And so November 19 came—and went—and Valve still hasn't counted up to three. Though the hype was greater than it was since 2007, Half-Life 3 remains as elusive as ever, with none of the theories turning out to be true. But that, some think, could be on purpose.
Everyone was preparing to witness greatness: the final announcement of Half-Life 3, nearly 20 years after the second game "concluded" with a massive cliffhanger in Episode 2. The insiders were hopeful, some even offered dates, and SteamDB data mining showed Valve was (maybe) cooking something up on November 19th, the 27th anniversary of Half-Life 1.
But as reality is often disappointing, Valve seems to have cooked up exactly nothing. November 18 came, the supposed cut-off date for the Steam store's banner (which turned out to be true, but nothing filled it), and so did the 19th, the anniversary date that had all the cosmic might behind it (27 is 3 cubed, it's 33 days before The Game Awards, etc.) but still ended up leaving a void greater than was there before.
Half-Life 3, gaming's biggest hope, eluded us once again.
New theories are, naturally, already forming. Some say Valve could be leaking these supposed "dates" into the wild precisely to combat leaks, i.e., mislead insiders into transferring the wrong information to the public to maintain secrecy and the element of surprise. Others believe The Game Awards makes more sense for a blockbuster announcement, which is no less because Geoff Keighley, the host, is very close to Valve itself.
Others still maintain that something has to happen in 2025, with insiders claiming Valve will almost certainly announce a project by the end of the year. This is, however, Valve we're talking about, to whom time is a flat circle and a concept it conceives of in its own way. "This year" could literally mean anything, and any and all announcement windows could be pushed back, apparently indefinitely in HL3's case.
The Steam Machine got announced, too, so that lends credence to Valve possibly preparing a first-party launch title for it, but that could also be a game of any kind, or merely a smaller-scale project like those built for the Valve Index. It might be a third-party partnership as well, which would potentially see Valve become a publisher, but even that's just total speculation, as we simply do not know.
So, instead of readministering hopium and copium and seething once things don't turn out the way we'd like them to, we should just expect nothing and avoid being disappointed altogether. Hell, even Gabe Follower, who spends most of his time digging through Source 2 files, agrees this should be the common way of thinking.
But that wouldn't be fun, now would it?
The post It’s now been 27 years and 1 day since Half-Life 1’s launch, and despite all the leaks, it still isn’t a trilogy appeared first on Destructoid.
