Half-Life has turned 15 today.
15 years ago, on November 19, 1998, the first game from the Half-Life series from the young Valve company was released. An entire generation had already grown up on the games of that time, and HL really was a breakthrough at that moment. Half-Life is still the most successful game of the genre, selling over 20 million copies.
Gabe Newell after graduating from Harvard University got a job at Microsoft, participated in the development of earlier versions of Windows, becoming a millionaire.
Gabe Newell
Mike Harrington and Gabe Newell, who worked for 13 years at Microsoft, left the company, after which they create - Valve.
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Mike harrington
After the founding of the Valve group, they purchased the first Quake engine from John Carmack. Harrington and Newell recruited not professional programmers, designers, but people from the people, authors of modifications, self-taught fans, whom no one else would have looked at at other companies. Of course, there were professionals in the company, all story surprises were approved by the writer, science fiction writer Mark Leidlow.
Starting work, Valve immediately formed two teams working on different projects. The first project - Quiver, was to become a first-person shooter, similar to the game Doom, with an emphasis on alien monsters, weapons and adrenaline.
Another project, Prospero, was to become a dark literary game, built on sources ranging from Mist to Borges. But when Half-Life reached critical mass, it gradually began to draw in every member of the team, the scenes began to be borrowed from Prospero, thereby creating a big emphasis on plot and atmosphere in Half-Life.
Meanwhile, Valve was already clear that Half-Life could not be a good enough game, if not to give developers time to rethink and redo everything from the very beginning. At the end of 1997, Gabe gives the team exactly a year, to bring Half-Life to mind. And this extra time has changed the world.
Initially, there was no Gordon Freeman, they did not even think about him. There was Ivan Cosmic Biker, a fat, sweaty, red-haired man with a broad beard, who was supposed to cut through space on his futuristic motorcycle.
Well, after that, 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 brief plot content:
Half-Life has become one of the first games in which the storyline develops completely within the playing space without using video clips. Gaming publications praised the innovative style of narration, 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 the player has allies. Many publications note that Half-Life has revolutionized the genre of first-person shooter and marked the beginning of a new stage of its development.
Gabe Newell after graduating from Harvard University got a job at Microsoft, participated in the development of earlier versions of Windows, becoming a millionaire.
Gabe Newell
Mike Harrington and Gabe Newell, who worked for 13 years at Microsoft, left the company, after which they create - Valve.
')
Mike harrington
After the founding of the Valve group, they purchased the first Quake engine from John Carmack. Harrington and Newell recruited not professional programmers, designers, but people from the people, authors of modifications, self-taught fans, whom no one else would have looked at at other companies. Of course, there were professionals in the company, all story surprises were approved by the writer, science fiction writer Mark Leidlow.
Starting work, Valve immediately formed two teams working on different projects. The first project - Quiver, was to become a first-person shooter, similar to the game Doom, with an emphasis on alien monsters, weapons and adrenaline.
Another project, Prospero, was to become a dark literary game, built on sources ranging from Mist to Borges. But when Half-Life reached critical mass, it gradually began to draw in every member of the team, the scenes began to be borrowed from Prospero, thereby creating a big emphasis on plot and atmosphere in Half-Life.
Meanwhile, Valve was already clear that Half-Life could not be a good enough game, if not to give developers time to rethink and redo everything from the very beginning. At the end of 1997, Gabe gives the team exactly a year, to bring Half-Life to mind. And this extra time has changed the world.
Initially, there was no Gordon Freeman, they did not even think about him. There was Ivan Cosmic Biker, a fat, sweaty, red-haired man with a broad beard, who was supposed to cut through space on his futuristic motorcycle.
Well, after that, 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 brief plot content:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/202808/
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