Half-Life 2: Episode 4 possibly planned by Valve. Spin-off episode to feature Alyx and Dog?

19 December 2007

Posted by:Ferry

In a recent interview with Valve’s Doug Lombardi, he confirmed that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 will not be the last Half-Life game. Which isn’t exactly a big shocker. But since the company has repeatedly indicated they didn’t want to leave fans waiting years (or until the developers reached retirement age) for Half-Life 3, we could be seeing episodes continuing to be made in the shape of Half-Life 2: Episode 4, etc.

To quote the Stuffwelike interview:

Question: With the ending of Episode 2 going directly to help the feeling of “must play Episode 3 now” could you give the current estimated date for Episode 3’s release?

Answer: We haven’t announced a date for Ep Three just yet.

Question: Are there any current plans after Episode 3 to have a Half Life 3?

Answer: We haven’t announced anything specific, but Half-Life won’t end at Episode Three – hang on to your crowbars!

Note: In a 2007 interview in PC Gamer magazine, Gabe Newell mentioned a “fourth episode” as an unofficial name for Half-Life 2: Episode 4, which is claimed to be in development by a third-party developer. To quote the halflife2.net transcription of the interview:

“The so called ‘Episode Four’ is apparently not strictly connected to the timeline or settings of the first three episodes, and may feature an entirely different set of characters / locales. Some have speculated that ‘Episode Four’ may see the return of Adrian Shephard or another Half-Life PC or NPC. However, as development on Episode Two and the Orange Box has progressed, details on the fourth episode have no been forthcoming, and it is not entirely clear whether the product is indeed in development any more.”

A later IGN interview expanded on the spin-off episode with more details. To quote Gabe Newell: “We’d like to do games that are about Alyx. We’d like to do games that are about Dog. I don’t think we’ve made this decision that it’s always going to be you playing Gordon in the first-person with Alyx as a companion… In terms of projecting into the future we have a lot of ground we would like to cover. There are lots of pieces of the story that have been referenced that we think would be really interesting.” Watch the full video interview:

Categories: News, PC News, PS3 News, Videos, Xbox 360 News

matt

haha nice shogun i would too and yea i wanna kno if theres gonna b a movie based on half life too cuz just seeing the endings of HL2 or even ep2 makes it seem cinematic. I could only imagine great things if the HL trilogy hits the big screen.
email me at mnmdude302@wmconnect.com
somone

omg i cant wait for a half-life ep:3, ep:4, or hl3, and if they do come out wih a movie im sure it will be good
Jerek

Well, the HL2 engine won’t stay good forever, and won’t last to 2010
Tuukka

Movie might be boring, because Gordon doesn’t speak…
ChronosAurvandil

The HL2 engine can last forever if they continue to slowly update it. It’s still a beautiful game engine with lots of details, they would just need to make it use new technological advancements, such as 4 or 8-core, 128-bit, and graphics card advancements. Eventually they will need to separate the old engine from the new, so they don’t have to update all the old games, but that may be a while before they need it.
Death_knight

i hope they realse hl movie if any1 knows when it is realsing pls email me
sooraj_vk@yahoo.com
thanks
jordan

hey valve! ever heard of crysis? why not team up with ea and share the crysis engine? crysis is a good game with high lifelike defenitions. it would be a great partnership!
Ginger Wildheart`

Hey, it happened with the Police Academy movies, Mario and Pac Man, I think Half Life should go on till we get fed up of it. So I’m thinking around Half Life 50+?
Jeremy Monce

Please DO NOT make Half-Life 3 or any other Valve game with the Crytec engine!! Sure, it has awesome physics and stuff, but the Source engine has so many unique qualities about it, like the stiff, short jump height, or when you pick up an object, it floats out in front of you about a foot. It’s just more fun to play with.

Plus I’ve heard, especially in Crysis that the Crytec engine takes a lot of juice to run and if your PC doesn’t have like freight train equivalent horsepower, you risk having a blue screen of death. Plus, notice that Crysis was only released on PC and not PS3 or Xbox 360, most likely because they wouldn’t be able to run it. PCs can be upgraded, consoles cannot, or at least not commercially.