Voice actor John Patrick Lowrie has delivered some potentially disturbing news on his personal website. The long-awaited Half-Life 3 isn’t even currently in development.
Industry veteran Lowrie — who voiced several citizens and miscellaneous characters in Half-Life 2 and its subsequent episodes — was responding to a commentator seeking updates on Half-Life 3, when he said the following:
“Right. As far as I know they are not developing HL3 now for several reasons, among them the mo-cap issue. Sorry for any confusion. What they might decide in the future depends on lots of different factors. I hope they do, personally, but it has to make sense for them.”
He then went on to explain the motion-capture hangup further:
“Here is the biggest challenge with bringing out HL3: the big thing now with FPSs is motion capture, or mo-cap. One of the great things about HL2 is that all of the characters that you meet actually look at you when they talk to you no matter where you go or stand. With mo-cap you can’t do that, at least not yet. Once you film the actor doing something and capture that motion, that’s what the character is going to do. This works great in movies, but when you make something interactive it gets way less interactive with mo-cap. So that’s one of the things they’re working on.”
“Still nothing definitive, but I hope this helps you understand at least one of the reasons why they haven’t brought out HL3 yet.”
This is disappointing news. We finally get an (unofficial) update on Half-Life 3 and it only serves to give us a reason not to expect anything more. I’m starting to wonder if we’ll ever see the game.
Half-Life 3 appears to be stuck in a holding pattern for now but we’ll be sure to share any further updates when and if the time comes. Until then, let’s gather ’round and have a nice cleansing cry.