'Half-Life' retrospective holds lessons for VR

The writer on formative action game "Half-Life" has published his never-before-seen recollection of the title's development process and, as an immersive, first-person adventure, its lessons are still relevant today as virtual reality experiences gain ground.

A retrospective written the day after 1998 standard setter "Half-Life" was released has now been made available by its author and games writer Marc Laidlaw via his personal website. Now retired, Laidlaw has been going through archive material and has happened upon a trove of documents dating back to his first few years at "Half-Life," "Portal" and "Dota 2" developer Valve.

Upon its release, "Half-Life" was heralded as a watershed moment for video games. Its protracted development cycle justified, the game attained a consistency of quality throughout that had seldom been seen before.
What's more, its storytelling broke new ground. Lead character Gordon Freeman, a laboratory-dwelling hero who goes on to save the world from alien invasion, is the epitome of a silent protagonist, a conscious choice by "Half-Life" designers. 

"My feeling was that if we were going to do a first-person game, we should stay in first person the entire time, and never break the narrative spell or jar the player out of the story for even a moment," Laidlaw wrote. Though his own conviction wavered, another team member proved the game didn't need a third-person camera at all. The knock-on effect was "an interesting challenge," Laidlaw recalls, and one whose influence may yet have an impact on today's nascent virtual reality experiences. "How could we make a real character out of someone you never saw, and who never uttered so much as one word?" he asked. "Well, we let the player solve that problem for himself."

"You start the game knowing very little about Gordon; but apparently everyone else knows you who are, and they fill you in on their expectations. In the gray zone between the player's ignorance and the [other characters'] knowledge of Gordon, something rather interesting happens. Players create their own Gordon Freeman -- a character they can identify with completely."

"There is nothing to jar you out of Gordon, once you're in the game. He never says anything stupid that you would never say in a million years. He never does anything you wouldn't do -- since you are behind all his actions. He becomes a hollow receptacle into which every player pours himself."

That doesn't negate the importance of story; far from it. "What players seem to want is more story," not less, Laidlaw wrote, but it has to be "story that is integrated into the action, story that matters but doesn't bog you down."