Half-Life 3 fever has once again broken out across social media, and the Half-Life subreddit is full of both earnestly hopeful and sarcastically dismissive posts about the supposedly imminent announcement of a sequel to Valve’s landmark 2004 shooter—probably the most speculated-about game ever not to exist.
You might think that all this anticipation was prompted by some big leak: Did dataminers finally discover definitive proof that Half-Life 3 is coming soon? Well, people claim to have found definitive proof of Half-Life 3 in every other Counter-Strike update, so probably, but that’s not what prompted this week’s hype. For the most part, the evidence in support of an announcement happening today seems to be:
- Valve announced Half-Life: Alyx on November 18, 2019
- Today is also November 18
- Half-Life 1 released on November 19, which is also a date in November
- Half-Life 2 released on November 16, and that, too, is a date in November
- Geoff Keighley posted a đź‘€ emoji
Don’t cancel your dinner plans, in other words.
Although… whether or not it announces it today, I do think that Valve probably has a new Half-Life game in the works. The developer put a lot of effort into celebrating the Half-Life 2 anniversary last year—with Gabe Newell very lightly teasing that there’s more to be done in the series—and the ending of Half-Life: Alyx (spoilers!) clearly sets the stage for a new Half-Life game.
It would also make sense for Valve to launch its new Steam Frame VR headset and Steam Machine PC next year with a bundled game or two, an idea that has contributed to this week’s Half-Life 3 speculation.