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About
Half-Life 3 Confirmed is a catchphrase associated with the announcement and release of the fifth installment in the popular Half-Life franchise by Valve. Since the release of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 in October 2007, fans have long anticipated the next installment in the franchise, which over time lead to numerous intentionally fake theories that have little to nothing to do with the games, alongside various stories which claim the release of the game to be coincident with the rapture.
Origin
Valve’s Half-Life[14] franchise started on November 19th, 1998, and was as well the debut title of Valve Software. On November 16, 2004, Valve released Half-Life 2, the sequel to the original game. This was followed by Half-Life 2: Episode One on June 1, 2006, and Half Life 2: Episode Two on October 10, 2007. Originally, Valve intended to release the episodes 6 months apart. Instead, Episode Two was released over a year after Episode One, and Half-Life 2: Episode Three, which was supposed to follow 6 months after Episode 2, has been delayed indefinitely.[15][16]
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Since the episode’s announcement in 2006, and the release of a number of concept art images in 2008 (shown above), there have been a number of rumours and hoaxes regarding the supposed announcement of a release date for Episode Three, all of which have been denied by Valve.
Spread
Prior to large gaming events, such as the Electronic Entertainment Expo, speculations on the announcement of Half-Life 3 are often made surrounding Valve’s presentation during the events, which are commonly later debunked by various gaming websites as it becomes clear the sequel won’t appear during the event.
In early August of 2012, numerous rumors were released which speculated that Valve was working on a new gaming engine. This was later confirmed during a visit of 4chan’s /v/ (videogames) board at Valve in celebration of Gabe Newell’s 50th birthday (shown below) in early November of the same year. Both the rumors and the confirmation on the new engine lead to various websites speculating it to be the reason Half-Life 3 was delayed numerous times, such as VG 24/7,[1][2] Joystiq,[3] Eurogamer,[4] Trusted Reviews[5] and Now Gamer.[6]
On June 8th, 2012,[12] and April 2nd, 2013,[13] Julia Lepetit and Andrew Bridgman submitted 2 comics to the videogame humor sharing website Dorkly about the constant excitement of Half-Life 3 and the common release claims on April Fools’ day. As of June 17th, 2013, both comics received respectively more than 990 abd 5,400 Facebook likes.
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On June 10th, 2013, a picture appeared (shown below) on the r/gaming sub-Reddit[10] which showed a Half-Life 3 poster at the convention, which was subsequentally posted on FunnyJunk[11] the same day. Although the picture was proven fake pretty early, it managed to gain nearly 5000 upvotes on Reddit and more than 600 on FunnyJunk in less than a week.
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Notable Examples
Additional examples can be found through the Tumblr tags “half life 3”[7] and “half life 3 confirmed”,[8] and through FunnyJunk by searching for “half life 3 confirmed”.[9]
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Search Interest
External References
[1]VG 24/7 – Source Engine 2 in the works at Valve
[2]VG 24/7 – Source 2: it’s time for Valve to drop the baby steps
[3]Joystiqu – Newell: Valve building Source 2 engine, Ricochet 2 is in development
[4]Eurogamer – Valve files name next-gen Source 2 engine
[5]Trusted Reviews – Source 2 Engine Explains Half-Life 2 Episode 3 Delays?
[6]Now Gamer – Half-Life 3: Valve Making Source 2, Will ‘Roll Out With A Game’
[7]Tumblr – Tagged: ‘Half Life 3’
[8]Tumblr – Tagged: ‘Half Life 3 Confirmed’
[9]Funnyjunk – Search: ‘Half Life 3 Confirmed’
[10]r/Gaming – [E3 Fixed] Half Life 3
[11]FunnyJunk – Half-Life 3 Confirmed
[12]Dorkly – Releasing the Valve
[13]Dorkly – Don’t Be An April Fool
[14]Wikipedia – Half-Life (Series)
[15]Half-Life Wikia – Future of the Half-Life Series
[16]Combine Overiki – Future of the Half-Life Series