The more than two decades since Half-Life 2's release have been filled with plenty of rumors and hints about Half-Life 3, ranging from the official-ish to the thin to the downright misleading. As we head into 2025, though, we're approaching something close to a critical mass of rumors and leaks suggesting that Half-Life 3 is really in the works this time, and could be officially announced in the coming months.

The latest tease came just before the end of 2024 via a New Year's Eve social media video from G-Man voice actor Mike Shapiro. In the voice of the mysterious in-game bureaucrat, Shapiro expresses hopes that "the next quarter century [will] deliver as many unexpected surprises as did the millennium's first (emphasis added)... See you in the new year."

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On its own, a single in-character post from a voice actor would probably be a bit too cryptic to excite Half-Life fans who have seen their sequel hopes dashed so often over the last two decades. But the unexpected tease comes amid a wave of leaks and rumors surrounding "HLX," an internal Valve project that has been referenced in a number of other Source 2 engine game files recently.

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[–] EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think when a lot of people talk about video games, the conversation largely revolves around the AAA industry. Especially considering how difficult it is still to get indie games on consoles, which locks the majority of gamers out of the space entirely. There's definitely some good stuff in the AAA industry, but it often seems like sleeper hits rather than big-name titles. Compare Astro Bot to whatever Call of Duty came out this year, or my favorite to point out, the first Splatoon being the best-selling shooter in a year where both a Battlefield and a Call of Duty game came out. Both games that really came out of nowhere to critical acclaim rather than games people were excited for a year before release.

The games I play and enjoy the most seem to largely be from small developers that I never heard about until after they've already released.

As for Bloodlines 2, I'm not surprised. It's in the same development hell as Duke Nukem Forever as far as I'm concerned, and I'd be surprised if it ever releases at all.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

It still seems strange to say that there's nothing to be excited about (except for all the stuff to be excited about), you know? And even if we were only talking about AAA games that were already announced, Monster Hunter and GTA would still be sucking all of the oxygen out of the room for 2025.

And Bloodlines 2 graduated beyond development hell. They gave it to another developer, a developer known for walking sims, and it looks like they're making something like a small-scale vampire Dishonored rather than an RPG.