I shouldn't say this out loud because it feels like I'm jinxing things, but I think Half-Life 3 might actually be getting closer. Combined with some of the hints, leaks, and rumors from the past couple of months, Valve, generally, seems a little more interested in Half-Life these days. First there was the big 25th anniversary celebration for the original game and now, investigating the Steam backend, it looks like Half-Life 2 might be getting the similar birthday treatment. Four years since Half-Life: Alyx and two decades since the last mainline outing for Gordon Freeman, G-Man, and co., we're certainly – still – very ready for Half-Life 3. But some kind of relaunch of the second game wouldn't go amiss, either.
Back in August, a new update branch was added to the Steam backend of Half-Life 2 called 'test.' As of this writing, that branch was most recently updated just eight hours ago, on Monday October 21. As a matter of fact, the test depot has been updated every day for the past nine days. Before that, on Tuesday October 8, new content descriptors were added to the Half-Life 2 Steam page.
It's just under three weeks until the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2 and the backend updates have been arriving rapidly: in the past 13 days, 22 changes and updates have been logged on SteamDB. Also worth noting, the Half-Life 2 test branch was added in August, some three months before the anniversary.
On November 5, 2023, a new test branch was also added for the original Half-Life. This was roughly two weeks before Half-Life's own 25th anniversary, which heralded the arrival of a restored and revamped version of the shooter.
Half-Life 1 gets a test branch before its anniversary and then, on the day, Valve releases a retooled version of the game. Half-Life 2 gets a test branch before its anniversary and then, on the day…well, we'll see.
As for Half-Life 3, the Valve's own repositories suggest it might be in the works after all.
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