2012
◾On January 9, several references to the Half-Life series are found in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive beta files, namely being several whiteboard texture files for the map "Office", containing the names of several Half-Life 2 main characters, among other things.[53]
◾On January 5, "Operation Crowbar" is launched on the Steam Users' Forums, as another form of protest against Valve's silence on the future of the Half-Life franchise (the operation also has its dedicated Steam group). It involves buying crowbars and mailing them to Valve, or, as a cheaper alternative, spam Valve's e-mail accounts and Facebook page with pictures of crowbars or crowbar-related puns.[3]
◾On January 10, IGN's editor Charles Onyett speculates that, based on industry trends, 2012 will be the year Valve finally starts talking about Half-Life 3, and believes Valve might be waiting for details from Sony and Microsoft on their next-generation consoles before announcing anything.[54]
◾On January 13, Marc Laidlaw confirms the rumor that a fourth and canceled Half-Life 2 Episode, Return to Ravenholm, was developed by Arkane Studios from 2006 to 2009.[55]
◾Following Ekanayake's information about the Half-Life 3 T-shirt, Garry Newman, creator of Garry's Mod, trolls the community on January 12 by showing a fake Half-Life 3 T-shirt on his Twitter, claiming it was sent by Valve.[56]
◾As of January 19, the Steam group "A Call for Communication (Half-Life)" has been covered by over 27 gaming publications.[57][58]
◾On February 4, the Steam group "A Call for Communication" organizes "A Red Letter Day", a group event which involves playing Half-Life 2, aimed at putting the franchise back in the spotlight, drawing more people to their cause and simply "be a huge group of Half-Life fans playing one of the best games ever made". Though hopes also are that Half-Life 2 would reach the top ten games played for that day, it only reaches #11, with a maximum of 13,216 concurrent players.[58][58][59] A website is also launched the previous day to mark the event and coordinate the future ones.
◾In April, Gabe Newell is interviewed by the Seven Day Cooldown podcast. His interviewer asked, "My final question and the question in the back of all your fans' minds and everyone has been waiting to ask you for a long time: When can we expect the release of Ricochet 2?" An audibly amused Newell responded, "In terms of Ricochet 2, we always have this problem that when we talk about things too far in advance, we end up changing our minds as we're going through and developing stuff, so as we're thinking through the giant story arc which is Ricochet 2, you might get to a point where you're saying something is surprising us in a positive way and something is surprising us in a negative way, and, you know, we'd like to be super-transparent about the future of Ricochet 2. The problem is, we think that the twists and turns that we're going through would probably drive people more crazy than just being silent about it, until we can be very crisp about what's happening next." It seems more than likely that the term "Ricochet 2" is a code-name for "Half-Life 3" as Ricochet itself was a multiplayer mod for the original Half-Life that is considered one of the worst games Valve has released (and more importantly, does not even have a plot). When asked if those working on the project have moved on to other games, he responds, "No, everybody who has worked on Ricochet 2 continues to work on Ricochet 2."[60]
◾On June 27, a handful of concept art is leaked. While Valve has not commented on this, several forum moderators confirmed the art.[61]
◾A PDF file listing game announcements for Gamescom 2012 has been found to highlight the game Half-Life 3, however, Gamescom reps later reported that it was "a mistake". Valve have confirmed its falseness with stating "We're not showing any games in Cologne this year."[62] The list have later been updated and Half-Life 3 removed.[63]
◾In August 2012, Spike TV had interviewed Gabe Newell about Counter Strike: Global Offensive. When Gabe was asked about Half-Life 3, He replied "I hate sharks". He added "You'll never get Half-Life 3 if you eat me" in reference to a joke that sharks are fans of the series, too. This implies that the game, if it were to ever be released, would be called "Half-Life 3".[64]
◾The Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E Keyboard Trailer has a Half-Life 3 icon visible on the desktop, likely a joke thrown in by the creators of the trailer.[65]
◾On September 17, while not official, a French website reported that they have gotten some information regarding Half-Life 3 from an anonymous source stating that the game will be featuring RPG elements. It also stated that the development for the game has been very chaotic, stating further that the project was revived several times and that its release date will be sometime after 2013.[66]
◾On September 27, Ashley Johnson, better known as the voice of Ellie on the video game "The Last of Us", tweeted a photo of Merle Dandridge (the voice of Alyx Vance) in a motion capture suit, and accompanied the photo with the words ""Alyx Vance" #HL3 #insidescoop", which caused a stir amongst Half-Life fans. Johnson later admitted she was trolling the community, saying, "Yes. I'm a jerk. But God I wish it were true. #makeitsovalve #yesimatroll". [67]
◾Half-Life 3 was awarded "Most Notably Absent" by Ben of TheGamerDrive. In his explanation paragraph, the writer simply wrote, "Screw you, Valve." [1]
2013
◾J.J. Abrams (of Bad Robot Productions) and Gabe Newell were part of a keynote presentation at the DICE summit on February 6, titled "Storytelling Across Platforms: Who Benefits Most, the Audience or the Player?" At the end of the presentation, Abrams said "There's an idea we have for a game that we'd like to work with Valve on." Newell then countered, "We're going to figure out if we can make a 'Portal' movie or 'Half-Life' movie together. But it's really time for us and for industries to stop talking about potentials and try to execute on them." (possibly referring to Half-Life 3's long development time) The two then proceeded to exit the stage.[68] This was the first official announcement from Valve related to the Half-Life series since 2011.
◾Gabe Newell won the Academy Fellowship at the BAFTA Awards on March 5, 2013. Jonathan Ross asked him if he had any news about Half-Life 3, to which Newell said, "We don't have anything to say about it."[69]
◾Gabe Newell talks the non-existent contradiction of Half-Life 3 (March 21, 2013).[70]
◾On March 28, 2013, David Goldfarb, a video game designer, tweeted "Saw Valve today. They have very nice things." Markus Persson (the creator of Minecraft) asked in another tweet "hl3 confirmed?" to which Goldfarb said "my silence must be interpreted as silence." Persson then said, "Reply to this tweet if hl3 is confirmed." Goldfarb responded with, "I will show my answer with some interpretative dance. Look closely."[71]
◾On April 1, 2013, Half-Life 2: Episode Three was available on Steam, but when you tried to pre-order the game, it turns out to be Petz® Catz® 2. It turned out to be an April Fool's prank from CheapShark [72]
◾Doug Lombardi confirmed in an email to Valve Time that Valve was not showing any games at E3 in 2013.[73]
◾On May 22, 2013, Marc Laidlaw admits that the "BreenGrub" account on Twitter is him "writing Dr. Breen fanfic." He explained in another tweet, "I personally cannot give the world a Half-Life game. All I can personally do, at least for now, is stuff like this."[74]
◾Valve's project tracker is leaked to the public in June and includes mailing lists such as "Half-Life 3", "Left 4 Dead 3" and "Source 2." Valve Time notes that the lists appear to be legitimate given the employee names on the lists.[75]
http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Futu...lf-Life_series