Half Life 3

Half Life 3 is one of the most, if not the most anticipated games of all time. But the developer Valve has kept it's development secret and very little has been leaked or said about this game.

I'm The Duffmaster (from the steam forums) and I decided to make a timeline to try to sort things out. If you want acess to edit the timeline pm me on the steam forums, you must have 100 reps or more. If you did receive the password, DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING OR I WILL CHANGE THE PASSWORD.

Half Life 2: Episode 2 released The game, released alongside the Orange Box, is referred to as "The midpoint in our trilogy of episodes, which will conclude with Episode 3" by Gabe Newell in the game's commentary.

First Episode 3 concept art released This picture shows something similar to the inside of the citadel. It's the first of three images to be released.

Explanation for lack of episode 3 trailer In a November interview, David Speyrer explains that an Episode Three teaser at the end of Episode Two was deliberately omitted to avoid ruining the mood the player would have been in after the final scene by having it followed by a high action trailer. Another reason was to give them more creative freedom, and avoid being committed to anything seen in the potential trailer, stating they are trying to do "something pretty ambitious". He also states they did not want to make the same mistake as with the Episode Two trailer featured at the end of Episode One, as it is radically different from the finished game.

Expected release of Half Life 2: Episode 3 Episode 3's original projected release date, coming from the original 2006 announcement.

Gabe Newell hypes up episode 3 Appearing on GTTV w/ Geoff Keighly, Gabe Newell said that "there's enough new-ness in [Episode 3] that we sorta want to spring it on people and say here is a bunch of things you've never seen before. And have multiple of those." He even said that there will be gameplay paradimes that are cooler than portals.

A folder named episode 3 is found in source sdk In April, source code for three entities is released in the Source SDK in a folder named "Episode3", before being removed shortly after. They include "npc_combine_armored" (a heavily armored Combine soldier with separate shields for each part of its body), "npc_wpnscanner" (a scanner shooting bolts), and "weapon_proto1" (appearing in the Source Particle Benchmark and Episode Two as a test weapon). However, it is later stated by Valve's Tony Sergi that the code is a leftover of old material.

The next two concept images are revealed In July, the second Episode Three concept art is released through the winner list of the Into the Pixel contest of that year, involving Gordon Freeman and his crowbar face to face with a Combine Advisor, and made by Valve artists Ted Backman, Jeremy Bennett, and Tristan Reidford. The same month, the third and last concept art so far is revealed again by GamesRadar.

Doug Lombardi talks about how episode 3 is not exactly on schedule In an interview over at Kikizo, Valve's Doug Lombardi states that news of an announcement of Episode Three might be revealed near the end of the year. In that interview, Lombardi also states that the distance between Episode Two and its sequel will be longer than the distance between the three current Half-Life 2 games.

Doug Lombardi talks about the size of episode 3 as a project Doug Lombardi said "I mean we want the next installment of Half-Life 2 to be really big.... So I mean, we're taking more time because it's a more ambitious project.... So there's just a lot going on, and then an ambitious project on top of it caused the schedule to move out a little bit from the delta of the last three releases in the [HL] franchise." In response to ShackNews.

Gabe Newell talks about episodes 3 stage in development Gabe Newell explains in an interview that Valve is experimenting many techniques on their games, including Episode Three. He adds he has currently nothing to say about the game, and that the community will be notified as soon as they have material they are ready to share.

Gabe Newell talks about bringing half life back to its horror roots In a March interview, Newell hints that Valve intends to return the Half-Life franchise to its psychological horror roots by exploiting the fans' deepest fears, which he sums up as "the death of their children" and "the fading of their own abilities".

Portal ARG not about Half life The same month, the Portal ARG is launched. At the beginning, the community starts to speculate it is related to Episode Three, until it is revealed the ARG is promoting the upcoming Portal 2.

Gabe Newell says that gordon freeman will remain unchanged In an April interview, Gabe Newell states that Gordon Freeman will go unchanged in the next Half-Life game - he wants him to "largely remain an arm and a crowbar." There also are no plans to make him a talking character, as Newell considers making the player's companions more interesting and compelling seems a more fruitful avenue to explore.

Interesting source code found in the game Alien SWarm Shortly after Alien Swarm is released in July, unused hint nodes are found in its SDK, under the names "Ep3 Blob Shake Position", "Ep3 Fire Cover Position", "Ep3 Brain Cover Position", "Ep3 Brain Regenerate Position", "Ep3 Spit Position", "Ep3 Spawn Generator Position", and "Aperture: Nest". Given the prefix "Ep3" and the use of the name "Aperture", these may be leftovers of the sequel to Episode Two.

Doug Lombardi says "sorry" to the community because of the lack of information In an August interview, Doug Lombardi states they hate to make the community wait, but that they have no announcements regarding Gordon Freeman or his ongoing adventures at this time.

Gabe newell expresses his disapointment with the episodic format Gabe Newell says in an IGN interview that it's always hard to predict where Valve's direction of development will go next. He said, "As I'm reminded of on an almost daily basis, we seemed to be really excited about that episodic thing with [Half-Life 2] Episode One and Episode Two, and then we've gone completely radio silent subsequently. Sometimes it's even dangerous for us to predict what we'll do next."

Chet explains that half life 3 is not even close to being ready In February, Chet Faliszek states that Valve is "not prepared to talk about [Episode Three] at the moment".

Doug Lombardi tells the half life community to hang in there When asked about the future of the Half-Life series in a March interview, Doug Lombardi states that they are not done with Gordon Freeman's adventures, and advises the community to "hang in there" with them, without further detail.

Gabe Newell says half life will feature "single player plus" On April 19, Portal 2 is released. The same day, The Final Hours of Portal 2 is released. In it, author Geoff Keighley states that Portal 2 is probably Valve's last game with an isolated single-player experience. This is misunderstood by many members of the community as the simple end of single-player games made by Valve, which is negated by Gabe Newell in a May interview, in which he states that Valve is not done with single-player games, but rather done with single-player games as we know them today, and that they will transform into "single-player plus" games, thus single-player games with social components added to them. He reckons that entertainment is inherently increased in value by having it be social, letting people play with their friends, and recognizing that they are connected with other people, and that they have to work on adding this to their single-player games.

Half Life 2: episode 3 turns into half life 3 In another May interview, Newell states that Valve is done with the episodic model as we know it, now rather updating the same game as much as they want through Steam, which was introduced with Team Fortress 2. This suggests that the next Half-Life game will not be in the vein of its two predecessors, leading the community to speculate that Valve has moved to a larger project.

Combine Advisor roaming found in portal 2 SDK The same month, the Portal 2 SDK is released. In the files, code for an NPC named "Combine Advisor - Roaming" is found by users, and is shortly removed in a subsequent update.

Source Code concerning Magnusson is found in the portal 2 SDK In May again, several .vcd choreography files labeled "magnuss" are found in Portal 2's VPK cache. They are named "magnuss_get_going.vcd", "magnuss_idle.vcd", "magnuss_nopoint.vcd", "magnuss_shakehead.vcd", and "magnuss_wave.vcd", and appear to be for the model "magnusson.mdl", Arne Magnusson's model. They don't exist in the Episode Two files, where Magnusson's animations are prefixed "mag", suggesting they may be either old discarded animations, or animations set to appear in the next Half-Life game.

Files found in source code of DOTA 2 leak Around September 19th, a Vietnamese beta tester leaks Dota 2’s entire game client, as well as all of its files, to the Internet. Among the various files can be found code referring to a folder named "ep3", pointing at what appears to be weapons: "weapon_icegun", "weaponizer_concrete", "weaponizer_liquid", "weaponizer_metal", and "weapon_flamethrower".[40] However, around September 23 Chet Faliszek states that the code doesn't mean anything and shouldn't be taken as fact.

Mysterious website appears displaying half life logo The website itself is black-aperture.com, and displays a logo for Half Life 3 (complete with registered trademark symbol) as well as listing Valve, Steam and the famous Source Engine that most of Valve’s games run on. There’s also lamba symbols floating around the screen, another staple of the Half Life series. The ‘Black Aperture’ tagline seems to be a reference to both Black Mesa (where the events of Half Life 1 took place) and also a reference to Portal’s Aperture Science, which is set inside the Half Life universe. Now I’m not saying it’s true, but wouldn’t it be awesome if GLaDOS popped up to wreak havoc with Gordon Freeman? If you look very, very closely in the background of the image, there is actually the Aperture Science logo present behind Half Life’s logo, and it is also referenced in the disclaimer at the website’s footer. Intriguing, no? Now before you get all excited guys, this could be a very carefully constructed fake designed to simply get tongues wagging and show Valve that we all want a new Half Life game sometime soon. The main areas for concern is that clicking the website’s apparent Half Life 3 logo takes you straight to a website about Half Life 2′s The Orange Box which could be either a mega red-herring by Valve as they prepare a more significant update to the website, or instead could be a total joke on behalf of whoever made the site. The website itself is apparently owned by the following individual who apparently has no known affiliation with Valve: Hassen, David ATTN BLACK-APERTURE.COM care of Network Solutions PO Box 459 Drums, PA. US 18222 Again, this could be Valve playing mind games and making things harder for us by making up people. If it is, then that’s great, Half Life 3 is coming, and Episode 3 has been bypassed. If not, this is one heck of a mean joke that got me more than a bit excited. Update: If you go to the website now it displays what looks like a hidden 8 and 5 and a big 3 in the format of a date. Go check it out for yourselves.

the internet explodes with rumours in december December 2011 sees several rumors about a Half-Life ARG, and that Gabe Newell has given the go-ahead to those in the know to drop Half-Life hints. Fans see what may be hints in Wheatley's "Character of the Year" award acceptance video for the Spike TV 2011 Video Game Awards, several fake official e-mails are shared, cryptic information is revealed through an unofficial Twitter account for Doug Rattmann, and an unofficial website, Black-Aperture.com, reveals other cryptic messages. All is debunked by Valve through Gabe Newell, Marc Laidlaw and Chet Faliszek.

someone with a half life 3 t-shirt is photographed at a developers event On December 1, Chandana Ekanayake, part of Seattle-based game developer Uber Entertainment, sees what he believes to be a Valve employee wearing what appears to be a Half-Life 3 T-shirt at a local developer event, and asks his permission to take a photo of the T-shirt as he is a huge fan of the series. Upon being asked if he knows anything about Half-Life 3, he appears to know nothing. On December 1, a fan named Alexei asks series' writer Marc Laidlaw about the validity of the T-shirt; he confirms its existence but has nothing else to elaborate on.[48]

anonymous Voice actor claimed he worked on episode 3 On December 9, an anonymous US-based voice actor reveals that Valve has recorded lines for "Half Life: Episode 3" (sic). This leads to rumors that the next Half-Life game will be unveiled at the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards on December 10. However, this doesn't occur.

Several hints dropped during steams holiday sale During the Steam Holiday Sale, Valve drops several Half-Life references in their sale artwork. In the comic Randolph the Red-Nosed Turret released December 22, 3 socks are hanged to the mantelpiece, for Gordon, Alyx and Dog. Above is the landscape seen by Chell when she reaches the outside at the end of Portal 2, with 3 clouds in the sky. Furthermore, in the image placed at the end of the slideshow of day 5 of the Holiday Sale (December 23) showing the Steam mascots riding with Santa Claus in his sleigh, one of the mascots is holding a golden Lambda necklace with 3 specks of light on it, among other things. This further fed rumors and speculation among the fanbase about imminent news about a new Half-Life game.

Several important half life voice actors talk about their lack of knowledge of the hl3 On December 23, voice actor John Patrick Lowrie debunks on his personal blog the words of the anonymous voice actor from December 9 by stating in the comments on a post about his wife Ellen McLain being nominated for a VGA award that he hasn't heard anything yet about a new Half-Life game, and thus has not recorded anything yet. He states, among other things: "No Half Life 3 stuff yet. Haven’t heard anything." and "Ellen and I haven’t heard anything about a new Half Life episode.[52] He later repeats this lack of knowledge on March 23rd, 2012

Some files and in-game whiteboards that are half life related On January 9, several references to the Half-Life series are found in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive beta files, namely being several whiteboard texture files for the map "Office", containing the names of several Half-Life 2 main characters, among other things.

Employee wearing half life 3 t-shirt spotted in valve handbook In the very interesting Valve employee handbook there is a picture of someone wearing a half life 3 shirt. There is also a mention of a trophy case of a game that will win "all the awards".

Voice actor ashly burch says she is working on a secret and upcoming valve project From her website: I'm involved with an unannounced Valve project! DANG, sucka. I'm starting to reach the apex of personal achievement. Reaching your peak at 21 isn't the best, but, you know, fuck it.

Gabe Newell talks about half life 3 in code as ricochet 2 Speaking on the Seven Day Cooldown podcast, Valve’s Gabe Newell may have been indirectly talking about Half-Life 3 when speaking about Ricochet 2, an apparent sequel to a Half-Life 2 mod released in November 2000. Newell said: “We end up changing our minds as we’re going through and developing stuff, so as we’re thinking through the giant story arc which is Ricochet 2, you might get to a point where you’re saying something is surprising us in a positive way and something is surprising us in a negative way, and, you know, we’d like to be super-transparent about the future of Ricochet 2.″ Giant story arc? Ricochet was a simple, arcade deathmatch game. The plot thickens, as Newell goes on: “We always have this problem that when we talk about things too far in advance. The problem is, we think that the twists and turns that we’re going through would probably drive people more crazy than just being silent about it, until we can be very crisp about what’s happening next.”

Gabe Newell trolls community in Kickstarter video The video and the Kickstarter project comes from Neal Stephenson, a science fiction author who wants to make a realistic motion controlled sword fighting game. In the video, Newell is seen smithing a crowbar, and Stephenson asks him, "Is that about ready?" to which Mr. Newell replies, "These things -- they take time." Apparently Newell and Stephenson are friends, and Valve's employees have attended sword training at Stephenson's Subutai Corporation. According to Newell, who spoke with Kotaku about his appearance, all the smithing equipment is his own and he has a forge in his garage.

Episode 3 concept art is leaked On June 27, a handful of concept art is leaked. While Valve has not commented on this, several forum moderators confirmed the art. The art dates back all the way from 2008. Here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.375965635802364.86003.274276235971305&type=1

Source 2 referenced in source filmaker sdk There are many more references to a "Source 2", but not just one vague line like our previous entry. We're only one file deep, and already it's clear that the references to "Source 2" are indeed referring to a next-gen engine that Valve is currently developing. I'm only going to show one line in this post, but there are about 60+ references here, and this one line is probably the most telling. Here's the line: ''Return an str with the current engine version. If key doesn't doesn't exist, assume 'Source', otherwise invalid -- assume next-gen 'Source 2'.''

Half life 3 spotted in Gamescom reveal list The community got its hopes up once again when a list of games to be showcased at trade show Gamescom included HL3. It was later revealed to have been put there based on speculation and wishful thinking.

Half life 3 sign found in mad catz commercial Mad Catz released a new trailer for their new S.T.R.I.K.E keyboard at Gamescom 2012 today, however the trailer may have leaked the announcement of the long awaited Half-Life 3 game. You can clearly see around the 33 second mark that a Half-Life 3 icon appears next the Firefox icon in the trailer. Many rumors are pointing to Half-Life 3 being announced at Gamescom 2012. Could this trailer tease be a leak of the announcement? Only time will tell but I would keep my hopes up for Half-Life 3, after all It’s been rumored to come out for more than 5 years now.

John Patrick Lowrie hears from Valve The Citizen voice actor "had a conversation with a Valve employee recently about some of the challenges involved in making an HL3", saying "They are certainly aware of fan desire to see HL3."

Possible HL3 icon found on Valve computer During a video documenting the making of the CS:GO trailer, one of Valve's employees is seen working on his computer. On the taskbar, 2 icons can be seen, one definitely being the HL2 icon, the other possibly a Half-Life 3 icon. Debate on whether or not the icon is for HL2 is ongoing.

Gabe Newell spotted in a picture holding up three fingers At the international Dota 2 tournament, Gabe Newell was photographed holding up three fingers. Gabe Newell knew this would get on to the internet as forums would try to imagine what this means.

Half Life 3 Open World and Released in 2013? Apparently, Valve has decided to toss in some open world elements with Half-Life 3. Inspired by other games like Skyrim and Fallout, Half-Life 3 will feature NPCs that give the player quests to complete and a sandbox world to wander around in. No, we’re not kidding – this is what the latest rumor claims. According to the source, the game won’t release until sometime after 2013, which suggests an early 2014 release date for Half-Life 3. That’s a little easier to believe, as are the whispers that claim Half-Life 3 is currently in development. We’re a little hesitant to believe that Half-Life 3 will come offering open world elements, however, as open world has never really been Valve’s style. Who knows though? Perhaps Valve has truly decided that it’s time for a change. The studio has already mastered the linear FPS, so maybe the developers at Valve are looking for a new challenge and have decided that Half-Life 3 would be the perfect way to test out the idea of an open world. As hard as it is to believe, an open world Half-Life could be pretty cool, but we’re still not convinced that Valve has taken development in that direction. What do you think? Would you like to see an open world Half-Life game, or would you prefer it if Half-Life 3 was more like its predecessors in terms of gameplay?