The sleuths at Valvetime have reportedly discovered that employees at Valve Software are, at the very least, internally discussing projects like Half-Life 3, Left 4 Dead 3, Source 2, Steam Box and more. IGN has not verified the validity of the leaked information.

According to Valvetime, Valve uses bug-tracking and project management software JIRA to manage production on various projects and as a general inter-office communication/social tool. For a brief period, the company’s JIRA mailing lists and complete project list were fully accessible to the public.

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From here, internet-goers were able to quickly spot employee mailing lists for several tantalizing projects, including Half-Life 3, Left 4 Dead 3, Source 2, Steam Box, and the one-time Portal follow-up F-Stop. Other eyebrow-raising groups include SteamMMO, Episode 3 , Episode 3 Movie, and iOS Dev.But, here’s the catch: all this tells us is that there is an internal Valve mailing list devoted to these topics. It doesn’t mean that Half-Life 3 or any of these other projects are in active development.In fact, although it’s impossible to draw too many direct conclusions, in some ways these working groups seem to pour some cold water on gamers hoping for an imminent Half-Life 3 reveal. Portal 2, for example, has 13 unique JIRA projects, dedicated to game elements like user interface, animation, sound and more. Half-Life 3 just has a single project group. Left 4 Dead 3 has three project folders dedicated to it. Source 2 has 14 different working groups, which seems to more strongly indicate that the revised engine is in active development.Additionally, Valve’s JIRA leak includes mailing lists for a wide variety of “off-topic” subjects including Minecraft, Diablo 3, Skyrim, Pinball, Tea Enthusiasts, Mixed Martial Arts, Hiking, Softball Team, and Hockey.So without access to the contents of the mailing lists themselves, it’s impossible to draw too many conclusions about the existence of a Half-Life 3 project file. The best-case scenario is that this is evidence of the game being in active development. The worst-case scenario is that the list is used for nothing more than compiling rumor round-ups from around the net. This also makes it tough to discern the meaning of mysterious groups like Microbe Wars or Cries Unheard. Are these unannounced Valve games, or something far less interesting?Valvetime does note that JIRA the mailing lists are at least up-to-date and still in use, as they include Valve employees that joined the company as recently as this Spring. IGN has reached out to Valve for comment, but as of now the company has not responded.Source: Valvetime.net

Justin Davis is the second or third best-looking Editor at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter at @ErrorJustin and on IGN