Most of Valve’s fans have probably grown tired of reading the words “Half-Life 3 confirmed”, and indeed, it seems that fatigue has already set throughout the community, with people becoming more and more wary of any “announcement”. However, whenever something even remotely official happens, the hype train is back up to full speed in a matter of hours – as was the case with a recent revelation that a Swedish game store had put up a listing for Valve’s legendary upcoming title, citing its release date as 2015.
The store’s website has a page listing “Half-Life 3” at 449 Kr, stating that the game is coming out in 2015 – but nothing else is available on the page, not even any box art. Because of this, fans have been speculating that this could be a simple mistake by someone on the shop’s staff, or even a joke.
And it certainly wouldn’t be the first time this has happened with “Half-Life 3” in particular, as various other online stores have put up a listing for the game before, only to have it taken down in a few days/weeks. Valve have, as usual, not made any comments on the situation, and it’s expected that the company will keep quiet throughout the ordeal anyway. They seem to have already said what they have to say about the situation through their previous public statements.
What’s going on with the game though? At this point, it’s been “confirmed” at least several times by various sources close to the development, the most recent example being none other than Minh Le. Le, who rose to prominence by creating “Counter-Strike” more than a decade ago, and was subsequently employed by Valve, revealed that he’s seen artwork and other small development materials for the game during his time at Valve’s offices, but he couldn’t share much else about the game.
Whenever “Half-Life 3” does come out, Valve have a lot of pressure on their shoulders with this release. Some have been speculating that because of this reason precisely, the game will probably never come out. At this point, nearly a decade since the last installment in the series, no kind of release could justify the amount of hype that the title has accumulated. Whatever Valve release in the end, fans are fearing, will be a disappointment in the context of a game that’s been in development for so long. These fears have been further fueled by the dramatic failure of “Duke Nukem Forever”. Before “Half-Life 3”, “DNF” was the industry’s poster child for games perpetually stuck in development. A long time after the original announcement, several cancellations and revivals later, the game came out – and it was met with mixed to downright negative reviews, despite thousands of gamers looking forward to its release with a lot of hope.