Gabe Newell himself said some time ago that he sees VR as the next big thing in the industry, and he has always been one step ahead of everyone else in his creative thinking. It’s not out of the question that he was already envisioning the release of “Half-Life 3” with virtual reality technology.
For now, Valve are clearly focused on “Dota 2” and “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive”, and that is likely occupying their development resources to a large extent. Whether this is the main reason for their apparent lack of work on “Half-Life 3” or something else – such as waiting for the industry to arrive to the right state as we described above – will never be revealed to the public.
One thing is certain though – if we hear the big announcement one day, this game will be an industry changer. We are not sure exactly what Valve will do to justify the long wait, but they will not release a “Half-Life” game that tarnishes the name of the brand, no matter how badly the fans want it.
And if that means never releasing “Half-Life 3” at all… well, sadly, that’s not out of the question either. The studio has plenty of IPs to keep them afloat as a game developer – even forgetting that they own the largest market for PC games in the world – so technically, they don’t even need to release that game in order to survive.