purchase rights to the mod and turn it into a commercial game product. Valve released the commercial Counter-Strike game in 2000, which began one of the most popular multiplayer game franchises in history.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Gearbox Software Develops New Expansions for the Half-Life Game Series
More Half-Life games soon followed the original, but Valve did not develop them. Gearbox Software founder Randy Pitchford pitched a Half-Life expansion game that Valve accepted. The 1999 release of Half-Life: Opposing Force was the first of three Gearbox expansions for the original game. This game retold the story of the original Half-Life from the perspective of Adrian Shephard, one of the marines sent in to clean up Black Mesa.
Gearbox also released two further expansions during 2001 in the form of Half-Life: Blue Shift and Decay. Blue Shift portrayed the original Half-Life story through the eyes of Gordon Freeman’s friend and Black Mesa security guard Barney Calhoun. This expansion was another in the same mould as Opposing Force, which remained faithful to the design integrity of Half-Life by not significantly modifying its original game engine.
The final Decay expansion for the Half-Life game series was a more curious addition to the series only officially released for the PlayStation 2. Half-Life: Decay was a cooperative split-screen multiplayer expansion that featured two scientists from the Black Mesa facility. Although none of Gearbox Software’s expansions were quite as groundbreaking as Valve’s original game, they did a good job of filling the void between Half-Life 1 and 2.
Half-Life 2 Blows Away the Gaming Industry
Valve began development of Half-Life 2 not long after the release of the first game. Yet, there was still a six-year gap between the release of the first and second Half-Life game. The simultaneous development of a revolutionary new Source engine for Half-Life 2 alongside the game itself made the project a long and arduous one for Valve.
Valve unveiled an impressive yet non-playable demo of Half-Life 2 at E3 2003 with a promise to release it a few months later in September of that year. However, some skeptics rightly wondered how Valve could stick to that release schedule when a playable HL 2 game demo was not ready for E3. Gabe Newell refuted such doubts for months until he confirmed Valve would push back Half-Life 2’s release to 2004, just a week before its scheduled 2003 launch. This U-turn caused an uproar within the gaming community and was a public relations disaster for Valve that Newell later admitted to regret.
Another disaster followed when the German hacker Axel Gembe hacked into Valve’s network to obtain the source code for Half-Life 2. Somebody leaked that source code onto the internet, but Gembe denies he did so. German police, in consultation with the FBI, later arrested this hacker, and he was charged with breaching Valve’s network.
Despite such setbacks, Valve eventually released Half-Life 2 on November 16, 2004. The sequel turned out to be well worth the wait, with some of the gaming media proclaiming it the best game ever (up to 2004 at least). Half-Life 2 received many Game of the Year awards and matched the 96 Metacritic rating score of its predecessor.
Half-Life 2 expanded the story decades after the Black Mesa incident in the first game. Wallace Breen, the former Black Mesa administrator, has surrendered humanity to the Combine alien race in Half-Life 2. Much of the sequel takes place in City 17 where Freeman meets Alyx Vance, a new sidekick, and joins the Resistance network to fight Wallace Breen and the Combine alien race that has subjugated Earth.
Half-Life 2 was a groundbreaking game for numerous reasons. Although stylistically similar to the original game, Half-Life 2 had much smoother and more photorealistic 3D visuals than its predecessor thanks to its revolutionary Source engine. This Source engine also enabled Valve to add groundbreaking new physics to Half-Life 2, showcased by the Gravity Gun. That weapon allowed players to grab and toss objects at enemies, making the game’s environments more interactive. In addition to this, Half-Life 2 included vehicles for players to ride that further enhanced its gameplay.
The Gravity Gun
Half-Life 2 also played a big part in the rise of Steam and digital game distribution on the internet. In 2004, developers and publishers primarily distributed their games with DVDs. Valve made Half-Life 2 the first title to be available for its Steam digital game distribution service. Millions of players installed the Steam software from which they could purchase and download Half-Life 2.
Valve originally restricted Steam for the distribution of its games. However, this changed in 2005 when Valve opened up Steam to include games from third-party publishers. The somewhat unnotable Rag Doll Kung Fu was the first non-Valve game to become available on Steam. This opened the floodgates for more and more game publishers to jump on the Steam distribution bandwagon. The Steam distribution service gradually expanded to become a bigger cash cow for Valve than the Half-Life game series.
The Steam software
Valve Expands the Half-Life Game Series With New Episodes
Valve announced it would extend the Half-Life game series with a trilogy of episodic expansions that continued the second game’s story. Half-Life: Episode One, released in 2006, was the first of these expansions. This game takes place directly after the events of the sequel, with Freeman and Alyx in a rush to evacuate a ravaged City 17. Alyx is a much more genuine sidekick in Half-Life: Episode One as she accompanies Freeman throughout much of the game. This game had a more focused narrative experience and an enhanced AI, with Alyx often responding directly to player actions. Episode One was generally warmly received, even though some players complained about its short length.
Valve released Half-Life: Episode Two in October 2007 as part of its Orange Box game compilation pack. In this second episode, Freeman and Alyx travel through the surrounding wilderness of City 17 to reach the White Forest Resistance base. Episode Two had more expansive open-world environments to explore, new enemies to fight, epic showdowns, and major story revelations that kept players hooked to the Half-Life franchise a little longer.
However, Valve never released the expected third installment for what was planned to be a trilogy of Half-Life 2 episodes. Why Valve canceled Half-Life: Episode 3 is not entirely clear. Some Valve insiders have said the decision to scrap the third episode was due to concerns about scope creep turning the next installment into a full-blown sequel. Developing a new Source 2 engine also diverted Valve’s attention away from Half-Life.
Half-Life: Alyx is a VR Marvel
Valve’s cancellation of Episode 3 led to a 13-year hiatus in the Half-Life game series. During that period, there was intense speculation Valve would release a Half-Life 3 game. Some fans even camped outside Valve’s headquarters with cardboard signs that included questions about the rumored Half-Life 3.
However, Valve eventually released a new addition to the Half-Life game series based on the Source 2 engine in 2020, albeit not in the form many expected. Valve became increasingly interested in the emerging virtual reality technology and released its SteamVR hardware and software platform for VR headsets in 2014. In 2019, Valve released its Index VR headset with Half-Life: Alyx revealed to be a virtual reality game for it, during that same year.
Valve released Half-Life: Alyx for the Index and other compatible VR headsets in 2020. This game was a prequel rather than a sequel set five years before the events of Half-Life 2. It was the first game of the Half-Life game series in which Freeman is not the protagonist. Alyx replaced Freeman as the star of the show on an adventure to rescue enslaved Vortigaunts and discover the content held within a mysterious Combine vault.
Half-Life: Alyx had rave reviews, much like earlier games of its series. It offered unprecedented immersion, with players utilizing their VR headsets to directly manipulate environments for solving puzzles and killing enemies. The game also features amazing high-fidelity graphics that blew many players away. Half-Life: Alyx was the first killer VR app that demonstrated the full potential of virtual reality games.
Half-Life: Alyx has remained the most recent addition to its game series for the last four years. Valve has not confirmed a new Half-Life game is in the works. Recent speculation about a Half-Life 3 game has resurfaced based on a Valve Project White Sands codename cited by voice actor Natasha Chandel.
However, Valve is not the kind of developer inclined to push out half-backed sequels to the Half-Life game series for the sake of making a buck. Nor does Valve even need to develop new titles so much these days since Newell’s company reaps a 30-percent baseline cut from third-party games sold via Steam. Valve is a game developer that strives to be innovative. There might be further Half-Life games in the future, but probably only when Valve has suitable new gaming technologies to implement in them.
What cannot be doubted is that Half-Life has been a groundbreaking game series for the Windows PC, virtual reality, and console gaming platforms throughout its history. The three main installments to the Half-Life game series pushed the boundaries of gaming technology and design to exciting new levels. They revolutionized the first-person shooter genre and gaming more generally to an even greater extent than the first Doom game that inspired Gabe Newell and Valve.
