Nitpick here, Portal was actually NOT an Valve project originally. It actually started life as a student project(sadly, don't remember the name)that Valve saw the potential in, and hired on the entire team to eventually turn it into Portal.

Hard disagree, people very much like Half Life 2. If people didn't like Half Life 2 then nobody would want Half Life3

While Puzzles can be fun - if I wanted hours of frustration then Real Life (tm) is more technically rewarding, even if game progression is on the slow side.

While Puzzles can be fun - if I wanted hours of frustration then Real Life (tm) is more technically rewarding, even if game progression is on the slow side.

Yeah, I'm very confused. People absolutely loved Half Life 2. The physics puzzles were pretty great at the time, and there was cool stuff like the Antlions (Tremors? Neat) and then getting to control them, and the gravity gun..

Like, the physics in HL2 were pretty amazing at the time

HL2 was a hit and it's physics puzzles were interesting through whole game and 2 more Episodes.
"Portal twice as long" - was Portal 2 and it was a hit.
HL:Alyx - is a HL3 in all sense but story (since its a prequel),
I see where you were going, but you arguments aren't based in reality.

I'd say Breath of the Wild and Genshin Impact are probably the next big step in innovation. Both are huge open 3D worlds full of nothing but puzzles and navigation challenges, and people love them! Would be very hard to fit that kind of gameplay to the world of Half Life though.

I enjoy Star Citizen right now tho. The 9Tails event has been real fun. I think comments like Chris Sizemore made are more than a little unfair.

And Star Citizen is a milking machine built for whales, not a game.

Valve's main focus has been on developing new tech for gaming. HL1 was a tech demo. HL2 was a tech demo. HL:Alex is a tech demo. HL3 didn't happen because of bad blood inside the company and they choose to do Alex to avoid bringing it up again.

As far as I know, Portal is the Half Life 3. People just didn't noticed it yet. :P

So about that fembot. She's a new regykar cast member now. I don't make the rules.

The story of Half-Life 2 is way better than in Half-Life 1, so it is the reason why people are waiting for Half-life 3, we want to know more.

I love the last jab at Yandere Dev

Star Citizen being released? Now that IS Science Fiction!

You said it yourself before: Half-Life 1 sold storytelling, Half-Life 2 sold physics, Half-Life 3 will only happen to sell VR. The series lives off of perfecting new technology.

I get that Valve wants to innovate all the time - it's a big part of what made them famous, afterall - but at the same time, sometimes people just want to play the game. they just want closure.

Though it's been so long, that releasing anything less than groundbreaking would probably backfire.

i always saw the half life serie as a "tech demo" of what can be achieved at the time, where other companies have cold feet and don't push forward too much, half life comes and set the bar

but if there is no higher bar to set, no innovation in the tech, a new half life has no meaning