There’s hardly a name in gaming that generates more hype with its mere mention than that of “Half-Life 3”, and the day when Valve officially announce that the game is coming will likely see the Internet coming to a halt from all the traffic generated as a result. Until then though, speculation is all gamers have – and they’ve certainly been quite active with it too. And now, it seems that those rumors may finally be put to rest for a while – Gabe Newell, Valve’s co-founder, has just broken the silence and acknowledged the game. However, it wasn’t in the way most gamers were hoping for.

As usual in interviews with Gabe, he was asked about the current status of “Half-Life 3” – and while this was previously met with attempts to dodge the question, this time Gabe directly admitted that the game isn’t happening anytime soon, because it’s not even in development at the moment.

While this might be a huge disappointment to anyone who’s been waiting for the next installment in the epic “Half-Life” series, Gabe did state that the company acknowledges the enormous fan interest in the title, and they haven’t completely scrapped the idea – it’s just been put on hold for now.

That’s not actually so surprising though. There has been a lot of speculation about the game’s future, with many fans believing that Valve may not want to release it anytime soon – or at all. The problem is that “Half-Life 3” is easily the single most hyped game in the entire history of gaming, arguably surpassing even “Duke Nukem Forever” (partly because the latter game eventually came out after all). According to some fans, at this point, no matter what Valve release, it will never live up to the expectations everyone has.

On the other hand, it would certainly be disappointing for “Half-Life” to die out just because Valve are afraid that they’ll never be able to pull it off properly. There are fans of the opinion that it’s better to release the game and conclude the plotline once and for all, than to keep it in limbo forever.

Valve have a lot on their plate right now anyway, with multiple projects rumored to be underway – and given the company’s small size, they probably couldn’t devote much effort to “Half-Life 3” even if they wanted to. So, with this in mind, it really does seem like the new “Half-Life” is still a long time away, if it’s ever coming at all, and fans should focus their energy and attention on something else. There are always fan-made mods to fill up the void, if nothing else works out in the long run.