A hilarious music video has appeared online, underlining the sad truth that Valve has lost the ability to count to three. Although funny and entertaining, the music clip is also bittersweet as the devoted fan community might’ve lost the chance to play anticipated sequels to iconic franchises forever.
Last year, a deeply intriguing interactive experience called Half-Life: Alyx – Final Hours was released by Geoff Keighley, a well-known industry personality and the host of The Game Awards annual ceremony. In his work, Keighley revealed a lot of information about the production and development of Half-Life: Alyx, and on top of that, many other interesting facts about Valve and its earlier projects were highlighted. For instance, fans learned that over the years, Valve had canceled such anticipated sequels as Half-Life 3 and Left 4 Dead 3 among other gaming initiatives.
The Chalkeaters YouTube channel, which specializes in writing songs about the gaming industry, is back with yet another awesome music video featuring Ellen McLain (who lent her voice to GLaDOS in Portal), a London-based musician The Stupendium, and a very special guest star. Allusively called “Count to three,” the music clip focuses on Valve’s recent history underlining the fact that the company has abandoned developing games, focusing on projects of varying levels of success instead. Artifact’s failure and Steam Machines receive exceptional levels of mockery while Ellen McLain lends the signature sarcasm of her beloved AI role. It’s not the involvement of GLaDOS’ original voice actress that makes the video an absolute gem, though. Gabe Newell himself, the head of Valve, is featured in the video twice singing a couple of the song’s lines. Newell outright admits he still hasn’t learned how to count to three, as according to the legendary developer, after two goes four.
Over the years, Valve has adopted another system of numeration, in which after two goes Alyx. The eponymous Half-Life entry, which released last year for virtual reality systems on PC, has become the first proper return to the iconic franchise since 2007. Not only has Half-Life: Alyx turned out to be a video game of exceptional quality, but it also was chosen as the best VR title of 2020 thanks to a revolutionary approach and innovative mechanics. It wasn’t the Half-Life 3 fans were hoping for, though, as the events of the game took place before Half-Life 2’s plot.
Considering that Gabe Newell himself participated in the deeply sarcastic music video, there might be a lot more to the story than just entertaining the public. It’s been made official that Valve is preparing new unannounced projects. Probably, the highly positive reception of Half-Life: Alyx inspired the company to make a return to proper game development. Additionally, Newell’s self-irony in the video is a promising sign that long-time fans might be up for an unexpected treat.
