After two decades of Half-Life 3 rumors, each new burst of hope looks a lot like Charlie Brown once again getting set to kick a football. None of the suspicious lines of CS:GO code or yarn-webbed conspiracy board YouTube videos have actually preceded an announcement of the fabled Half-Life 2 sequel. And yet, here we all are again, charging down the field with renewed gusto following Valve’s big hardware announcements.
Given how many times we’ve ended up flat on our backs behind an unkicked football, I cringe to say this, but it’s not unreasonable to believe that a new Half-Life game will be announced within the next year or so. The recent excitement on the Half-Life subreddit is partially due to misunderstandings (reporter Jason Schreier does not in fact have insider information about an imminent announcement), but is at least somewhat justified by the facts:
- The idea that Valve might release a new Half-Life game is no longer in the realm of pure imagination, as it put out the VR-only Half-Life: Alyx in 2020
- The Half-Life: Alyx ending (spoilers) very much leaves the door open for future Half-Life games
- Five years is enough time to have made a new Half-Life game (although barely, these days), or at least gotten far enough into development to announce it
- Valve just announced new hardware, and new hardware also preceded the announcement of Half-Life: Alyx
- Valve made a big deal of Half-Life 2’s recent 20th anniversary, and very lightly teased a future for the series
Before we get to my prediction, let’s hear what you think: You’ll find a couple of reader polls below, the first on the probability that Valve will announce any Half-Life game within a year, and the second asking whether Valve will specifically announce Half-Life 3. Let us know in the comments how you voted!
Reader polls
My take
There’s probably a Half-Life game in development, but I’m not confident we’ll hear about it soon
Based purely on my own speculation, I think Valve is making a new Half-Life game, and I’d put the chance of it being announced within the next year at 25%. I’m less confident that it’ll actually be called Half-Life 3 (I’ll say 10% for that), but the Half-Life: Alyx ending does pretty clearly set the stage for a new main-series Half-Life game. (If you haven’t played it, you can spoil it for yourself here.)
One reason I’m not more confident we’ll get a Half-Life announcement in the near future is that Gabe Newell said in the Half-Life 2 anniversary documentary that Valve never finished Episode 3 because he couldn’t figure out how it was “pushing anything forward.” In other words, new Half-Life games have to be groundbreaking in some way, not just a continuation of the story.
For Half-Life: Alyx, the exciting new thing was VR (as well as cool bottles), but I can’t figure out what technology or game design idea the next Half-Life will revolve around. Valve has another VR headset on the way, but two VR Half-Lifes in a row would really test the patience of all the Half-Life fans who aren’t interested in VR.
A new Half-Life to bundle with the new Steam Machines is a possibility, but again, I’m not sure what the big innovation would be. I’d applaud the boldness if Valve made it a Linux exclusive, but that seems unlikely. Also unlikely is anything to do with generative AI—Valve hasn’t said much about it, except to make Steam games disclose when they’ve used it.
Perhaps Valve will surprise us and release a new Portal game instead, or some other Half-Life universe spinoff. An important part of Half-Life lore that’s still to be explored involves a mysterious ship called the Borealis, and Newell’s lately been filling his time with genuine deep sea exploration—just sayin’.
(He’s also got a neuroscience company making brain chips, so maybe Half-Life 3 will just be the establishment of an actual Aperture Science.)
