Ah, it seems like just yesterday that we were celebrating the ten-year anniversary of Half-Life 2: Episode 3's original announcement . But now, as we approach 14 years since the promise of a Half-Life that has the number "3" in the title, the impending release of the VR-exclusive prequel Half-Life: Alyx has proven Valve hasn't totally forgotten about the franchise.

What does all the work on Alyx mean for the long-delayed vision of an honest-to-goodness Half-Life 3? Game Informer put that very question to Valve's Robin Walker in a recent interview, and the answer, though vague, is the clearest indication in years that Valve hasn't given up on the idea of an honest "threequel."

Half-Life means a lot to us, and it's been incredibly rewarding to refamiliarize ourselves with its characters, setting, and mechanics. There are Half-Life: Alyx team members who have been at Valve since Half-Life 2, and quite a few who go back to the original Half-Life. There are also people on the team for whom Half-Life: Alyx is their first time working on this series at all—and many of them certainly hope it's not the last. We absolutely see Half-Life: Alyx as our return to this world, not the end of it.

Walker's discussion of the current makeup of the Half-Life: Alyx team is important to note here. Long-time Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw left the company in 2016 (before sharing a potential Half-Life 3 plot summary on his blog), followed the next year by the departure of series scribes Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek. Animator Doug Wood and Senior Engineer Ken Birdwell also left the company in 2016, rounding out a handful of other notable departures since the last time Valve worked on a Half-Life game.

There are hundreds of other employees at Valve, of course, and the company's flat hierarchy makes it hard to argue that any single developer is the sole key to what made Half-Life special. But these departures, and the mere extended passage of time, suggest that any return to the series for a "true" Half-Life 3 might end up feeling very different from what came before.

In any case, until Valve gives us something even more concrete, we're still on the lookout for even the barest hints that a numbered sequel to Half-Life 2 is in the works. In the meantime, please feel free to review-bomb unrelated games and create playable fanfiction if it makes you feel better.

Listing image by Twitter @ItMeIRL