It should probably go without saying at this point that Valve have still not said anything about “Half-Life 3”. If they had, it would have been the major headline all over the Web, given the huge popularity the game enjoys despite not even being announced. At the same time, there has been no shortage of rumors about it, and many people remain hopeful for the future.
One of the more interesting recent claims about “Half-Life 3” is that it could go back to the episodic content style which Valve tried – and failed – to utilize previously. The studio wanted to release smaller installments in their “Half-Life” franchise, but make them more frequent.
That didn’t quite work out with the huge delay leading up to the release of “Half-Life 2: Episode 3”, a game which was eventually transformed to “Half-Life 3”. And now, there are rumors that Valve may actually want to revisit that idea, as they now have a different attitude about it and are confident they can pull it off.
We are not so sure this would be a smart move on their part though, as many fans have grown wary of that style of releasing a game. After Valve, other studios made similar attempts, and while some were more successful than Valve themselves, the idea is still seen as questionable in some gaming circles.
Another major rumor about “Half-Life 3” claims that the game could come with virtual reality support, and that’s actually the main reason behind its huge delay. According to these rumors, Valve are waiting for VR technology to get sufficiently advanced, while at the same time they’re putting active work into the game behind the scenes.
We still haven’t seen any leaks or other indications that there is any progress on “Half-Life 3” though, so it’s hard to tell how much of that could actually be true. But then again, this is Valve – a studio known for their secrecy and their ability to keep their work private when they want to, so who knows what they could actually be doing.
If the game is indeed going to come with advanced virtual reality support as its main selling point, we expect the rumors about a next major iteration of the Source Engine to also turn out to be true. We’ve already seen multiple reports all pointing in the direction of significant improvements to Source, but we still don’t know any exact details.
Valve have previewed various pieces of the engine at different points, and they are already using it in some capacity in “Dota 2”. But the major new release could happen around “Half-Life 3”, whenever that game arrives to the market.
On that note, we’ve also seen claims that Valve are already working closely with HTC in order to develop an advanced, high-tech virtual reality experience for their game. It makes sense for Valve to work with them and not, say, Facebook and the Oculus, but on the other hand, that brings up the question of how nothing has leaked so far.
One last rumor claims that the release of the game could be targeted for 2018, in order to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the franchise. The original “Half-Life” came out in 1998, so it would be a great opportunity for Valve to bring out either the sequel, or something else related to the franchise in a couple of years.