Half-Life 3's story wouldn't be 'easy,' ex Valve Writer Chet Faliszek says: "Any sequel is a disaster nightmare that I never want to do"

When you think about Half-Life 3, and I’m still guilty of it from time to time, the biggest question is where the story would go. You might have come up with all manner of theories; I’ve certainly seen plenty of weird ones over the years. Perhaps you believe the path forward is extremely obvious. But former Valve Writer Chet Faliszek, who worked on both Half-Life 2 Episode One and Two along with the likes of Portal and Left 4 Dead, thinks it’s a much more intimidating prospect than you realize.

Faliszek’s latest Half-Life 3 thoughts come in response to a message on his TikTok claiming, “It would be so incredibly easy to make a Half-Life 3. It wouldn’t even be hard. The plot could go anywhere.” Faliszek squints suspiciously into the camera for a few seconds before answering, and is quick to caveat his response. “This is not saying that something’s happening, not trying to allude to anything – I’m going to talk about some stuff from ten-plus years ago. I’m not trying to say anything.”

Could the Half-Life 3 story really go anywhere? “Here’s the thing… for some people it could.” He asks, “Do you know what happened at the end of Half-Life 2 Episode Two? Not the sad part of the end, but what did the rocket do? You launched a rocket – what did it do? Why did you launch it? Do you know?” He leans in. “Do you? You would be surprised.” I thought I did, though I won’t spoil it here (you should play it for yourself), but now I’m not so sure.

“Maybe 15 years ago, before Half-Life Alyx – and Alyx maybe changed things or not, you decide – we at Valve, all the writers, pulled together and pooled all the lore of Half-Life so we were consistent. Everybody understood the meaning of it. At the end of that, one person said, ‘Oh, so Gordon Freeman is just a hired hitman that goes around and travels the universe for the G-Man.'” Another side eye to camera.

“Maybe… I’m not saying, I’m not saying the conclusions we drew to. But when people ask me, ‘Oh don’t you wish you could-‘ No. I almost never want to touch something that already has some kind of lore or back history about it. Not even Left 4 Dead or anything. I don’t want to touch anything old. I don’t have to have people who remember stuff better than I do yelling at me about changing some history or lore from 50 years ago at this point.”

Faliszek recalls talking with Bungie developers about “their big game.. not Marathon.” He doesn’t actually clarify which one verbally, although he leaves an on-screen message noting, “I meant Halo, or did I mean Destiny? Or Myth? Bring back Myth Bungie!” He continues, “They have so much lore, and that lore terrifies me. I don’t know that much lore about my own life, let alone your game. I don’t want to have to write inside of that.”

Returning to his point, Faliszek concludes, “Any sequel to me is just a disaster nightmare that I never want to do. So I’m not going to. That’s one of the good things in my life, I can decide that… Or it’ll be decided for me, but still… No, I don’t want to touch that with a ten foot pole, or even a grav gun separating me from that ten foot pole. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it with Dog’s arms.”