Half-Life 3 finally on the way?

Rumours have dropped that perhaps the fabled Half-Life 3 will finally be summoned from the depths, like the Cthulhu it really is. They're not confirmed - in fact, the official word is that the rumours are fake - but that doesn't stop us hoping.

The story goes that a few days back, Steam forums user Ryuuk posted the following:

Mike Dussault, a long time programmer at Valve, recently left the company. I didn’t know him until last week. Let me introduce myself.
I’m a freelance artist. I do contract work for a studio in Seattle, through the internet. They have a client access system on their site. I came across Dussault’s resume, while browsing the files section. Now, I know you’re all curious about Valve’s in-house development, but I’m only going to talk about the Half-Life series.
According to his resume, Episode Three was put on hold when Valve decided to move away from the episodic model in late 2007, right after Episode Two’s release. He was a techinal advisor on a cancelled Half-Life title, made outside of the company. Dussault’s work on Half-Life 3′s world programming, and the scripting system (between 2008 and 2010) is also mentioned in the resume.

Lending credence to the issue is that soon afterwards, the thread was deleted, and Ryuuk himself was banned from the forums. Since the story broke, Lambda Generation have been investigating further, which is where the official denials come from:

Update: Doug Lombardi has replied to our e-mail (Thanks!), and he’s crystal clear on this:

Fake.
Source

Along with:

Valve’s Doug Lombardi responded to this rumor in about as clear a way as we could hope for: “This is fiction (aside from the fact that Mike D is a real person)”.


Source

So, as it would seem, it's all a lie. But then, why the thread removal and the ban? Seems a little much for something someone's just made up. And some of it's definitely true - the man in question exists, he did leave Valve in a time period that matches the supposed dates involved, and he did then work with the non-profit mentioned.

My guess? There was enough truth to it that they needed to kill it, but not enough that actively saying it's fake would count as a lie. We all know how secretive games companies like to be with their flagship lines, and there's no doubt that Half-Life is that for Valve. Let's hope we find out soon.

CSquared

http://gamegrill.blogspot.com

Tags: Valve, Half-Life, Half-Life 3, HL3, PC, Steam, Gordon Freeman