Not too long ago, Tyler McVicker of Valve News Network supposedly released a report that claimed a future Half-Life game that would be a mixture of shooter and strategy game was in the making. However, Valve has now come out and recommended that McVicker’s on these supposed Half-Life leaks be viewed with healthy skepticism.
Valve has always been very cagey on new games that it’s working on, but Half-Life still has a very devoted fanbase eagerly awaiting any news of Half-Life 3, or even anything Half-Life related, since Valve released the virtual reality title Half-Life: Alyx back in 2020.
Valve’s explanation was that while McVicker was passionate about gaming, he had absolutely no insider information from Valve, and so his speculations should be taken with a healthy grain of salt before anyone gives serious thought to him. McVicker had claimed that the game, codenamed “Citadel”, was supposed to be tailored to the Steam Deck and be like if Left 4 Dead, Half-Life, Alien Swarm, and an RTS were having a baby.
Half-Life leaks are also something not new to the internet. Valve takes a long time to release any new content for it; the gap between Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Half-Life: Alyx, for example, was 13 years, though that can at least be chalked up to Valve focusing more on Steam than on game development, along with the studio’s lax development style.
And that’s not even getting into the fact that Valve has never done any sort of game in that style before. While they were responsible for Defense of the Ancients 2, that is heavily based off the framework of a mod for Warcraft. These days all of Valve’s games are first-person shooters (barring Arcane which may as well not exist) as well, so who knows how a strategy component would even fit in.
So, while everyone is excited for what direction Valve might take now that Half-Life: Alyx finally moves the story along, the supposed Half-Life leaks that McVickers put out are likely not on the studio’s agenda.