The hypothetical Half-Life 3 has been the butt of so many jokes in the gaming community that it would be impossible to keep track of them all, with fans of the seminal first-person shooter having long since resigned to the fact that Gordon Freeman's story would be left hanging. The recent, unexpected release of Half-Life: Alyx injected new life into the series, and may have reignited Valve's taste for the franchise.
At least, this is what Robin Walker suggests. Valve veteran and senior developer on titles like Half-Life, Team Fortress and Dota 2 recently gave an interview to The Gamer. While most of the discussion is related to the spin-off itself, such as the internal reaction to it being a VR-only title (mods that make it playable without a VR headset exist), there was a brief touch on the future of the series.
We wanted to be excited about possibility again. We gave [you] a red herring where you think you know how it's going to end with a fully plausible ending and we then subverted that, which were all really important elements that took a lot of iteration and came together towards the end.
The story of Half-Life: Alyx holds some huge implications for the overarching narrative. Fans have been left on a cliffhanger ever since 2007's Half-life 2: Episode 2, and in the years since theories, memes and more have emerged about how things would continue - including a very detailed treatise on one of the versions of Episode 3, coming from a former Valve developer. That version of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 will never come to pass (partially because it is now public) but nonetheless served as the only form of closure fans had all this time.
Now, Alyx took things in an unexpected direction, while also proving that Valve has not forgotten about Half-Life. Its success might have reignited the company's passion for the series, so hopefully we won't need to wait over a decade for the next game.