"Half-Life 2: Episode 3" and "Half-Life 3" may not be officially scheduled releases from Valve right now, and since "Portal 2" and Steam for Mac plans in full swing, they probably won't be for a while. That doesn't mean Valve co-founder Gabe Newell isn't willing to talk about what he wants to see from the series, though. He thinks games need to get back in touch with "scaring" their players.
"I feel like we've gotten away from genuinely scaring the player more than I'd like, and it's something we need to think about, in addition to broadening the emotional palette we can draw on," Newell told Edge Magazine, according to CVG. He referred to broadening the "emotional palette" of "Half-Life" games in the future, even if he didn't say when a new chapter will be ready.
Speaking about how he's seen the series grow thus far, Newell said that Valve hasn't intentionally tried to keep the maturity of the content at levels paced with an aging audience, but he did say he wants the games to evolve.
"That isn't something we think about except as part of each project needing to respect the fact that simply repeating the past isn't going to have the same impact now as it did then," he explained.
If the next new box labeled "Half-Life" takes half the step "Half-Life 2" did growing out of the first installment, I don't think any of that will be a problem. Newell, in the meantime, can feel free to scare me to his heart's content so long as he does that much with Valve's next sequel.
Do you want to see more terror in your gaming experiences? How soon would you like to see a new "Half-Life game? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.