Half-Life 3 rumor and hypothesis is in overdrive after the voice actor behind G-Man issued a cryptic tweet teasing some kind of information for 2025.
In full G-Man mode, Mike Shapiro tweeted a narrated video in which he marked the top of 2024 by teasing “sudden surprises” for this 12 months, alongside the tags #Valve, #Halflife, #GMan, and #2025.
“One other 12 months already,” Shapiro mentioned in the tweet. “Good to see and listen to from some a lot of you. Might the following quarter century ship as many sudden surprises, hmm, as did the millennium’s first. Then once more time is fluid like music. See you in the brand new 12 months!”
#Valve (*3*) #GMan #2025 pic.twitter.com/mdT5hlxKJT
— Mike Shapiro (@mikeshapiroland) December 31, 2024
That’s fairly obscure, however as many followers have identified, that is Shapiro’s first non-reply tweet since he congratulated Valve on the success of VR unique Half-Life: Alyx again in December 2020. A Shapiro tweet, then, is a uncommon factor certainly. However does this newest one imply something?
Half-Life 2 not too long ago turned 20 years previous, and nonetheless there’s no official Half-Life 3 announcement from Valve regardless of the story ending on a cliffhanger with 2007’s Episode 2. In 2020, a making-of for Half-Life: Alyx revealed a swathe of video games developed and shelved by Valve between the discharge of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Valve’s newest VR recreation. That record included particulars on a model of Half-Life 3 that was in growth for round a 12 months.
Geoff Keighley’s The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx revealed that at the very least 5 Half-Life video games had been canceled between Episode 2 and Alyx, together with quite a lot of different initiatives — probably the most notable of which was referred to inside Valve as Half-Life 3.
In November, to mark Half-Life 2’s twentieth anniversary, Valve opened up about its growth in a documentary that exposed never-before-seen work-in-progress footage, a brand-new Ice Gun, and a raft of latest idea artwork. You possibly can see the gameplay phase from the documentary in the video under.
Among the many particulars proven in the video, Episode 3 would have been set in the Arctic, and it will have centered on Alyx as a companion character. Except for the Ice Gun, the footage reveals a blob-like enemy that might cut up into a number of components. In keeping with the documentary, the group had accomplished a “assortment of playable ranges in no specific order” and anticipated to have the ability to launch the sport inside a 12 months or two.
Valve has a lot on its plate already, in fact, together with ongoing help of Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Steam itself, the Steam Deck, and new recreation Impasse. May it even be engaged on Half-Life 3 alongside all these different initiatives?
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You possibly can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.