Half-Life 2 – don’t expect any of these features to carry over if Half-Life 3 ever does get made (pic: Valve)



While fans continue to wait for any new Half-Life game, a Valve insider has shared alleged first details of a Half-Life 3 build from 2015.



You’d think that after all these years, everyone would’ve give up hope that there’d ever be a Half-Life 3, but not only do fans still cling to the idea but so too do developer Valve. Especially after they described the release of VR title Half-Life: Alyx as ‘ our return to this world, not the end of it .’



Still, aside from rumours of a Half-Life: Alyx sequel , there’s yet to be any official news of another Half-Life game, let alone Half-Life 3 itself.



However, a new report has shed light on some of Valve’s plans for Half-Life 3 and suggests that one such attempt to make the game was cancelled in 2015, but did get relatively far.



These details involve the most recent attempt to make Half-Life 3 (that people know of), which contained a playable opening section but was cancelled in 2015. It’s existence was rumoured at the time, although apparently there was only a team of 10 working on it.



This build apparently began with protagonist Gordon Freeman experiencing a dream sequence of the Seven Hour War (which took place before Half-Life 2 and saw the alien Combine take over Earth) before waking up in Aperture Science, the setting of the Portal games.



This would’ve also been after the events of Portal 2 , with Gordon finding himself with a robot arm and the ability to solve puzzles by resizing objects and changing their temperature.



Upon escaping the labs, Gordon would discover it’s been 20 years since the last game, several characters from Half-Life 2 are dead, and he is now in the ruins of a North American city.



This is all according to well regarded Valve leaker and reporter Tyler McVicker , who says this is all the information he’s gathered since late 2016. He adds that Half-Life 3 would not only have sported a darker tone and a strong focus on stealth, but would also feature a more open-ended environment.



Not open world per se, but the game would have been less linear and contain procedurally generated quests for Gordon to complete.









McVicker does stress that, unless Valve confirms the legitimacy of his information, there’s no guarantee any of this is accurate. Plus, if Half-Life 3 ever does see the light of day, it probably won’t resemble this cancelled build anyway.



In any case, the story scenario literally can’t happen anymore since Half-Life: Alyx alters events from Half-Life 2, setting up a new storyline that likely doesn’t involve any 20 year time skips.



As for why the project was shuttered in 2015, McVicker chalks it up to ‘internal conflict’ and higher-ups losing interest in releasing traditional first person shooters and preferring to focus on virtual reality.



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Nowadays, Valve is apparently eager to release more Half-Life games , with the Half-Life: Alyx team in particular expressing an interest in doing so.



In late 2021 , though, McVicker claimed that there still wasn’t a Half-Life 3 or Half-Life: Alyx 2 game in development. That said, he believes a first person shooter/real-time strategy hybrid set within the Half-Life universe codenamed Citadel is still in the works.



Half-Life: Alyx – will we ever see the G-Man again? (pic: Valve)



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