Seriously?
Where’s portal 3? L4D 3? Half-Life 3? Team fortress 3? Dota 3?
They’re a rich studio with a large fanbase. What do you think is stopping them?
View Reddit by The_barbarian_seeker – View Source
View Reddit by The_barbarian_seeker – View Source
Cause they know it kills people like you. Part of their grand scheme
Because when you always peak at 2, it’s hard to justify a 3.
In a more serious answer, it’s probably because Valve’s structure means employees work on what they want to work on, and it gets hard to justify making sequels over and over when you keep wanting to make something entirely new. It’s why they’ve dived head-first into VR; that’s just more interesting for the majority of developers at Valve.
A deep seated, irrational fear of the rule-of-thirds.
VALV^(3)
Cause math is hard
At this point if they ever make another mainline Half-Life game I want them to call it Half-Life 4 and just insist that’s the number that comes after 2.
’cause they’re, ultimately, for all the corporate mumbo-jumbo, still guided by perfectionists and artists
Every game they’ve made has been an attempt to experiment with a new concept – every sequel they’ve made has been an attempt to *refine* that concept
They don’t make thirds because, usually, they’ve peaked by that point
There’s no refinement that would result in them further perfecting their creation
As has been revealed – they’ve ***tried*** to do another half life more times than can be counted. And always ended up scrapping it – because it hasn’t met their standards or progressed the series itself enough to justify it
Hell, the only reason we got Half Life Alyx was because the VR concept piqued their interest and they’d never *done* a character-narrative story like Alyx before. Hybridizing the two ideas gave them enough of a concept to peruse – and even then, they questioned whether it would be ‘original’ enough to justify the use of the IP
Which should tell you all you should need to know
They don’t look at their IPs as something to make a profit – they have steam – they don’t ***need*** to make profit… they look at their IP as something that they need to *justify* using
Because seven ate nine… wait..
Because it bothers people lol
I feel like it’s part of the joke. The released half-life 2 episode 1 and episode 2 and never episode 3 lol.
I’m just waiting to buy the steam deck 2 cause we’ll never get a 3rd one.
Friend and I once joked that Valve’s next big game would just be called “3” functioning like “the orange box” for HL3, L4D3, and Portal3 at least
1… 2… 5!
As funny as the cant count to three joke is the past near two decades, it’s really because Steam became their business. The CSGO profits absolutely exploded from the skins in 2014-2018, and a lack of managers. Crucially the lack of managers. As the other person said in this thread they are perfectionists in some ways for how they make their games. And when a perfectionist has literally nobody to report to but themselves, that’s their dream. But when you have all that allocated time to spend and can only settle for what would revolutionize the gaming industry, you have an incredibly small output compared to what would actually suffice.
They couldn’t take a hit if a game they make gets a negative review
There going to create a fluorescent orange box with all the 3s, created by Valv3 in 3333.
The third letter in their name is “L” so that makes sense.
Valve is a company that prioritizes making something new and interesting, then refining it to a more stable and realized product. After 2 games they usually have done everything they wanted to make and refine a game concept, and have no need for a third game.
They aren’t really in it for the quick buck, they’re in it for the experiments and ideas.
Because lord gaben is too sleepy
Trilogies are a relic of a bygone generation. It died with the likes of halo 3, gears of war 3 etc. Even those franchises made sequels after that with worse quality. As other people have said, valve are perfectionists, and in a way, if they never reach 3, the franchise stays immune from sequel fatigue.
Because they don’t need to, the second games in their series’ are great on their own.