What has Valve been up to? - The Lost Projects

Up until Half-Life Alyx, Valve has remained very quiet about the last 10 years. About the games they've been working on, and the status of Source 2. There have been leaks and rumours. But finally, with Half-Life Alyx: The Final Hours, Geoff Keighley has revealed it all, straight from Valve's mouth. I deliver a gross oversimplification of the timeline in this video, but strongly urge you to check out the full thing on Steam here: store.steampowered.com/app/13...
0:00 - The Final Hours
1:06 - Source 2
2:48 - The end of old Valve games
3:10 - The wilderness
4:09 - Left 4 Dead 3
4:53 - ARTI
5:34 - Half Life 3
6:58 - Valve's VR Journey
7:56 - The Lab
8:45 - The end of the wilderness
9:30 - Half-Life VR V1 - Shooter
9:52 - Half-Life VR V2 - Borealis
10:21 - Half-Life VR V3 - E1M1
11:55 - HLVR / Half-Life Alyx

[@dud5606]

To me the most hilarious part of The Final Hours was that one dev who admits hes been working at Valve for 11 years, but he hasnt shipped a single game because all of them end up cancelled xd.

[@CommanderZx2]

I am of the opinion that it is far better to cancel it than to ship something that they feel wasn't good enough. Like 3D Realms should have just cancelled DNF within the first few years and made something else instead of dragging that mess out for 15 years.

[@Protecter117]

​@@CommanderZx2 Whilst I agree with the sentiment, this doesn't seem to be what happened here. It seems that the freedom of project choice just meant nothing ever had enough man power and focus to actually get far enough in development to even deem it wasn't good enough.

[@Sventra]

What I found hilarious was the unnamed senior dev at Valve that told the HL:VR team that they were "draining resources from other projects" FAM Y'ALL WERE DOING NOTHING, WHAT RESOURCES WERE DRAINED FROM WHERE?

[@WangleLine]

lol

[@Grandmaster-Kush]

Too much freedom is very much a bad thing not only in the work enviroment but also in videogames, glad they are starting to put pressure on deadlines and redirect developers to larger projects, hopefully with a strong leadership we will see actual games from valve in the years to come.

[@jockeyfield1954]

*puts a lot of effort into a fully fledged 3d story book* "boo! this sucks! i expected guns and shoot and stuff!"

[@MaxCE]

Lol

[@rawk2058]

All gamers in a nutshell

[@LewdSCP1471A]

@hi there Sir this is a wendys

[@abhatripathitripathi6156]

@hi there yes let's generalize every gamer in one group. You are such a great commenter. Hope you do great in real life. Edit: I just realized I behaved like a dumb idiot. Please forgive me for I have sinned.

[@Ultra289]

Mama mía green

[@BPN25]

The last 12 years of valve basically go like this "Hey we want make a new a game can we use source 2?" "It's not ready yet" "we should work on it then" _*cricket noises *_ "oh okay"

[@moxpox19]

"Source 2 works on my pc. You try rebooting?"

[@batfacesirbatsalot1999]

portal 2. 2011

[@runforitman]

they should release "The Lost Box" with all the most stable versions of all the projects that were cancelled

[@Ribbons0121R121]

its just a dusty cardboard source engine box as the icon

[@MiniKodjo]

I swear! Look at what black Mesa became. give the prototypes to the community

[@tacklebox1582]

volvo's own asset store

[@runforitman]

@@Ribbons0121R121 and everything that has to be on the box is hand written or hand sketched

[@runforitman]

@@Ribbons0121R121 a bit of masking tape with a version number written on it

[@PebsBeans]

People have been blaming TF2 and Steam for the lack of Half-Life 3, but really, it was Source 2 this whole time...

[@devinarato69420]

Who blames tf2? They get like one update a year. But I get what your saying.

[@konkelb1760]

@@devinarato69420 actually less then once a year when it comes to content other than community made cosmetics.

[@Ultra289]

@@devinarato69420 the Game received more updates before But he forgot to mention csgo and dota

[@shahobiddinismoilov]

No the problem was (maybe still is) Valve themselves. I mean, they made GoldSrc, they made Source, how could Source 2 be a problem? Why didn't they finish Source 2? Because nobody wanted to work on Source 2, everyone split to dozens of small teams and worked on whatever the fuck they wanted. They COULD finish Source 2 and finish L4D3 and HL3, if they didn't split, if they had one direction. This whole "work on whatever you want" thing is Valve's biggest problem.

[@humphreybrogart8392]

@@devinarato69420 Yeah, there are like four game developers or less working on it

[@mdiggler]

The world is a better place when Valve is releasing games.

[@Geeler]

Uh...

[@danielgaylor]

UH...

[@user-ju8qg9dx9x]

U H ...

[@dortoka]

Uh...

[@jacob9673]

HMMM

[@Fujitechs]

The title to this video occupied my mind for 13 years, for it all to be answered at once in 13 minutes

[@broddajanes6910]

And a half

[@baloocallout678]

You could say it took a half lifetime of your life.

[@bananalord8575]

EXECTLY

[@haja.]

"Perhaps I treated you too harshly"

[@Analytical_Thinking]

Mad Titan

[@chrystales6169]

7:32 "The Vader headset might've cost $5,000, but was never made." *Rich people:* Aww, dang. I wanted a budget headset to start getting into VR. :(

[@awesome9174]

I probably would have bought it. I'm not rich though so it's a good thing that it didn't release.

[@3OrMoreBones]

If Apple sold their own vr headsets, they would start laughing at five thousand.

[@Durpy337]

@@3OrMoreBones Then to make more money they would make most of the parts out of glass to get money from repairs.

[@wqeoqewpoiepqpeiopeqwoipwq9375]

3OrMoreBones they are going to start selling some soon actually

[@3OrMoreBones]

@@Durpy337 but with encrypted serial codes to where you're forced to swap the entire system, rather than fix a rigged chip.

[@_ham4127]

its really sad to me how people would say "remember when valve made games" and stuff like that when the whole time they were trying to make LOTS of games

[@no00ob]

Yeah :(

[@elbinopaper4629]

Thats how it felt

[@theleos8]

Trying does not mean much for the public if it isn't completed , or if they cancel projects outsourced to other studios that progress well

[@solidsnake5644]

Yeah, but that's people for you. People are incredibly entitled and feel like they're owed a game. But still, due to Steam's "wilderness," we did get some amazing community projects such as Black Mesa while Project Borealis and OBM are still in the works.

[@heyyitsultima]

To be fair, with Valve having little to no public statements made available during that period and refusing to speak on anything HL-related being in the plans, many people fairly assumed that Valve was just *done* with game development. Their seemingly sudden transition into hardware production probably didn't help that.

[@Kacpa2]

Laidlaw retired specificly because they cancelled borealis vr project, and in frustration he left and released Epistle 3 to show his conclusion for the story. It also explaining how alienating and defeating his late time at valve was, that's the toll of "Wilderness"

[@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413]

you know, im glad laidlaw left, his plans for half life were just anti climactic and depressing to the point that it would probably piss everyone off

[@walkingtalkingstephenhawki5171]

I don't think so. If episode 3 followed epistle 3's story, it still wouldn't have been crazy, nor an end to the series. The combine are a universe conquering species, it is not crazy to think that it would never be possible to take them down, and that's what makes Half-Life so damn interesting. Remember, HL2 was nothing like HL1 and nobody saw it coming. Literally anything could have happened after the Borealis. But that's if epistle 3 was what they actually would have used. He wrote it to be a conclusion because it seemed like Valve would never give another sequel, let alone more than one. I seriously doubt the game would have ended in a way that tied up the series.

[@randomcatdude]

It's worth noting that according to the Combine Overwiki, Laidlaw later referred to the story as a "fanfic" and a "snapshot of a dream [he] had many years ago.". So I honestly don't think that Epistle 3 is what Episode 3 would've been.

[@jasonfenton8250]

@@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413 Laidlaw's epistle 3 embraced the grand cosmic horror and "man out of time/place" feeling that produced some of the most emotionally resonant moments in the series.

[@Loopy1330]

11:37 Not only was melee combat a missed opportunity for Half-Life: Alyx, but I think it was also a major opportunity missed to properly include Alyx's socket wrench. In some of Half-Life 2's promotional art, Alyx can be seen standing next to Gordon and holding a big socket wrench. Until a year ago I never understood why she was holding a socket wrench. She had never had one, nor has there ever been a connection with a socket wrench and Half-Life other than that promo art. About a year ago I read a post from a Valve employee on Twitter who worked on Half-Life 2 and commented on the wrench. He explained that Alyx was originally planned to have it as her own melee weapon similar like Gordon, after being inspired by the stories she had heard about him with his red crowbar for years. The socket wrench idea ended up getting scrapped but the artwork of it stuck around. I could sort of understand if Valve didn't want to use a crowbar specifically because it's strongly associated with Gordon (although there were other Half-Life protagonists with crowbars too, take your pick). If there were ever a more perfect chance to introduce Alyx's socket wrench, Half-Life: Alyx would have been it.

[@xenoneo]

I'm pretty sure they wanted to, but crowbars kept getting stuck in doorways. I believe this 100%, because I lost a valve that you need to open a door, by it getting stuck in the geometry of a doorway. They may have over-engineered doors in this game. lol

[@Loopy1330]

@@xenoneo You mean like how with Source 1 you can wedge a prop between a doorway as the door is closing, and it gets infinitely stuck?

[@slyseal2091]

@@Loopy1330 not exactly, thats the engine fighting with itself on which of two entities has higher authority on completing it's task (close or sustain box shape) while this is more like the crowbar not giving any resistance because the new engine can see walls are more powerful than crowbars, which means the latter gives no resistance and either falls out of your hand or gets stuck entirely.

[@TheArklyte]

I'll just copypaste my comment on same topic here: Better choice for melee in Alyx would have been to give her... Manhack with a handle. Basically an electric circular saw. Already coded in, has model and damage/hit detection don't depend on player swings so much. And that point was made already by thousands of people before me... I guess? Maybe? At least I was mentioning it since seing the game, surely others also suggested it. Or is there hidden technical difficulty with this approach?

[@thelemon2764]

Socket wrench mini game but you have to search the area for your god damn 10mm socket first

[@Ruvaakdein]

2:41 It seems Francis needs some new pants...

[@royalelano8191]

I want that mode XDD

[@liyifenn]

This raises the question: Why were you staring at Francis's ass?

[@Reth_Hard]

@@liyifenn Please don't bully him, it's OK to be gay... :P

[@blaslafo]

It's fresher this way.

[@zedaddy3530]

No he doesn't ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[@vally3475]

Valve has given us their office, which means raiding would be easier to see if they actually will make a Half Life 3 *call the payday gang*

[@SteveOnlin]

the heavy update you mean

[@davidtyierejian1033]

I can't believe Half Life 3 is more plausible than a big TF2 update

[@POTUSOfficial]

@@davidtyierejian1033 L4D3, Portal 3, Half Life 3, and CS:GO in Source2 are all more likely than a new TF2 event lmao

[@dioclias]

@@POTUSOfficial portal 3 really isn't though

[@lennrd5912]

its quite obvious... team works on source 2 engine = new franchise... what do you expect? a team fortress 3 or sum dumbshit like that? 😂 its quite obvious its gonna be HL3

[@BOBBY69]

1:22 Is nobody gonna talk about how awesome this small hallway looks with the Half-Life 2 Citadel wall design?

[@MightyTheWolf]

I love the "The final hours". It's a 25.000 words document for god sake! Keighley poured a lot of love into this digital magazine and i love that he takes us into a world that most of us can only dream to be apart of (working at Valve, or game development for that matter). I haven't read it all yet cause I'm taking my sweet sweet time with it :)

[@viktorpettersson9975]

You're a good fan

[@viktorpettersson9975]

VALVE also has me fascinated.

[@noclick]

They cut the Cremator.. again!

[@coajdka]

hi noclock

[@TheAlienGangster]

While I think they’d be a cool idea, I do think they’d have to slightly redesign the helmet so it’d fit into Combine lore. Eli even implies in Black Mesa East that he doesn’t even know much about the Cremator helmet in a jar, so that’d kinda lock them in a corner lore-wise.

[@PaulWitzelNarratives]

Omg its real nolick!!

[@Ribbons0121R121]

poor cremator

[@ZooL_Smith]

13:37 length, Philip is a Leet Krew member confirmed.

[@rascuvalentin]

Yes

[@qaisjp]

was looking for this commetn

[@ghlegend195]

I feel like "the wilderness" is probably one of the commonly overlooked flaws of a decentralized business. It's easy to get distracted, or even get overly ambitious with projects in a company, and it was interesting to see Valve go through that quiet time. At least with this video, we got a peek as to why that silence was so long.

[@spetsnaz4537]

wasn't that decentralization a common development philosphy since half-life 2, and all the titles that had been released after it? what changed?

[@Number9Robotic]

​@@spetsnaz4537 Did you not watch the video? Attention was eventually being funneled into making the improved replacement for the Source engine, and complications in its development affected the development of other future projects.

[@350606]

@@spetsnaz4537 They took that philosophy too far. Pretty much they allowed anybody to start or stop working on anything whenever they wanted. My speculation: Do you want to work on Source 2? Go ahead! Oh, I made this cool thing that uses randomized buildings. Sadly, Source 2 can't save that, and I don't want to work on the engine...

[@fluxxum6410]

4:36 Same "castle" prop overlooking A site on Mirage. I would be really weird (for me at least) to see such a familiar structure on a "new" game. Also a great example of how much Valve reuses assets between games and within CS:GO itself.

[@RafaAelM]

we also got a lot of these assets in the dangerzone map (dont know the name)

[@chinesesparrows]

Flipping assets like hot cakes

[@feryth]

@@RafaAelM It's Sirocco

[@hellvengtfo]

I don't mind studios reusing assets if that helps them dedicate more time and work into more important stuff than making new doorways or crates.

[@oktayyildirim2911]

@@hellvengtfo Are you serious? Having original doorways is an integral part of a game's experience!

[@TheSpyrexian]

I love it when Philip dips his toes in a video like this. Always so well researched and edited. Like a mini-documentory. Keep it up!

[@TheYeIIowDucK]

All he really did with this one is paraphrase a lot of the stuff from that book. At certain points he quotes it verbatim.

[@chinesesparrows]

Making it into video form is still lots of worn

[@tobyty123]

this! keep it up phillip. when it ended, i was sad lol

[@Bob-bs9ok]

I mean there is a term for what the _Final Hours_ series is, a visual novel. Edit: how the h e c c is there a political mess in the replies, I'm not surprised but _still_

[@CaroFDoom]

you could definitely call it a visual novel in a literal sense but it doesn't do any of the things you expect from the genre like having a blonde twin tailed anime girl with huge tits trip into you in such a way that your hand is touching her huge tits

[@caz8135]

@@CaroFDoom well visual novel DID originated in japan.

[@megamattroid9970]

I dunno Gaben dummy thicc

[@FalbereChan]

@@CaroFDoom omg is that the real carofdoom

[@CaroFDoom]

Falbere! no its the fake carofdoom

[@notapplicable7292]

I'm so glad to hear that valve didn't just destroy their development team as much of the internet has assumed.

[@azorah3986]

No, but they run a very slack development team - if you work on valve they just say either join a project or work on your own on anything you want, meaning people jump back and forth a bunch etc. You also wont be fired unless all your coworkers agree to get rid of you

[@guillermogutierrez-santana4446]

@@azorah3986 so basically these people are incentivized to start coup-de-tats? None of them have to even do work so long as they agree to it?

[@azorah3986]

@@guillermogutierrez-santana4446 yeah i guess, but they're mostly passionate employees - alyx only happened because most of the staff pulled together and become passionate about making alyx

[@ajemajh]

"perhaps i treated you to harshly"

[@Horrorz95]

So what you're saying is because Source 2 now has more stable foundations, unlike in the 2010s, the chances of more new Valve games just skyrocketed immensely?

[@billul1]

L4D3 but actually work this time lets fucking gooooo

[@elbinopaper4629]

Team Fortress 2, source 2

[@kalapoikedeviere7962]

I sure do hope we can see that “rpg” project come to fruition. In VR. Also open world l4d3 sounds badass

[@DawnAfternoon]

And that Valve's finally leaving their "work on what you want" philosophy. Definitely a much higher chance to see a new game in the next few years.

[@jockeyfield1954]

@@DawnAfternoon soon, valve will be making 1 game a year again, but unlike EA, each game will be worth your money

[@Eluvix]

My god, they made commically large key!

[@waddlemarco]

only a keyful

[@tedkofficial4244]

but is a comically large key even a key at all?

[@elans.8595]

"Only a keyhole!"

[@ceooftoxic6163]

So basically source 2 is to blame for all cancelled and delayed projects... Let’s see if we’ll die before source 3 comes out or not.

[@gorgolyt]

Ultimately their crazy management is to blame, not any particular piece of technology.

[@kopzz]

@@gorgolyt nah it is also about the source 2 engine for the most part in the documentary. They stated that even if they put everyone to work on the engine it will not finish faster and it blocked every big title to progress.

[@xubileibe]

​@@kopzz i wonder why. there's no reason to not finish faster with more people working on it, except the project was really in an advanced state and code for it is a mess that only one person understands (which i doubt).

[@kopzz]

@@xubileibe your statement is like why Corona vaccine cannot be done in 1 day if every single country helps to make it. The reason is similar, not to mention even if you use "everyone" it is not even 1k ppl in the whole company I believe.

[@xubileibe]

​@@kopzz i understand, but this is an exaggerated comparison. coding and develop are not the same as vaccines and all the unknown biology interations involved. develop is much more problem solving, as long as the problems are well defined. seems that they were facing a huge lack of communication within the company instead of not having enough people working on it or something related, since apparently the engine never met the requisites that its users had. puting more people to work on source 2 would definitely help to finish it faster if users expectations were clear enough*. looks like they are facing another problems than only the engine itself.

[@henryambrose8607]

I long for the day when I can finally stop making Half-Life 3 jokes and start making Half-Life 4 jokes.

[@Ultra289]

Oh mai gahd valve very noob no hl4 Valve plz hl4

[@Galactipod]

I mean, Half-Life Alyx is basically HL3

[@gasabur2934]

half-life 4 confirmed

[@frozenheartedgiant8330]

@@Galactipod Surely half life one and a half?

[@self-proclaimedanimator]

@@Galactipod man Volvo released Holf Lofe Alex so they ould name the new Half Life half life 4

[@surealivro6242]

That first image is cursed. Gaben used to be just one person, not 5

[@Koplerio]

Talking about Melee combat in vr- I guess there kind of is melee in HL:A - Manhats seemed to take damage when I hit them with my gun

[@queuedjar4578]

Things also take damage when you throw objects at them. I went through almost an entire playthrough killing headcrabs with just boxes and other miscellaneous household furniture.

[@TheArklyte]

I'll just copypaste my comment on same topic here: Better choice for melee in Alyx would have been to give her... Manhack with a handle. Basically an electric circular saw. Already coded in, has model and damage/hit detection don't depend on player swings so much. And that point was made already by thousands of people before me... I guess? Maybe? At least I was mentioning it since seing the game, surely others also suggested it. Or is there hidden technical difficulty with this approach?

[@d11asian]

@@TheArklyte we don't have the full source 2 sdk that we were promised. Only some surface level developer tools that can allow for some pretty cool stuff but still extremely limited. The only one outside of valve who has the full sdk is gary newman (gmod) and is experimenting with it for s&box

[@thesuperstratos]

13:37 leet vid man! I mean neat!

[@ven0o213]

l33t

[@TheAlienGangster]

D4nk

[@arnabbiswasalsodeep]

420

[@DDjivan]

69

[@arnabbiswasalsodeep]

666 21

[@taspatspro]

I want to see what the "Vader" headset would have been capable of 🤔

[@cherti]

It was just a button that goes inbetween your eyes that produces a hologram

[@cheburekman696]

Likely not much better than the valve Index, but with plenty of cost innefective features and design choices

[@larrymcfagerstrom9172]

Probably had mechanical teeth of some kind to properly simulate headcrab munching your head

[@bekkayya]

6:50 I dont think it failed. The steam input system and the proton comparability layer are direct results of those efforts and they are an indispensable part of the infrastructure of VR. they allow interop between all kinds of VR input (which stops the market from imploding due to exclusives) and make linux play possible respectively. Its pretty incredible

[@AzuuL_science]

I recently finished Black Mesa(remake of HL1), which got me interested in the Half Life series. I still have HL2, HL2 episode 1 and HL2 episode 2 to play. I sincerely hope Valve is back in shape now thanks to HL Alyx and their finished Source 2 engine.

[@PresidentialWinner]

Oh man you are gonna LOVE those games. HL1 & 2 & episodes 1&2 are right up there with WC3, Fallout 2, GTA 3, Total War : Shogun, Heroes of Might And Magic 3 my favorite games of all time etc. the best of the best. And unlike some of the other games i mentioned, Half-Life 2 hasn't really aged at all.

[@raph2954]

You shouldn't have started with Black Mesa imo

[@dominicstocker5144]

Raph I think that it’s a good way to start

[@raph2954]

@@dominicstocker5144 idk, if you start with a fan made remake you're not really experiencing the series

[@sygos]

they're not. "Actually money is how the community drives work" - Gabe Newell on a reddit AMA. CSGO and Dota 2 and TF2 gambling lootboxes make billions of dollars a year. Half Life Alyx sold a few hundred thousand copies.

[@pen5183]

8:24 I like how he flips them off after waving to them.

[@user-es3dr5xk8f]

Was finding for this comment

[@informitas0117]

I hoped there was a better reason for valve's "wilderness" era other than they wanted Valve to be a playpen for very gifted developers. Don't get excited for what they have planned next but what they actually finish.

[@Tactify24]

They have 2 other vr games they are working on. 1 slated to come out next year and the other a year later. They also are working on non vr titles rn. So the future of valve games looks to be bright

[@OriginalityDaniel]

the reason was worker exploitation, overworked, stressed, burnouts, hiring based on highschool level cliques instead of ability or skill. google: 2013: "Valve's flat structure contains "hidden layer of powerful management", claims ex-employee" and 2018s: "Ex-Valve employee describes ruthless internal politics at 'self-organizing' companies" for the full picture. this interactive PDF is basically just paving over their horrid history with more PR marketing bs like the employee handbook garbage.

[@rowdee7405]

3:50 The Half Life 2 soundtrack really added to the vibe here.

[@kilogramme]

Finally! Was hoping for a this type of video, covering the games. Cheers!

[@SirRounded]

Hopefully Valve is coming out of those dark times with some rejuvinated optimism, L4D3 has been beckoning for a while now

[@starkistuna105]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bIKxfqV5gMmJf6c The upcoming spiritual successor to 'Left 4 Dead 2' by it's original creators

[@grzyruth9205]

Don't know how I feel about the open world aspect of L4D3 concept, but I REALLY love the setting in Morocco!

[@M_Oz_]

An updated Day of Defeat version would be great as well.

[@areostarkiss]

L4D3 or even a remaster of 2 seems probably right now. There is a hidden beta branch of l4d2 that's been getting a lot of playtime recently by valve devs

[@sygos]

i don't want valve to make l4d3, I imagine they'll sell characters hidden behind gambling lootboxes, and weapon skins... They're already selling gambling lootboxes to unlock character models in CSGO. And they'll sell gloves in gambling lootboxes for l4d3...

[@mnemosftb]

That 'citadel' wall at 1:22 is sick.

[@KalkuehlGaming]

A realy sad thing is that valve once did a official statement that Left for dead 3 was never in development and they flamed on Valve News network for saying so. And now when they admit it, damage is done and nobody says otherwise.

[@yegorgribenuke6853]

Well, at least now we will be getting new games from Valve, possibly even L4D3

[@mr.squishy5024]

Seeing that timeline was insane. Tyler has been talking about all this stuff the whole time and no one believed him. I feel sorry for him.

[@tochka832]

they simply stated that it 'isn't in development at the time, but was for a brief period of time' which is more likely true, but doesn't mean that they cannot continue it later or even already did VNN is dyslexic and from what i can tell his reading and understanding of article is somewhat strange

[@umamifan]

@@tochka832 That's because VNN reads what he wants to see. He can be a little intense when he doesn't get his way.....

[@KVWI]

Exil Desert VNN is basically a hack, tyler literally “reports” whatever he wants to, with little regard as to whether or not it’s actually true

[@CringelordJen]

Its funny, the only reason I came across this very visual novel yesterday is because Geoff himself was reading it on stream. Glad he did and I got to save it

[@Goutrial]

i did a stream of this and that headcrab scared the hell out of me. Also how couldn't you mention russel's sexy moustache

[@uberbyte7467]

No offense, but I've never ever watched you're content but youtube sent me a notification of you're stream and it's very odd to find you here.

[@Hlidskialf]

Hey Philip, thanks for making these videos without Alyx spoilers. I really love HL but i couldn't buy one vr headset before and now with corona is literally impossible, so i appreciate those videos without spoilers. Thanks again.

[@neighborhood_k]

i love how the 3d scan of the valve office is both normal looking and extremely chaotic at the same time

[@hadditor7848]

So strange to me that after all this time period of cancelled projects and experiments, the one that people stuck with and completed first was *Artifact*

[@stevethepocket]

It's probably the first one that a single team could finish in less time than it takes them to get bored.

[@lettuceman9439]

probably since they already have a framework with it and had many fgc creators involved.

[@Ribbons0121R121]

"hmm yes this card thing seems easy enough"

[@bunnyfreakz]

Artifact had Richard Garfield as head of this project. Artifact is not bad game, it's good card game but its just come in the wrong time.

[@galaxyflamingo]

yea

[@spacetaco2792]

It sort of seems to me like once they completed Portal 2, their magnum opus, it was physically impossible to make anything better, so they got stuck and didn’t know what to do for awhile.

[@flwerz420]

I completely disagree that it is physically impossible to make a game better than portal 2. Portal 2 is a flawed, as incredible as that game is. So is alyx, hl2 and the episodes, lfd2 ect.. They got stuck because of internal politics. Half of the company wanted to develop another game while developing a new engine (ala half life 2), and the other half wanted to wait until source 2 was finished. As well as this a lot of the higher ups at valve still didnt believe in vr and were making it very difficult for the devs to work. It's ironic too because as much as they like to say it source 2 isn't even finished, at least when alyx was shipped. Theyre isnt even functioning water lol

[@Flutentei]

Great Video due to GREAT RESEARCH! Thank you! Preparing this quality of information must have been a lot of work. So thumbs up!

[@SomeRandomPiggo]

9:32 you can't hide that upscale from me

[@oktayyildirim2911]

Wow. I was worried Valve had basically given up on game development because they thought focusing on running Steam would be more profitable. It's really exciting to know that they've been actually trying to make games all this time. Their work on those projects hasn't gone completely to waste, either! They could still salvage their unfinished projects and complete them or recycle their content.

[@KalkuehlGaming]

and now recall the years of thinking about valve, what they are doing. Knowing now that they got such a stupid problem is sobering.

[@chinesesparrows]

I call it 3drealms syndrome. Early success and overambition

[@RingingResonance]

@Chinese Sparrows Luckily they fixed that syndrome before they made a HL-Forever.

[@3htthexy]

@@chinesesparrows Early success and overambition? Valve was making critically acclaimed games for over a decade and they were pushing gaming technologies, HL2 was revolutionary when it released and now they're pushing the boundaries of VR experiences. I'm not sure what you call early success and overambition when most of their titles are critically acclaimed just because they spent a couple years trying to figure out what to do next. 3drealms is a whole different story

[@350606]

@@3htthexy Exactly! The main problem Valve had was what they now call "The wilderness", they saw that they could give some developers free reign to try anything they wanted and great projects came out of it, so they took it to the extreme.

[@liampeterson8299]

That 3D office looks like if someone crumpled it up, threw it away, then actually needed it, so they did their best to un-crumple it

[@Orestis.M]

Just as I finished VNN's highligths video on the final hours, I find out that I'm 30 minutes late for this as well, glad people are jumping on top of this so fast.

[@NatjoOfficial]

1:21 We finally know a new reason Episode 3 could have got cancelled: Source 2. Valve must have finished Source 2 waaay too late and people started making half life 3 memes by that time.

[@awogbob]

Interesting stuff. I've always been a fan of alternative management structures and employers that seek to benefit their employees... Tho is seems that experiment went wrong at valve. I'm not a valve fanboy to the degree some may be but back around 2008-9 Valve was this dominant powerhouse of quality. Those source 2 engine leaks would literally be mind blowing ten years ago. Now they hold up but are not really anything special, especially with the possibilities of the new PS4 workflow and unreal 5. I think Valve shit the bed in a way. They still have a certain level of quality when they ship, much like Blizzard or other triple A devs. It's fascinating that valve didn't fall behind because of over management or discounected business suits but by being too unrestricted. It is truly sad to think what could have been. I have stronger sentiments towards Bungie who totally ruined Destiny in what it could of been. A similiar story of an engine that just wasn't ready, but they shipped anyway. Though for them there was more internal management problems going on with 2 principal designers, their principal writer, and the solo musical lead all leaving before the project shipped. Crazy stuff, I guess nothing lasts forever. He's to the best for valve.

[@theblah12]

I think it's just an issue that the company grew too large for that kind of flat structure, since it seamed to work alright up to the mid-2000s when they were only really working on 1 or 2 projects at once and were a much smaller company in general. There's a theory known as Dunbar's number that people are only really capable of maintaining stable, meaningful relationships with around 150 people at most - above that and the relationships become much less stable and people no longer know each other on a first name basis. Seeing as Valve is now well above that with over 350 employees it's easy to see how a management structure relying on casual social relationships rather then a defined hierarchy started to break down.

[@checker297]

valve is only alive because they managed to pioneer cosmetic lootboxes and selling games digitally. Valve could afford to hire the best coders in the industry and let them work on whatever they wanted without direction because they had a constant stream of money coming in. Honestly, they are a bit like amazon, invest in R+D because they have AWS. If even one of those side projects became the next big thing, they wouldnt care.

[@awogbob]

@@checker297 Thats what I was saying, Valves creative downfall wasnt from other management structures demanding ship dates and sales numbers, it was from the lack of hierarchy in the company which is kind of the opposite of what most people think when video game companies fail tp produce meaningful content or fall behind. Bungie failed because of Microsoft/activision, Blizzard is failing because of chinese money and interests. Im not saying I think that but thats what the narrative always seems to be. For valve it was entirely different.

[@Yetipfote]

crowbar: *tenderly touching bottle* bottle: *explodes violently*

[@Fmannen93]

I appreciate the video length. 👌

[@Deezsirrer]

The happiest company With a lot of time and project Without worrying about money

[@exosproudmamabear558]

I can't understand one thing. Normally a game engine made in one or two years why it took fucking almost 7 years to finish it. Instead of working on several projects, they should've focused on finishing the damn engine.

[@gorgolyt]

Simple... because there was no pressure to finish it.

[@DawnAfternoon]

They got no shareholders to answer to. They got no deadline to answer to. They got no pressure to answer to. Valve was a victim to its own "work on what you want" philosophy. Flexibility and creative freedom sounds like a dream work but it needed to have a sense of direction and focus.

[@danyulio]

KZbin unsibscribed me recently but this came in my recommended and I'm glad to be back! Hopefully it wasnt many this happened to, cause your content has always kept me entertained! Really sucks that this stuff happens though :c

[@tschichpich]

1:08 I love the black abyss in the office. That's were all the abandend project are thrown

[@Calajese]

11:23 "So his friend says "Only one key" so he takes out a comically large key, honestly, some hilarous shit man"

[@Adomavo]

How did you get that rendered valve office to walk in? Where do i download that?

[@hdfheudjdjrheh1852]

I know but I refuse to tell you

[@mycelia_ow]

@@hdfheudjdjrheh1852 It's in the subreddit

[@Adomavo]

@@hdfheudjdjrheh1852 aw man

[@Adomavo]

@@mycelia_ow What subreddit?

[@Mageh533]

Its the Half Life Alyx the final hours in steam, i am sure it was made clear in the video.

[@CraigMansfield]

Wow! Thank you so much, for bringing this to my attention. I didn't know about it, but I can't wait to look at it. ♥️👍

[@corruption310]

Back 4 Blood: now im left 4 dead Source 2: Are you sure about that

[@sonicfraisheya4028]

Who knows, maybe all the time that they lost in "the wilderness" means that they have a lot of interesting concepts and ideas just stored up but now with the right hardware and direction, they can tackle and possibly develop these ideas

[@seifelshenawi6211]

I hipe they try making l4d3 again, this time with the complete source 2 engine

[@PersonalAccountIndeed]

@catz64 Why is that sadly? None-VR games coming from Valve now would be lame knowing the actual potential they have with VR.

[@Ultra289]

Meh left 4 dead 2 is ok

[@deejorno]

@@PersonalAccountIndeed Well, I think it'd be best if they make a L4D3 game with VR support, so people who do and don't can play together.

[@chinesesparrows]

Seems valve are focusing on vr because lets face it source 2 is probably the worst major game engine right now in terms mass use (unity and unreal) or visuals (unreal and cryengine) or artistic capability

[@thencrranger5628]

@catz64 lol what? are you trying to say that L4D3 should be a VR only game? do you know how expensive that VR thing on 3rd world country that only small number of people can afford it? do you expect valve to lose half of their audience?

[@MagicMaster667]

The biggest oversight Geoff made in this book was claiming that Lazslo appeared in Episode 2, and not just the main game. I also think one sentence in there missed an 'and' between words. But since the book shows a v.1.0 when it's launched, I hope he's able to fix the Laszlo mistake, CS:GO gloves mistake, and maybe even polish up the 3D valve office thing.

[@de-ment]

I really hope HLA was indeed a starting step and that in future games they will properly introduce more VR features like body tracking, physics, melee, sprinting, jumping, etc.

[@Jona69]

Valve starting lots of projects with excitement but never finishing them, that sounds a lot like me.

[@derksenkarting]

That time was not lost, I bet they learned a lot from all these projects. It is probably what makes Half-Life Alyx what it is now.

[@MatchTerm]

Exactly. Step by step, project by project, even if it goes nowhere specific.

[@faridfeld8260]

Look at the the smoothenes of the picture while he showcases the source 1 and 2 engine. Worlds between those

[@kawafahra]

That was great and actually bitterly needed. Thank you for that summary of very solid reasons we may still have no HL3, but also could get one that´s better than one could hope, great work !

[@thatnongayfurry5063]

Imagine TF2 in Source 2

[@randomcatdude]

I'm sure it'll happen eventually.

[@thatnongayfurry5063]

@@randomcatdude It would be a bloody smissmas miracle

[@randomcatdude]

@@thatnongayfurry5063 Indeed. It'd actually run at a decent framerate!

[@kyleaubreydelmundo7021]

It may be possible, but some say that it would look a LONG ASS TIME AND EFFORT to port a game to another engine. Anyways, TF2's current source engine is still decent, not great nor bad, just decent.

[@SudoKnightlyNonsense]

Alyx is for Valve what Doom 2016 was for ID software, the return of a gaming powerhouse that went dark for a long time.

[@oscar8010]

this was a really well mad video, good job man

[@homeslice808]

I really like your use of the chapter thing it’s really nice

[@WMan37]

Truthfully, I care more about getting more Source 2 SDK tools into the hands of modders than I do about HL3 at this point. A second renaissance of Sourcemodding this time with VR support sounds way more enticing to me than a sequel I am now waiting more than 12 years for, I'm glad Alyx has more than demonstrated how fucking _good_ source 2 can look.

[@Foxidroytber]

2:52 did u freakin AI upscaled the games thumbnails?

[@enso8762]

That office scan wow

[@NotaDrDoom]

I think the beautiful thing about this title is that it was a return to form in an industry that generally fails when met with those sorts of stakes.

[@nominis4523]

Imagine a world where Valve completely ignored VR and went on to release a Left 4 Dead game on source 2 and half life 3.

[@CalmMagma]

"9 seconds ago" The last time i was this early was to get a signed copy of The Bible.

[@MarksterC]

Wait what

[@mik3e]

What a great fucken video, hope you cover more of the final hours

[@monomakes]

Thanks for the research Pip!

[@StationXGaming0]

Yeah, Half-Life Alyx was incredibly good, but I totally agree. It makes me excited to see what more Valve can do with VR. Or if this title has even given them fresh ideas for more flat-screen based video games. It definitely has seemed to help them get over the hurdle that Episode three left them at. Kinda seemed like they were fumbling around, like they didn't know exactly what they were doing. That all seems like a bad dream in the past now, hopefully Valve can keep this up.

[@Masterchezze]

The biggest questions is: Of all the games that could have been, why was Artifact the one they released?

[@herewegorighthere8765]

Quick buck.

[@luminomancer5992]

From what they stated after its failure, it seems like in the flat structure some of the artifact members had enough charisma to hold the team together long ejough to release the game, but didnt actually have the proficiency to make the game any good

[@lettuceman9439]

@@luminomancer5992 its actually fun but to niche to ever be as good as the casual card game in how complicated it is and also many Card game creators were involved in the production right off the start which made many of the original dev team to not leave before any groundwork was done.

[@sygos]

the main reason is it could be run on phones. That's why they also immediately started pushing Dota Underlords: multiplatform can run on phones. Valve wants to get into the mobile gaming market because it sells even more microtransactions. MTX is the main source of revenue for valve after Steam game sales. They make hundreds of millions off of CSGO and Dota 2 a year.

[@brianthommo7821]

did anyone else notice that at 3:45 .. "HL3 Developement" tab, proves that they were starting to make a HL3 a some point, i guess that's when it got put on the backburner till ALYX was developed.

[@greengamerguy623]

dropping to 1 HP in the source engine is a cheat to prevent death called Buddha mode

[@squib2118]

WOAH WOAH WOAH. So does that mean that now that Source 2 is functional, Left 4 Dead 3 is in the foreseeable future?? Edit: AND HALF LIFE 3??

[@compatriot852]

TF2: It truly is the final hours Surrounded on all sides by hackers and Valve is no where to be seen

[@alexpiggy]

well whoever the one or two people working at TF2 is listening and there actually have been updates that helped with both hackers (kick) and bots (kick, chat restrictions, exploits), so I'd say that gives a glimmer of hope for TF2. plus they said it was postponed, but not outright cancelled, so there's still a chance!

[@Danimations2015]

@@alexpiggy this aged.. like a glass of milk that my dad bought 20 years ago.

[@matushka__]

Valve is like: Lets make something... World of hardware and software: I don't think thats physically possible.

[@BlueRockEye]

It's cool that they have a image of Medic on the wall.

[@TheArklyte]

11:50 Better choice for melee in Alyx would have been to give her... Manhack with a handle. Basically a saw. Already coded in, has model and damage/hit detection don't depend on player swings so much. And that point was made already by thousands of people before me... I guess? Maybe? At least I was mentioning it since seing the game, surely others also suggested it. Or is there hidden technical difficulty with this approach?

[@3htthexy]

They probably playtested it and didn't think it fit. Valve knows what they're doing when it comes to the stuff they cut and the stuff they leave in. everyone always thinks the cut content is better, but there's a reason they cut it in the first place. They extensively playtest and discover these things. It probably just wasn't as fun or detracted from the rest of the gameplay

[@TheArklyte]

@@3htthexy "detracted from the rest of the gameplay" most likely this one. ALyx is known for it's difficulty coming mostly from resource management and the item spawn adjusting items for players. Hence why people, who barely use shotgun to use it as emergency power boost barely find ammo for it, but people, who go with guns constantly empty are swimming in it. Having effective melee weapon ruins that balance by allowing player to skip it. Not to mention the whole emergent "teleporting psycho with a saw" gameplay that would have ruined the mood of the game by not suiting the character. However I was speaking about solution to the problem, not why Valve decided against it. You don't have to calculate the speed and angle to make out damage of melee weapon, don't need to limit player so that they won't hit their hands with controllers on the wall or ceiling while bashing like madman and don't have to explain how Alyx does anything at all to heavily armored soldiers without using exosuit equipped HEV like Gordon does. Saw answers all of those questions. The fact that Valve didn't use it, is different question.

[@sygos]

the worst part about manhacks is if you kill a combine soldier before he deploys it, he still has an undeployed manhack. You can't pick it up, you can just knock it off of its corpse and kinda push it around with your hand models.

[@SoulWeaver16]

Somehow that information makes me feel bad, so many years criticizing that they did nothing, when the jobs really were done, but they did not reach something satisfactory. Which was better for them to let launch than launch to get more money, somehow, this gives me another perspective, although I may still be complaining, at least now because Valve's AntiCheat is still not very strict.

[@saitama4128]

Love the interesting background on game development

[@byganza8060]

i love the source engine used for half life 2. every scene looks like a painting because of the way lighting works.

[@rtyzxc]

That's pretty interesting life lesson learned. Modern times are about "having the freedom to do whatever you want" but it only leads to loss of motivation. You won't live a good life if you just follow your whims. Making commitments and sticking with them through adversity is needed to achieve things.

[@prodlowd]

Looks like they were working on CS2!

[@Wishmasters]

12:45 dude sips his whisky during particularly exhausting work I guess :D :D

[@r0de]

I have to commend Valve for trying to give creative types freedom and have them spread their wings honestly, it's something that's sorely needed in many parts of our modern industry (not just game development, but perhaps the entire working world as a whole) the problem is that it's like Philip said: creativity is good for starting something, but not always good for actually finishing it. Having a few of my hobbies consist of creative endeavors, this really speaks to me on an uncomfortably close level. It's so easy to start a new project after another, to shine in the afterglow of having realized an idea, this high that you get when you see the individual parts get together and you think to yourself "yes, this is it, this I can do something with" but when it actually becomes time to realize this dream, it often becomes a nightmare. I'm glad Valve learned their lesson and I hope they'll stay with the philosophy that the golden middle is always the best path to take.