Half-Life 3 confirmed (ish)! Here’s all the rumours, art and leaks we’ve seen so far

By Patrick Garratt

Oh, happy day! Counter-Strike co-creator Minh Le’s apparently confirmed Valve’s working on Half-Life 3. Here’s everything we know so far.

It’s happened. Speaking in an interview with goRGNtv Counter-Strike co-creator Minh Le’s confirmed that Valve is working on Half-Life 3 (at least that’s what he believes). Rumours pertaining to the game have been around forever, but let’s catch up and make sure we all know what’s what. Off we go.

• Half-Life 3 ARG talk emerged around the VGAs in 2011, but Valve quickly shooed it off.

• The biggest supposed leak related to Half-Life 3 took place in June 2012, when ValveTime got hold of what looked very much like legitimate concept art. You can look at the entire set on ValveTime if you haven’t see it already. The images heavily feature Alyx and clearly show Arctic environments and what appears to be a revisit to Xen. The site claimed the images were from Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Steam mods vouched for the art’s validity.

• September 2012 brought with it a rumour that Half-Life 3 had evolved into an open-world game readying to ship after 2013. A source claimed Half-Life 3 features had seen a “total revision” following a “very chaotic” development schedule.

• In June 2013, this image appeared, seemingly showing a list of Half-Life 3-related development files on Jira, Valve’s internal bug-tracking and management platform.

• In August 2013, Valve voice actor John Patrick Lowrie stuck his foot in it when comments surfaced claiming Valve wasn’t working on Half-Life 3. Lowrie quickly retracted the quotes, saying he’d spoken out of turn.

• In October 2013, a security breach showed what appeared to be two Half-Life 3 teams working at Valve. The core team is said to have ten members, while a further group of 46 staffers is working in an extended team.

• In late October 2013, a Half-Life 3 trademark was supposedly filed in Europe, but Valve quickly debunked it. It was a hoax.

• And then today it emerged that Counter-Strike co-creator Minh Le’s had confirmed in an interview that Valve is working on Half-Life 3. So rest easy, space fans.

Note: This is an overview of everything related to Half-Life 3 based on VG247 reporting. If you want an exhaustive collection of absolutely everything ever put on the internet about Half-Life 3, try Wikia.