It's been six years since the original Half-Life hit stores, received massive amount of critical acclaim and changed first-person shooters from deatmatch games into products that could tell strong single-player stories. Now, finally, Half-Life 2 is scheduled to hit stores and Steam-powered PCs in less than a week, so we checked in with Valve's Marketing Director Doug Lombardi to find out what it feels like to be finished with one of the most anticipated games of the year.
"The entire game is something to be proud of, and I think the entire team feels great about the end result," says Lombardi. "But the one thing I am most proud of is the team's resilience after the code theft. It was a nightmare in no uncertain terms, yet everyone stayed to see it through." The code theft he refers to occurred in 2003, while Half-Life 2 was on its way to being completed. Because of problems with hackers, portions of the game were released online illegally. On June 30th, 2004, Valve announced that arrests in relation to the crime had been made.
But with those issues behind them, the development team was able to finish the game a little over a year after its original planned ship date (September 30th, 2003). As a result, the game's release date of November 16th, 2004 comes right in the middle of what some call the busiest time period the game market has ever seen, with games such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Halo 2 fresh on store shelves, and other blockbusters such as Metal Gear Solid 3 and Need For Speed Underground 2 coming out within 24 hours of November 16th. Lombardi doesn't seem worried though, commenting that, "The first time [in 1998 with the original Half-Life], it was pretty scary. This time, it's just exciting."
Part of the reason for Valve's excitement is to see how players react to the game; the developer hasn't revealed much of the game's story in an attempt to surprise players when they see the game for the first time -- a practice that has led to lots of speculation amongst players. "I don't know if helped create a buzz on the game," says Lombardi. "But we were hoping to maintain the cool surprises and twists for the players to discover when they play the game. We've all had too many experiences playing a game that looked entirely too familiar during the experience due to the fact that far too much was revealed prior to release."
Still, Lombardi views the story as only part of a bigger package. Discussing the most important elements of Half-Life 2, he breaks the recipe down as such: "25% physics. 25% AI. 25% acting/story. 25% graphics/rendering. Stir and store in a cool dry place."
One of those concepts -- the physics -- actually ended up playing a significantly larger role in the game than was initially anticipated. "The initial concept for story and high-level features really didn't change much at all," says Lombardi. "However, specifics were tweaked along the way -- for example, physics became a much bigger part of the game after it came online and we had a chance to run it through playtesting."
Partially due to the physics, fans appear to be more than happy with what they've seen of the game thus far. Code theft aside, the biggest surprise for the team was the reaction they got when showing the game at E3 2003. "When you're working on a project for a while but have not shown it externally, you have great confidence and freedom," says Lombardi. "But then, when it comes time to finally unveil it, a terrible nervousness can arise. 'Oh lord -- if folks hate this, we just wasted the last four years of our lives.' So, it was a tremendous relief that folks thought it was cool and we were on the right track."
So after six years, players will be able to finally experience the continuing adventures of Gordan Freeman when Half-Life 2 hits PCs next week. After that, players can look forward to an Xbox version of the game, which Lombardi confirms is under development right now, though we don't know if it's being handled by Valve or an external developer. We'll be back with more on both versions of the game soon.
Half-Life 2 Still In The Works For Xbox!
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Originally Posted by TRIR
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