To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the release of the first version of the classic sci-fi FPS “Half-Life”, a special discount page on Steam has been launched withCommemorative update webpagesimultaneously released a one-hour exclusive interview with the development team. Valve co-founder Gabe Newell (G Fat) and his development partners talked about the secret behind the temporary decision to postpone the launch of this game on the eve of its release.
The bulk of contemporary games are digitally released, and they often rely on the Internet to release updates to fix bugs that have not been completed in the first release and QA testing. However, in the eyes of the developers of “Thriller”, a fun game should be polished, and no delay will be tolerated, such as This game was originally scheduled to be released in November 1997, but the team decided to make an emergency call.
“Three months before the release in 1997, we felt like something wasn’t right,” game engineer Ken Birdwell recalled in the documentary. “It felt really bad, like a quickly thrown together, money-grabbing piece of shit, and we decided not to do it. Do.”
“There is a serious disconnect between different development teams, programs, levels, and animation designs. Many monsters are not put into the game because no one is assigned to deal with them. We have a lot of levels, but what should be put in them?”
Valve co-founder Mike Harrington said that the team and publisher Sierra were pressed for time at the time, and in the end they told each other not to release the game. Even though they realized that they might not get their money back, they still insisted on continuing development.
“The delay (release) is temporary, but the badness is permanent,” G Fat added. Instead of making quick money and being happy for a while, it is better to really make the game well and have a clear conscience. “We can force the ducks to be released, but this is not our ideal. This is not the company we want to be, and this is not the relationship we want to build with our consumers.”
G Fat has a lot of golden words in the documentary, such as about “realistic considerations”. If he was told at a game design meeting that this is not realistic enough, “What’s the fun in being realistic? In real life, I would write about shopping in a grocery store. list, and I never thought realism was fun, I played games for fun.”
“Thriller” has undoubtedly influenced FPS science fiction games for nearly a quarter of a century. Just like Valve’s “Absolute Force”, “Evil Force”, “Fortress” and other heavyweight IP series, its status in the player community is indelible. , perhaps it is because of the stubborn development spirit of this group of people. But these are all things of the past, I dare to ask when Fatty G will count to three (laughs).
