They hoped the episodic delivery of games would be the future. Especially alongside a digital distribution platform like Steam. I suspect they realized episodes wasn’t the way after the release of Orange Box, so they moved on from that.
I watched the full documentary now. It’s clear they were burned out of Half Life when they started with Episode 3. The idea to deliver a new episode every 12 months wasn’t creatively sustainable. So they put it on hold while they worked on L4D and other projects.
Episodes 1 and 2 were fun but they in no way “recentered the first person shooter genre.”
They hoped the episodic delivery of games would be the future. Especially alongside a digital distribution platform like Steam. I suspect they realized episodes wasn’t the way after the release of Orange Box, so they moved on from that.
They didn’t try. They did one then it was years before episode 2.
You have to actually make episodes before declaring it a failure.
I watched the full documentary now. It’s clear they were burned out of Half Life when they started with Episode 3. The idea to deliver a new episode every 12 months wasn’t creatively sustainable. So they put it on hold while they worked on L4D and other projects.
It’s a weird argument for them to make: We are too exhausted to make a short game so instead made an entirely new full game.