Gabe Newell contemplates the future in the new Half-Life 2 film: 'I believe that Half-Life is a tool and a promise made to customers.'

Valve surprised us on Friday with a few surprises to celebrate Half-Life 2’s 20th Anniversary. One of them was assembling the original devs to record in-game comments for the legendary FPS. The commentary is available for free on Steam this weekend. Awesome! Valve has also posted on YouTube a two-hour documentary about the making of Half-Life 2. Also awesome, unless you have something else to watch like a ridiculous match of boxing tonight.

Personally, I'm more interested in hints about the next for Half-Life than I am in the development of the 20-year-old title I know like the palm of my hand. So, I did what you do when you can't wait to know who did it in a mystery: I skipped the end.

Is it possible to confirm Half-Life 3 from the Half-Life 2 film? Or Half-Life Alyx 2? Or any other confirmation? No. The documentary ends with a few hints that Half-Life isn't finished.

"It was simple to think of VR as a vehicle for Half Life because it was a huge technological innovation and kinda a core reason that product existed," said Valve engineer Brian Jacobson. "I think innovation is something we've tended to associate with the Half-Life IP internally. Technology innovation is often the catalyst for gameplay innovation. There was a lot in Half-Life 1, 2, and 3.

Jacobson said, "It is an interesting challenge to think about the future Half-Life stuff."

Future Half-Life stuff confirmed? I mean, kinda, though Jacobson implies that more Half-Life will not happen until more technological innovations are done.

Gabe Newell, it's your turn.

"The ending of Half-Life Alyx is a bit of a self-critical realisation," said Gabe. "I believe that Half-Life is a tool that we have, and promises that we made to customers, to capitalize on innovations and opportunities to create game experiences that weren't involved before. There are many opportunities for the industry to take advantage of right now.

Look, I understand that GabeN is an industry icon but he sometimes talks like a cyborg in the business world. What does this word salad mean exactly? Half-Life: Alyx allows us to briefly inhabit the shoes of Gordon Freeman for a few moments. A portion of Half-Life's history is altered by a little bit of G-Man spacetime magic. I'm not really sure how this adds up to being self-critical.

Gabe seems to be saying the same thing as Jacobson: Half-Life, and technological innovation go hand in glove. You can't have one without the other.

What are the innovations? I'm not certain: more advanced VR or a newer GPU? More powerful GPUs? Steam Decks you can control with a neuro-implant? I hope that whatever breakthrough is needed, it will happen soon. See you at the Half-Life 2 anniversary party for more speculation.