I honestly think the assertion that HL3 will never be made is a bit over dramatic. There’s no reason for them to drop the property and I think many people misunderstand why Valve decides to make their games.



Most developers seem to make games simply to put a story or a game mode forward that they think would be enjoyable (if they aren’t made explicitly to be cash cows, of course). With Valve, I think they treat their properties a lot differently. I believe there was a recent interview with Gabe Newell and someone else (Eric Wolpaw maybe?) where they both said that when they decide to make a new property, it’s so that the property in question can be a vessel for something new or innovative, whether that be a game engine like Source 2 or a piece of hardware like their Verve (ReVerve? Whatever the fuck it’s called). And, in the long run, I think that’s the better way for a business to operate, especially since Valve acts as both a developer and their own publisher. Simply making games to make games is great in the short run, but if you can attach your game to something else, that game can not only do well for itself, but propel that property it’s attached to forward as well.



Take Source. When Source was truly debuted, it was alongside Half Life 2. That game had physics, texturing, and animations that were ahead of practically all of its competitors and that was all thanks to the Source engine. And once people saw the flexibility of it they took it and ran with it to create other things. So, in a way, HL2 was not just a great game, but an advertisement for a great engine. And ever since then, their games have helped showcase different advancements. The Portal games advanced the physics, the L4D games showed off the AI manager, and CS:GO and Dota 2 both gave Valve strong footholds in the rising tide that is competitive gaming.



So if Valve releases L4D3, Team Fortress 3, or Half Life 3 (or some new property altogether), it will be because they wish to use those properties to propel something else forward at the same time. Right now it seems like Source 2 and Verve are the two biggest potential excuses for a new game to be released, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a L4D3, Portal 3, or even a Half Life 3 get attached to one of those products. You can of course go on and on about lofty expectations for HL3, but if they can release it as a showcase for Source 2 and blow everyone away with the capabilities of that engine or with Verve to set the benchmark for games which utilize virtual reality, it will earn its place.

So, simply put, I just don’t think Valve has any incentive to release HL3 just to release HL3. They seem to value their games much more than your average developer by seeing them as vessels for pushing their ideas forward as a company and that’s honestly the best move for them to make as a company that wants to see the next several decades.