It wasn’t long ago that Valve’s Gabe Newell said that the company is currently not working on “Half-Life 3”, and they’re focusing on other projects that they deem more important for the time being. Of course, that did little to stop people from discussing rumors about the game, and some were even speculating that Newell was deliberately misleading fans as a lead-up to an upcoming announcement that the studio wants to make a surprise.
And now, we’ve seen another rumor, this time with a much more legitimate source – the SDK, or Software Development Kit, for “Dota 2”. Valve traditionally release their internal development tools in a slightly modified version for public use, allowing their players to easily create custom content for their games. This has been one of the main contributing factors to the success of many of their previous titles, including the first “Half-Life”, which spawned “Counter-Strike” as a result of those same development tools.
In the SDK for “Dota 2”, there is a line that references the execution of a program called “physics_testbed.exe”, with the parameter “-game hl3”. This parameter has been commonly used in Valve’s titles to start a game with a particular mod loaded, and it’s a standard part of the Source engine. From what it seems, this is a tool that works with the same style of parameters, and in this case it operates on content for “Half-Life 3”.
What could this mean, with regards to what Valve have said recently? It could easily be a leftover from the company’s earlier work on the game, or it could directly go against what Gabe Newell said, confirming that the studio is indeed working on the next “Half-Life”.
In any case, one question remains – why was this found in the SDK for “Dota 2” and not any other Valve game. This could be a good indication that it’s a recent development, and with that in mind, it could point towards “Half-Life 3” being announced soon. If that does happen, the industry is going to see a very peculiar period, as it will be one of the most anticipated announcements in the entire history of gaming.
Knowing the game’s popularity and its special place in gamers’ hearts though, Valve will probably not approach its release like any random regular game, and they’ll try to do something truly special for their fans. What exactly – it’s impossible to tell, as the possibilities are practically infinite, especially for a company with Valve’s track record of surprising their fans in creative ways. When they’re ready to bring “Half-Life 3” to the world, they might even do another Alternate Reality game, like the one that surrounded the launch of “Portal 2”.