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A few weeks ago Gabe Newell spoke in an interview about the possible future of Half Life 3. Though in the interview he didn’t outright say what the fate of Half Life 3 was, some in the gaming community have considered his words as possible affirmation that Value had washed their hands of the series as they moved forward. Despite this some gamers were holding out hope that perhaps we would actually see Half Life 3 in the coming future. But sadly as it turns out that won’t be the case with the recent news coming out of Valve today that indeed Half Life 3 has been cancelled but for reasons that no one could’ve expected.

A Valve employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak of the matter publically, said that indeed Half Life 3 was cancelled but not because of the changing business of the company or the lack of resources. Instead it turns out that the voice actor who voiced the main character Gordan Freeman had decided to retire, thus leaving Valve with no choice but to scrap the Half Life franchise.

“It was a major blow to the franchise and to Valve as a whole when word came out that the voice actor for Gordan Freeman decided to retire from voice acting,” said the unnamed Valve employee. “As much as we the company wanted to finish what we started with the Half Life series, we couldn’t see ourselves going forward from this point. It wasn’t like we were losing just a voice actor but the character Gordan Freeman himself. It was like as if you lost the voice of Mario from Super Mario Bros or Solid Snake from the Metal Gear Solid series. It just wouldn’t be the same!”

When asked if a possible voice actor replacement was discussed, the unnamed Valve employee said the idea was considered but was quickly scrapped citing the fan backlash that came about when Konami replaced the voice actor of Solid Snake from David Hayter to Kiefer Sutherland in the recent entries in the Metal Gear Solid franchise as the prime example. “No other voice actor could replace the gravitas and depth of character that made Gordan Freeman the respected and well liked character he has become. Not even a voice actor that could mimic what was done before in prior games could come close! When Gordan Freeman spoke people just KNEW it was THE FREEMAN.”

The unnamed Valve employee later stated that an official announcement was to be made later at this year’s E3 from Gabe Newell himself, much like how he did when it came to the announcement of Portal 2 on the PS3. “He had hoped (Newell) wouldn’t have to make this kind of announcement thus the reason why he made his most recent statements on the issue so vague. It was a means to buy some time as we (Valve) continued negotiations with the voice actor’s agent,” Says the anonymous employee. “In the end it was decided to honor the decision of both parties and terminate all business ties.”

Oddly the voice actor in question has remained mute on the subject and had his agent post a statement online about the whole affair, stressing that they could not fully go into detail until the official announcement later this year.  When pressed on the issue all the agent would say was the brief statement of “prvi travnja”

Either way it would appear that the story of Half Life has finally ended but not with a bang, but with a…muted whimper….

Ta-ta

“N”