November 19, 2013 at 21:36Today Half-Life is 15 years old
15 years ago, on November 19, 1998, the first game from the Half-Life series from the young company Valve was released. A whole generation had already grown up in games of the time and HL really was a breakthrough at that moment. Half-Life is still the most successful game of the genre, selling 20 million copies.
Gabe Newell, after graduating from Harvard University, got a job at Microsoft, participated in the development of early versions of Windows, becoming a millionaire.
Gabe Newell
Mike Harrington and Gabe Newell, who spent 13 years at Microsoft, left the company, after which they create - Valve.
Mike Harrington
After founding Valve, they acquired the first Quake engine from John Carmack. Harrington and Newell recruited not professional programmers, designers, but people from the people, authors of modifications, lovers of self-taught things that no one would have looked at in other companies. Of course, the company also had professionals, all the plot surprises were approved by the writer, science fiction writer Mark Laidlaw.
Getting to work, Valve immediately formed two teams working on different projects. The first project, Quiver, was supposed to be a first-person shooter similar to the Doom game, with an emphasis on alien monsters, weapons and adrenaline.
Another project, Prospero, was supposed to be a grim literary game built on sources ranging from Mist to Borges. But when Half-Life reached a critical mass, gradually began to draw in each member of the team, the scenes began to be borrowed from Prospero, thereby creating a great emphasis on plot and atmosphere in Half-Life.
Meanwhile, Valve already knew that Half-Life would not be able to become a good enough game if you did not give the developers time to rethink and remake everything from the very beginning. At the end of 1997, Gabe gives the team exactly one year to bring Half-Life to mind. And this extra time has changed the world.
Initially, there was no Gordon Freeman, they didn’t even think about him. There was Ivan the Cosmic Biker, a fat, sweaty, red-haired man with a big beard, who was supposed to cut through space on his futuristic motorcycle.
Well, then, you already know how the game turned out.
PS: In the comments, I propose to recall those times and share memories.
For those who have not played, here is a summary of the plot:
Half-Life was one of the first games in which the plot develops completely inside the game space without the use of video screensavers. Gaming publications praised the innovative style of storytelling, which is the main advantage of the game. Another strength of Half-Life is called the artificial intelligence of opponents. Half-Life is one of the first games where a player has allies. Many publications note that Half-Life revolutionized the first-person shooter genre and ushered in a new stage in its development.
Gabe Newell, after graduating from Harvard University, got a job at Microsoft, participated in the development of early versions of Windows, becoming a millionaire.
Gabe Newell
Mike Harrington and Gabe Newell, who spent 13 years at Microsoft, left the company, after which they create - Valve.
Mike Harrington
After founding Valve, they acquired the first Quake engine from John Carmack. Harrington and Newell recruited not professional programmers, designers, but people from the people, authors of modifications, lovers of self-taught things that no one would have looked at in other companies. Of course, the company also had professionals, all the plot surprises were approved by the writer, science fiction writer Mark Laidlaw.
Getting to work, Valve immediately formed two teams working on different projects. The first project, Quiver, was supposed to be a first-person shooter similar to the Doom game, with an emphasis on alien monsters, weapons and adrenaline.
Another project, Prospero, was supposed to be a grim literary game built on sources ranging from Mist to Borges. But when Half-Life reached a critical mass, gradually began to draw in each member of the team, the scenes began to be borrowed from Prospero, thereby creating a great emphasis on plot and atmosphere in Half-Life.
Meanwhile, Valve already knew that Half-Life would not be able to become a good enough game if you did not give the developers time to rethink and remake everything from the very beginning. At the end of 1997, Gabe gives the team exactly one year to bring Half-Life to mind. And this extra time has changed the world.
Initially, there was no Gordon Freeman, they didn’t even think about him. There was Ivan the Cosmic Biker, a fat, sweaty, red-haired man with a big beard, who was supposed to cut through space on his futuristic motorcycle.
Well, then, you already know how the game turned out.
PS: In the comments, I propose to recall those times and share memories.
For those who have not played, here is a summary of the plot: