The hype for Half-Life 3 has been going from rocket-powered stride to rocket-powered stride, where it feels like we're closer than ever to Valve's industry-changing announcement of HL3... and we're nowhere near April Fool's Day.
Valve recently announced its new hardware in the Steam Machine, Steam Frame VR headset, and new Steam Controller ready for early 2026... but no system-seller like Half-Life 3 will be. But today, today is the 27th anniversary of Half-Life as it dropped on November 19, 1998 on the PC and changed everything.
We've had insiders and rumors that Half-Life 3 has been in development for years and that a reveal was really, really close... and today would have been the perfect day to celebrate Half-Life with the announcement of Half-Life 3.
I still have strong memories as a 15-year-old at the time, being driven into the city and buying a physical copy (this is before Steam) of Half-Life. The amount of hours I put into it was crazy, but it was all worth it... I then remember downloading and installing Steam and then downloading Half-Life 2... those were the days.
- Read more: Valve's new Steam gaming hardware could see Half-Life 3 as a system-seller
- Read more: Half-Life 3 optimization going well, rumor says Valve will announce HL3 in a tweet
- Read more: Half-Life 3 development: optimization and gameplay updates have been leaked
- Read more: Half-Life celebrates 25th Anniversary with new update, game is FREE right now
- Read more: Half-Life 2 gets 20th anniversary update: new graphics, 3.5-hour commentary, and more
After that, I grabbed Half-Life: Alyx and played it using a high-end HTC Vive VR headset with the Valve Index controllers and being absolutely, totally blown away. Half-Life: Alyx felt like one gigantic tease of truly next-generation gaming, and the perfect way to introduce Half-Life 3 to the world... I truly do hope we're close to Half-Life 3, especially for the older 35-40+ year old gamers who grew up playing the Half-Life games, it would be like 33 Christmases at once!




