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Did Gabe Newell Shed Light On Half-Life’s Future… Through “Ricochet 2”? [UPDATED]

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[UPDATE: Community member Hitiphany has posted up a YouTube mirror of the Ricochet 2 discussion.]

It’s ironic: one of the first times Gabe might have really spoken out about Half-Life, and it turns out that he might have used a codeword for it.

Did Gabe Newell Shed Light On Half-Life’s Future… Through “Ricochet 2”? [UPDATED]

In Seven Day Cool Off’s new audio interview with Gabe Newell, from 21:05 onwards, one of the interviewers finally asked the tough question:

Q: “My final question and the question in the back of all your fans’ minds and everyone has been waiting to ask you for a long time: When can we expect the release of Ricochet 2?”

A: “In terms of Ricochet 2, we always have this problem that when we talk about things too far in advance, we end up changing our minds as we’re going through and developing stuff, so as we’re thinking through the giant story arc which is Ricochet 2, you might get to a point where you’re saying: ‘something is surprising us in a positive way’, and ‘something is surprising us in a negative way’, and – you know, we’d like to be super-transparent about the future of Ricochet 2. The problem is: we think that the twists and turns that we’re going through would probably drive people more crazy than just being silent about it, until we can be very crisp about what’s happening next.”

Q: “I have a quick follow-up on… Ricochet 2, and whether or not – you were talking about the horizontal structure at Steam and Valve, the fact that people move from project to project – with Ricochet 2, have you had people moving off that project, and that’s kind of slowed down that development cycle?”

A: “Uhh, nope – everybody who was/is working on Ricochet 2 continues to work on Ricochet 2. [laughter]”

[Vic: I can’t tell if Gabe said “was working” or “is working”.]

Here’s a YouTube mirror of the actual audio discussion:

It sounds odd, doesn’t it? For one, Ricochet does not have a “giant story arc”, since it’s a multiplayer game. And second, Ricochet 2 doesn’t really seem like the kind of project that would undergo these organic changes that would lead to it undergoing radical redesigns which would ultimately result in it being best kept as a secret. I mean – it’s a multiplayer game that revolves around throwing discs, decapitating people and grabbing power-ups. And, lastly, Valve isn’t developing Ricochet 2. Full stop.

However, if you replace every mention of Ricochet 2 in Gabe’s response with “Half-Life“, then it actually starts making a lot more sense. It sounds like tinfoil talk, but just pay attention to the way Gabe literally cracks up after he answers the last question. It really seems like they’re talking about something else. And if they are, then it might be one of the few times Gabe has shed real light on how Half-Life development might be going inside Valve’s HQ.

Source is Kotaku.

15 Comments

  1. I think that if they get to launch a Ricochet 2, based on that “story-arc” thing, they are going to do what they just did with Portal: get a game based mainly in its gameplay and put in it a related background story.

    • Sure. The thing is that Portal, and its predecessor Narbacular Drop, were exclusively single-player games that had a full background story, aside from an innovative gameplay technique.

      Ricochet, on the other hand, is a cheap multiplayer mode with one weapon, two maps and three power-ups.

  2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=632kyLysP6c made in the 26th of march

    I hope valve are taken the piss!

  3. If you listen close enough, you can hear all the Ricochet 2-related emails flooding Gabe’s inbox.

  4. “everybody who is working on Ricochet 2 continues to work on Ricochet 2.”

    Sounds like actually nobody ever worked on Ricochet 2. Well, no loss.

  5. I’m waiting for DOTA 3!! 🙂

  6. I’m waiting for DOTA 3 🙂

  7. SOB = Ricochet 2

  8. Screw Ricochet 2! Valve what we need is people working on Gunman Chronicles 2. Also Vic, Fart Cops is being developed by the comunity as a Garrysmod mod: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anJYtFeW5i4
    Yes.. he just shit him self.

  9. Oh very interesting, seems that our demand for Ricochet 2: Men of Disks is effective after all… now we only have to demand the release date of the long awaited Day of Defeat: Galactic Warfare.

  10. Ricochet 2: A Call for Communication

  11. soooo, we start asking him about ricochet 2? 😛

  12. Now this is interesting. Cheers Vic 07

  13. FUCK YEAH! Ricochet 2!

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