No Half-Life 2: Episode Three in 2010?

Who’s with me in thinking that episodic content should only be done when it’s certain that the “episodes” will be delivered in a timely manner? I’m not sure who first started the idea of releasing games in bite-sized chunks, but so far, it seems to have worked out for few. It could be argued that it’s worked out for companies, and that’s probably true, but for gamers… it’s at times been frustrating.

Whenever I hear talk of game episodes, I think back to SiN Episodes: Emergence. Following the original SiN game, this was essentially “SiN 2”, but to be released in increments in order to prolong the gamer’s interest. This isn’t much different to how popular TV dramas and series work, but could you imagine waiting six or six months minimum for the follow-up? With many episodic games, that’s what happens.

Or in the case of SiN Episodes, the entire project was deemed to ambitious, and it was canceled after just the first episode, likely due to lackluster sales (I’m unsure of what they were). It was upsetting, though, because I thoroughly enjoyed the first one, and played through it twice, and to think… the original goal was to release nine of them! It’s amazing just how ambitious these developers were. If the original goal was three, they might have actually stuck around and completed it.

So why am I ranting like an old man? Because the rumor-mill has it that Half-Life 2: Episode Three is not going to see a 2010 release. No 2010 release?! For fans of the series, this is yet another blow. Sure, Valve has kept gamers busy with titles like Portal, Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2, but where’s the love for Half-Life 2? As far as I remember, Valve’s original goal for the three episodes was to space them out between 1 – 1.5 years. Even that seems reasonable, but bear in mind that Episode Two was released on October 10, 2007.

Am I the only one that’s just a wee bit miffed at the fact that there may be literally 3.25 years at a minimum between the release of Episode Two and Three? Valve stated back in 2008 that Episode Three was going to be more ambitious, but even so. There were 16 months between One and Two, so to picture 39 months at minimum between Two and Three seems a little ridiculous.

The amazing thing is that as I look through the screenshots from my review of Episode Two over two years ago, the memories of the entire thing are still very vivid. I guess that means that Episode Three will be worth the wait… whenever it gets here.

The last Half-Life entry, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, arrived in October 2007. Since then, Valve has described Episode Three–the final entry in the Half-Life 2: Episode trilogy–as “a more ambitious project” and teased “the next time you play as Gordon will be longer than the distance between Half-Life 2 to Episode One, and Episode One to Episode Two,” later telling Shacknews “Freeman’s not done…stay tuned for more.”