Unreleased Half-Life games

Half-Life is a series of first-person shooter games developed and published by Valve, beginning with the original Half-Life, released for Windows in 1998. The earliest known canceled Half-Life game dates to 1999. Between Half-Life 2: Episode Two (2007) and Half-Life: Alyx (2020), Valve canceled at least five Half-Life games, including Half-Life 2: Episode Three, a version of Half-Life 3, and games by 2015, Inc., Junction Point Studios and Arkane Studios. On November 23, 1999, GameSpot reported that 2015, Inc. was developing a Half-Life expansion pack to follow Half-Life: Opposing Force. 2015, Inc declined to comment. On March 18, 2000, the Adrenaline Vault reported that the new expansion was named Half-Life: Hostile Takeover, and that it had appeared on retail product lists with a release date of late August. On August 7, the Adrenaline Vault reported that Sierra, the Half-Life publisher, had informed them that Hostile Takeover had been canceled. The stock keeping unit for Hostile Takeover was repurposed by online retailers for Half-Life: Counter-Strike. On June 21, 2001, Valve filed a video game trademark for "Hostile Takeover". After several extensions, the trademark expired on October 3, 2004. On February 14, 2000, Sierra announced that a port of Half-Life for the Dreamcast console was in development by Captivation Digital Laboratories with Valve and Gearbox Software. The Dreamcast port would feature improvements including higher-polygon characters and new lighting effects. Gearbox, who had developed Opposing Force, created a new single-player campaign for the Dreamcast port, Half-Life: Blue Shift, focusing on the security guard Barney. The port was delayed to September 2000, then November, when game publications began to receive early copies for review. Reception was mixed, with criticism for the inconsistent frame rate, long loading times and lack of online play. Sierra planned to release a version with online multiplayer using SegaNet.