2.6em”>European Trademark application for Half-Life 3 suspected to be a hoax.
Excited rumours of a new release in the Half-Life series erupted last month when a trademark was filed, allegedly by Half-Life creator Valve Software, for Half-Life 3. The gaming world has been suitably excited since the trademark application was revealed, but it seems like all of the excitement could have been for nothing.
The trademark has since been taken down from the official European Registry Office website, leading many to conclude that the application was nothing more than a hoax. The European Registry Office refused to comment on the issue, and the US Patent and Trademark Office has had no Half-Life 3 trademark filed at all, making it incredibly unlikely to be a real trademark request.
Has a recent computer glitch revealed that a team is hard at work on Half-Life 3?
To make matters even more confusing, just a few days after the trademark was filed, Valve’s project management system was made accessible to the public, most likely by human error, and the records show that Half-Life 3 had a core development team of 10 people plus an extra 46 working on the project in some capacity. This had been thought to be real, especially given the seemingly accidental revelation of the information, but the removal of the trademark application calls this in to doubt.
A sequel to Valve’s critically acclaimed Half-Life 2 Episode 2 has been heavily anticipated and desired over the past few years, and Valve have added fuel to the fire by refusing to comment on the sequel or whether it exists. The issue is made a lot more confusing by the consistency with which hoaxes are created, with only a few months ago, a supposedly Valve employee was quoted as saying that Half-Life 3 was confirmed to be appearing at E3 2014 for current and next gen consoles, though this was later confirmed by Valve to be completely untrue.
A few times in the past there have been escalating rumours of Half-Life 3, and several high profile figures at Valve have put a stop to rumours in the past, including Gabe Newell, Managing Director of Valve.
Whether or not these signs are really pointing at Half-Life 3 being released in the future or not, we can’t really tell, but there’s a whole host of fans across the globe hoping that Valve do bring out the highly anticipated title at some point in the future.
