When it comes to groundbreaking debuts in the gaming industry, few can match the monumental impact of Valve’s Half-Life. While the studio is now widely recognized for its platform Steam, popular MOBAs, and the long wait for Team Fortress 2 updates, the original Half-Life marked a significant turning point for the first-person shooter genre, much like Doom had done five years earlier. Its compelling narrative and engaging gameplay not only captured players’ imaginations but also laid the groundwork for iconic titles like Counter-Strike. Interestingly, Valve had initially contemplated a different title as its launch project.
At the 2025 Game Developers Conference (GDC), Valve’s former chief marketing officer, Monica Harrington, shared insights during the panel discussion titled ‘How Valve Became Valve: An Insider’s Account,’ where she reflected on the company’s early days while being interviewed by an audience member. Harrington recounted the intense recruiting efforts to assemble the Half-Life development team, with the studio actively seeking talent worldwide to relocate to Seattle. However, there was a notion of developing an alternative game to help build this team, which ultimately did not materialize.
The concept involved creating a secondary title that would precede Half-Life, thereby facilitating team growth. Harrington remarked, “The original idea was to do what they called the B title. This was going to be just kind of a mediocre game, and the idea was that the building of that game would build out the team.”
Ultimately, she played a crucial role in dismantling this proposal, asserting, “I told them, I led them through the business analysis, and I said that’s just not gonna work. If you do that, the company will fail.” She further elaborated, “From the very beginning, we said you need to go all out. It’s got to be in that top 10. I told Gabe that I thought the only way that Half-Life was really going to work was if it was named Game of the Year.” Although Harrington did not elaborate on what this potential “mediocre” game might have been, it ignites a fascinating discussion about alternate realities. Had this game released, who knows—perhaps the Dreamcast would have thrived, and PlayStation games would currently be available on Xbox platforms.
Additionally, Harrington revealed that the Half-Life development team faced apprehension following the game’s impressive E3 1998 presentation, as they believed that Gabe Newell had “promised things that they couldn’t possibly deliver.”