It’s been ten years since Valve announced Half Life 2: Episode 3 and the internet is pretty much convinced that the game will never be made. Originally conceived back when episodic gaming was nowhere near as prevalent as it is in this post-Telltale world, Valve hoped that splitting one giant game (Half Life 3) into three parts and releasing them episodically would shorten the wait between releases.
The idea worked, at the start. Half Life 2 launched November 2004 with Lost Coast bridging the gap in October 2005, Episode 1 in June 2006 and Episode 2 in October 2007. It was a big change from the wait between Half Life 1 and 2, a problematic development cycle that saw a six year wait.
But even the wait between Half Life and Half Life 2 seems like small beans compared to the ten year wait that players have endured just for the small confirmation that Valve is even working on the title. In that time, Steam has grown to become a platform more profitable than Google. We’ve seen Valve launch several titles, a lucrative skin market for multiple games, mold their games for eSports, run numerous high profile tournaments, launch a hardware brand, VR, and more.
And yet, despite this massive success, the company refuses to comment on Half Life.
The lack of information coming from Valve has only fueled the speculation on why Half Life 3 hasn’t been fully announced. Is it because they are making too much money elsewhere? Because they waited too long and believe that the game missed its mark? Or because they are waiting for major engine updates to Source? Or because they’re figuring out a way to add microtransactions to a single player game?
Either way, we’re looking at the tenth anniversary since Valve announced the next Half Life 2 game with just as much information as we had ten years ago.
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