The Development of Half-Life | 20th Anniversary Retrospective

[@WickedlNl]

Wow, that Scott Lynch looks exactly like Barney from HL2.

[@Arcadology]

Yes, I believe he's actually the face model for Barney. ETA: By that point he had left Vivendi/Sierra and was working for Valve.

[@Home_Rich]

Benrey

[@Zawpi]

18:45 he talks about valve making a half life game in vr, guess he was right xD

[@betacop3294]

He's so right..

[@jpeg.600x2]

lmaoooo

[@Douglas12ds54]

Awesome video! Are you dead? Found this channel searching for the exact "half life development" words, already watched others Acardology and already miss you. _Come back to us..._

[@Arcadology]

Not dead! Editing a video right now on the first Fallout game and then getting a few more lined up for Q4.

[@sssuperslayer25]

Severely underrated video.

[@Arcadology]

Thanks!

[@KainiaKaria]

The game that launched a thousand crowbars.

[@teranmx]

Great job on the video and developmental history of Half Life. Really enjoyed it!

[@habz4464]

great vid, deserves more views

[@rollingrock3480]

Amazing video! Thanks for this!

[@MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive]

I used the arrow keys to move, right ctrl to crouch, and numpad 0 to jump for Half-Life. I don’t think I switched to WASD until HL2 when my desk was really cramp and I switched just to have more room for my arms. I don’t know how managed to play Deus Ex, Thief, Tribes and other games. It’s like when you drive somewhere everyday, but can’t imagine the path or directions when not driving.

[@Imgema]

I can hear some kind of clock sounds through the whole video

[@Arcadology]

You’re probably hearing the drums from the backing ambient track. Might have mixed that a hair too low b

[@odd_familiar]

This is such a good video, thank you.

[@godofwar2k6reborn]

Why do you only have 4.4k subs? Am I in hell?

[@Arcadology]

A mix between the YT algorithm not always picking these videos up and not a whole lot of people sharing them. Thanks for commenting!

[@user-qf8jr8mo8s]

Great vid man

[@Arcadology]

Thanks!

[@The1Wolfcast]

very underrated channel

[@Arcadology]

I appreciate that!

[@WickedlNl]

My body is ready

[@djjameswyld]

great video.. made me want to go play it again ! :)

[@Nyel4]

Me to, but i have google class room today :)

[@DrRESHES]

this video is made just like in old times of All Your History, with a modern slick twang, i love this. and now back to playing Jagged Alliance 2. i think i never played the full version of half life 1, because it always ended in me falling down the ventilation shaft to a giant monster and then i die. and the game says it's over. that's Half Life 1 for me was and i thought it was the full game for a long time.

[@mikexirou]

Half-life and Jagged alliance 2. The two games that trully marked my teen years. Kinda feel nostalgic now.

[@man-idk-lolll]

what did the monster look like... imma find the name of it.

[@rushadpatel2608]

Your rumour was super close

[@kirillholt2329]

this needs more views

[@iamlordstarbuilder5595]

Half Life is basically Doom if Tom Hall wasn’t fired.

[@Arcadology]

I was just thinking that the other day!

[@iamlordstarbuilder5595]

@@Arcadology although I’m not sure where he was going with the cards 😬

[@thatdudemetro6271]

Such a gold game came to such an end, sad.

[@Nodux359]

Good video!

[@Mr.madmight266]

i Recently got to know about this game because the german version replaces the human grunts with robots.

[@thomassmilek1973]

Very interesting, thank you ! One thing : is Half life source really made by Valve team ?

[@XENON2028]

yes, and when it released it wasn't as broken. still was really bad on release but it was more of an experiment so DON'T GET HALF-LIFE SOURCE!

[@JoBot__]

@@XENON2028 I will get it at some point, just to screw around with its content in Garry's Mod. 😂

[@XENON2028]

@@JoBot__ yeah that's basically it's only use now but there are some mods that use stuff from the original game

[@alexello1189]

@@XENON2028I’m from the future and bring good news: valve celebrated the 25th aniversary of half life by releasing a documentary, updating goldsrc half life, and DELISTING HL:SOURCE!!!!!

[@XENON2028]

@@alexello1189 yes

[@stoomkracht]

Google? Recommend this to game development story lovers. Its an order.

[@blazblueeuopen4566]

Love your work keep it up :)

[@Arcadology]

Thank you!

[@quananginh9446]

I can't find how much was HL1 development cost. How did Valve get the money to develop HL1 in the first place?

[@MichiDE12]

Great vid

[@sergengultekin9724]

05:43 Barney

[@mantriukas]

good stuff

[@dansamarco1610]

The organisational structure of the almost self-critiquingly named "cabal" is an example of using sort of socialist, democratic organisational principles to capitalist ends. To these days, Valve uses similar practices according to its employee handbook.

[@chuckyluvsu13]

Half-Life series 4life !!

[@wilsonez2]

i just realised this was before covid (im 18 minutes in)

[@gravious]

wow, 66% like ratio and the video isn't even live for another 75 minutes.

[@gravious]

who downvotes a reminder??

[@Arcadology]

Gravious No idea! Haha I was just trying out this premieres feature and people seem to get annoyed I guess? I mean the thing is it wouldn’t have changed the time either way.

[@Imgema]

The game was amazing in many aspects but coming from Goldeneye (an older console FPS), i thought it had some regressions. For instance, the hit box scan was inferior. In Goldeneye you could do very precise shots through very narrow gaps. In Half-life your shots could stuck in corners and walls if you were too close to them, an issue many FPS games suffered from. Also, in Goldeneye you could hit enemies in various parts of the body for different results, no such thing in Half-life.

[@perplexedmoth]

Half-Life 1 didn't bring too much over Quake engine except model animations and dynamic textures excluding the gameplay elements like AI and scripted sequences. I think the brilliance of HL-1 was in its realism focused art direction for an arcade shooter game, i.e. the experience wasn't "flashy" like all the games at the time were. From the get go you weren't a military and gunned hero. It's probably the first "3d shooter" where the experience was focused strictly on realism and immersion. I can't remember any other FPS game at the time that did this on this level (somehow Thief 1 comes to mind, but it still favored gameplay over immersion/realism). HL-1 has set the genre for the FPS games to follow.

[@reaganation6000]

You know you did well if Quentin Tarantino liked your game also

[@GiffysChannel]

Let's talk about those "rumors" lol

[@Arcadology]

👀

[@JustAHat]

"opposing forces"

[@Arcadology]

What about them?

[@ct3000]

"with that logic half-life 2 was half-life 3" no with that logic half-life 2 was half-life 4 because they basically did the same thing again

[@PhantomPanic]

Inno-va-tive

[@GTV-Japan]

Half life! Or no life at all!

[@soylentgreenb]

Half-life is good, but it's not that unique and innovative. Half-life does for FPS what ultima underworld did for RPGs in 1992, only less so. The environmental clutter and details tells most the story, like they did in System shock (1994). What half-life did was mostly have fantastic pacing (unlike HL2), much simpler controls and much more linear levels than a game like system shock, well balanced weapons that are all useful (yes, even the snarks and laser trip mines; they are necessary for playing half-life on a pentium mmx in software mode).

[@perplexedmoth]

I agree but I think the way it was done makes it unique and innovative, here's why I think that's the case: I think the brilliance of HL-1 was in its focus on realism and immersion (and minimalist art direction) for an arcade shooter game at the time, i.e. the experience wasn't "flashy" like all the games at the time were. From the get go you weren't a military and gunned hero. It's probably the first "3d shooter" where the experience was focused strictly on realism and immersion. It had the prototypal elements of later to be popularized elements like survival horror (at the time this wasn't quite a thing yet). The story was not told explicitly like in most other story focused games at the time (e.g. SS, Thief). You lived through it, and so it revealed itself to you via circumstances, not pieces of text that you read or told by other characters. I can't remember any other FPS game at the time that did this on this level (somehow Thief 1 comes to mind, but it still favored gameplay over immersion/realism). HL-1 has set the genre for the FPS games to follow. I vividly remember my experience playing the game, it was different than anything else (the closest I felt to this was with Doom when it came out, although in a different way). I took the game very seriously as the events happening seemed intriguing and beliavable when most other games made one feel like: "clearly I'm playing a video game looking at the screen with all the funny HUDs, cut-scenes, text appearing, jumps between scenes and camera work". In contrast HL-1 made you think: "I'm looking through someone's eyes who's late to work in a subterrenean scientific research facility". Only in an hour you found yourself thinking: "an accident occured, and things beyond my understanding are happening, but I need to survive". At the time, this was a unique and innovative. Then it became the standard for almost all FPSs.

[@Kyleology]

Dead channel. Too bad : P

[@Arcadology]

What constitutes dead. I’m writing things right now. If you look at 2018 I had the same day job related hiatus.