Sorry PC gamers, Valve isn't announcing Half-Life 3 today

(Image credit: Valve)

I'm not a habitual reader of the r/HalfLife subreddit, so I can only assume that it's not every day you see these sorts of threads dominate its front page:

"Today's the day boys!"
"I CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE"
LET IT BE TRUE!"
"THE TOMORROW IS NOW MY BROTHERS"
"I'm all in"
"I want to believe"

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Half-Life diehards, but Valve isn't announcing Half-Life 3 today. It's too busy announcing a whole lot of other stuff, instead.

This may be the biggest news day of the decade for Valve in terms of simultaneous product announcements. It's got not one, not two, but three things to talk about, and we went to Valve's headquarters in Bellevue, Washington to check them out:

Steam Frame: A new wireless VR headset
Steam Machine: A compact living room gaming box (they're back!)
Steam Controller: A controller with trackpads (it's also back!)

Unfortunately you'll notice that none of those things are Half-Life 3. Bummer!

The rumor mill really got swirling over the past week or so, as signs on the Steam store and engagement bait hints on social media created a lot of smoke that could, theoretically, been a Half-Life 3 signal. But no, this time around the smoke's coming from a different fire.

Though if you do want to keep hope burning in your heart, the Steam Frame and Steam Machine aren't set to launch until sometime in 2026, which means Valve could be developing a new Half-Life game to serve as a killer app for its new systems. That'd be pretty cool, huh?

If your body runs on Half-Life 3 copium rather than blood, maybe that's enough to keep you alive into next year. Just keep in mind we've had almost 20 years of Half-Life 3 disappointments, rumors, and "confirmed" moments that turned out to be nothing.

TOPICS

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.