Now that the dust has settled...

Now that the dust has settled, was it really that big of a surprise/disappointment that the final episode was never released?

im a bit dissapointed but most valve fans greatly overrate how good their games are

yes, it really was

they released two episodes and promised a third one so yes, it was a surprise

We had like 10 years of gabe newell changing his answers towards reports from "we're working on it" to "it's a secret" to "no comment" to "refusing to say anything". Literally 10 fucking years.

It's hardly surprising.

Only people who were delusional still thought it was going to come out.

It wasnt a surprise at this point but Marc Laidlaw releasing the story of EP3 was the final nail in the coffin and am realy dissapointed the game never was released with that story.

Of course now we aren't surprised but if you were alive back then you would know ep3 was considered to be in active development until like 5 years ago.
Surprise is the wrong word anyway, more like a gradual loss of hope.

Yes, they promised a trilogy of episodes, the "fan fiction" synopsis is actually good, and considering how great Episode 2 was, I can imagine that the third one would've been fucking fantastic

yes, prior to HL3/episode 3, valve had never cancelled something that they had previously announced

I'm looking forward to Valve getting annihilated by public opinion every time it releases something that isn't a HL game or a similarly-loved franchise.

it's gonna happen in a big way if Valve ever release another game
which probably isn't going to happen anyway because they've gone turbo-jew and only care about steam now

>It ends in another cliffhanger.
It was supposed to be EP3, not HL3.

>tfw remember the threads we used to have here speculating on the future of the series
>the reach of the Combine
>the G-Man
>what will happen to Earth
>playing Half-Life for the first time
>playing Half-Life 2 for the first time
>playing Episode 2 and getting to the ending and being hyped for the next one
>all those discussions
>all those characters
>all those moments
Sometimes... the bad guys win.

You bet, it wasn't even a real "ending", but another cliffhanger.

I assume you know about Artifact but I wouldn't rule out any more minimal effort maximum profit games.

I literally forgot that was announced

bump

>only a few weeks ago, literally thousands of people were posting about this
>now like 10

that surprises me more than episode 3 being officially over

They'll bite to fully modelled threads I guess

Yes, it only hurts more that the Laidlaw fanfic was fucking phenomenal. I can only imagine how good it could have been in game.

Half Life has always been an ok shooter but the world , story telling and all was just so unique and engaging to me that I will be forever mad.

>the Sup Forums sticky got to around 8k posts before being limited
>reddit post on r/gaming became one of the top of the entire month if not year
>shitton of articles and videos about it

Not sure about you but for a fanfic it made quite the buzz.

>Everybody was shocked how big Episode would have been and how fucking incredible it would have been
>Shocked about the opportunity that Valve let slip away for the sake of just money

Why would anybody care now?
The story is over we will never see it there is nothing more to discuss about the only thing left is hate for Valve and fatlord Gaben that he is greedy

I think you need to reread that post and let it sink in a little.

Who cares?
Half-Life turned to shit after the 1st game.

>was it really that big of a surprise/disappointment that the final episode was never released?
Disappointed yes, because with that ending they could deliver to justify a decade worth wait.

I doubt the story Laidlaw posted changed that much after the early years of development. The ending described in it doesn't seem to be that hard to pull off, if we look what valve did with half-life 2 so far. Even if it did come out eventually, waiting a for over a decade to do what they could've done with the episode 2 version of source is really hard to justify. It's an amazing ending, but the fact that they've been sitting on it, doing nothing and toying around with everyone who tried asking about it is disappointing as hell. Even insulting to me as a fan.

Half-Lifes gameplay today is underwhelming, and I used to love it. I really just wanted closure on Gordon's journey, and learn more about the gman.

Someone will make a mod anyway.