"The only reason I wanted to talk about [Hunt Down The Freeman] is 'cause of the depressing indictment of modern gaming it creates — not by itself; by Valve's apparent indifference to this waterfall of piss trickling down either side of its legacy's nose. Twenty years ago, Half-Life was a focal point in gaming's ongoing development as an artistic narrative medium. The next few years saw a slough of titles that combined triple-A game design with genuine emotional story. But what happened between then and now? Why are the games routinely rewarded with triple-A status and income exclusively loot box-infested live-service bullshit — games designed, not to inspire or stimulate our emotions, but to numb them and hypnotize us into lab rats mindlessly pawing the button that makes treats come out — while the games created with love and artistic integrity drown beneath waves of bottom-feeders like Hunt Down The Freeman that tear chunks of rotten flesh from the corpses of Valve's children, as Valve itself, once habitual founders of new ages of narrative gaming, merely waves them on, barely glancing up from their tax paperwork? What happened to you? What happened to us? To the people we were supposed to become? I don't know, but it's probably safe to blame John Romero."