Original Counter-Strike co-creator Minh 'Gooseman' Le, who made the titular Half-Life mod turned FPS icon with Jess Cliffe some 25 years ago, says he "kind of regrets" leaving Valve after the company snapped up him and the game.
Speaking with PCGamesN, Le recalls the early days of joining Valve and discussions on the future of Counter-Strike. Le says the folks at Valve were his "idols," so he jumped at the chance to join the company. Though work soon began on a follow-up to Counter-Strike, releasing a whole new game didn't seem to be in the cards at the time. (Ironically, we now have Counter-Strike 2, an iterative evolution of Global Offensive. I wonder how Le would've perceived the big bold "2" on it 20 years ago.)
"I was speaking to [Gabe Newell] and some of the higher ups and we came to the decision that I wasn't able to work on a game that I could mold in the way I molded Counter-Strike," Le says. "We both realized that Counter-Strike had reached its apex. It was impossible for us to change it in any way, because the community was so used to it. I was very much wanting to come up with different features."
So, Le left and eventually made his own shooter, Tactical Intervention, which released in 2013 to poor reviews. More recently, Le formed his own studio, Ultimo Ratio Games, which launched its first game last month: Alpha Response, a tactical police shooter with much better reviews and, interestingly, some very solid single-player offerings.
Le stresses that his departure from Valve was "an amicable decision" with no bad blood. "But a part of me kind of regrets it," he adds. "Looking back, my decision to leave Valve was, financially, kind of a poor decision. If I had stayed with Valve, I would have been able to retire by now.
"But I took a harder route. I went off on my own, made some poor business decisions, worked with some bad companies and bad actors. But I learned a lot and I was able to grow as a game developer."
With Counter-Strike being the gigantic FPS, esports, and lootbox empire that it is today, sticking with it, and perhaps swallowing his other game dev ambitions, certainly could've led Le to a more lucrative career. But as he implies, that would have come with its own sacrifices. One thing's for sure: nothing will ever change the fact that that was one heck of a Half-Life mod and Le has cultivated one heck of a legacy.
