2025 is shaping up to be potentially one of the most exciting in recent memory, with more rumours about Half-Life 3 being a very real thing.
We saw back in August 2024 that there was a leak from an actress noting Voice Over work for Valve that was quickly removed from their résumé. And now we have the voice actor of the one and only G-Man, Mike Shapiro, posting a very cryptic video on X / Twitter. It's their first post since December 2020, with many of their previous posts being about Half-Life: Alyx.
Their social media post has the tags "#Valve #Halflife #GMan #2025" with a video that has a voice over of:
Another year already. Good to see and hear from so many of you. May the next quarter century deliver as many unexpected surprises, hmm, as did the millennium's first. Then again time is fluid, like music. See you in the new year.
So, do we think 2025 is really the year of Half-Life 3? Half-Life 2: Episode 3, or something else entirely?
According to a video from Gabe Follower on YouTube, they claim they've been told insider info that "HLX" has started active playtesting so there's that too.
Considering how many times Valve have cancelled projects previously, these leaks and rumours could still end up turning into nothing. So do keep that in mind.
I'm surprsied there's never been a HL movie though, an official one that is, you'd think it'd be perfect movie fodder!
I'm surprsied there's never been a HL movie though, an official one that is, you'd think it'd be perfect movie fodder!
There use to be thrown JJ Abrams name around HL movie and thank god that didn't happen. He is lousy director, somewhat competent producer, but entirely inside Hollywood studio machinery, incapable taking any risk, where everything is made by committee and for the widest audience possible.
HL was never story-driven game though, no matter how compelling the story is, it was always gameplay-driven and the story just glues the set pieces together. So to make a movie there would have to be lot of filling in, which I just don't believe would ever live up to the actual story. Plus they would definitely make Gordon talk, and that opens up whole can of worms.
I'm surprsied there's never been a HL movie though, an official one that is, you'd think it'd be perfect movie fodder!The 1996 movie The Arrival with Charlie Sheen is probably the best unofficial Half-Life movie at the moment. Sheen even bears an uncanny resemblance to Gordon Freeman in the film, with his orange jumpsuit, short cropped hair and goatee, and horned rim glasses. Or I should say that Freeman bears an uncanny resemblance to Sheen, considering the movie came first.
Well, I guess that means that we get Half-Life 3 before 2050 at least
I hope for another VR title. HL:A was such a great game for me. Maybe with a Deckard this time?
And if it's VR, hopefully Valve will give Steam VR for Linux some love again. Currently most things do work, yet performance-, stability- and feature-wise it could use some attention. Especially async reprojection on nVidia would be great again since it broke with Steam VR 2.0
I've heard the open source alternatives to SteamVR like monado and the streaming solutions are kind of catching up well and giving good performance (I heard, haven't tried it myself yet). And Valve has supported open source projects in the past, so maybe they'll put some resources into this.
I've heard the open source alternatives to SteamVR like monado and the streaming solutions are kind of catching up well and giving good performanceI just tried some streaming solutions for my Quest 2 out, so I can give you my opinion.
Steam Link: works the best, native integration, zero setup other than downloading an app
Sadly, this one is only available on Windows.
ALVR: works on both Windows and Linux, long list of troubleshooting issues and solutions, open source
Sadly, this one is just not as good as Steam Link, but I'm not sure if that has to do with ALVR itself or Linux having bad VR support. What I can attest to is poor video quality and lots of stuttering.
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