Gabe Newell, the founder and CEO of game maker and retailer Valve, just can’t stop making jokes about Half-Life 3. You know, the long, long – i.e. more than a decade now – anticipated sequel to Half-Life 2: Episode Two?
The latest gag comes through a comedy sketch that Newell put on with coworkers and screened during Valve’s Dota 2 International tournament, a massive live competition for its eponymous multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game. The sketch sees Newell performing voice recordings for an upcoming expansion pack for Dota 2.
Newell begins spouting off canned, deadpan lines that would play during a game session as a player racks up more and more kills in succession. However, he has trouble with one particular line.
“Triple kill.”
“I don’t understand … what’s my motivation,” Newell asks his producers. The producers, having been at this for hours, are clearly distressed at this point after having tried the line several times. Obviously, it’s all a metaphor for how Half-Life fans have felt for more than a decade, waiting for Newell to just say the words “half”, “life” and “three” together in the same sentence, and mean it.
“You’ve killed more than two people… and less than four,” Newell finally says.
We’ve all, at one point, felt the look of exasperation on the producers’ faces following that, but for an entirely different reason. And, Newell – or ‘Gaben,’ as fans have dubbed him – knows it. He knows it, and he’s going to hold onto that, because it’s a troll’s treasure trove.
By this point, if you don’t look at these bits and chuckle into a defeated groan, like you do when dad makes the same pun for the umpteenth time, then it’s time to let go, which should be exactly the point when Half-Life 3 gets confirmed – we hope.
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Via The Verge
