Half-Life 3 is easily one of the most highlyanticipated games of all time, if only by virtue of never actually releasing. Fans of the franchise spent years analyzing every scrap of news after Half-Life 2, but Valve has given no hints about what to expect. Now the original voice actor for G-Man has posted on X — his first one since the release of Half-Life: Alyx — promising an “unexpected surprise” for 2025.
Oh, and did we mention he delivered the message as a video post using the G-Man voice? His message says, “Another year already. Good to see and hear from so many of you. May the next quarter century deliver as many unexpected surprises as did the millenium’s first. Then again, time is fluid like music. See you in the new year!”
The post was accompanied by only four tags: #Valve, #Halflife, #Gman, and #2025.
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#Valve #Halflife #GMan #2025 pic.twitter.com/mdT5hlxKJT
— Mike Shapiro (@mikeshapiroland) December 31, 2024
Predictably enough, the post went viral. At the time of writing, it has been shared more than 8,100 times, bookmarked nearly 4,000 times, and has 28,000 likes. The comments are full of fans replying, “It’s happening!” but we urge caution before getting your hopes up too much. There have been a lot of potential Half-Life 3 releases in the past that turned out to be nothing at all. However, this time there is slightly more solid evidence than wishful thinking.
Shapiro rarely posts anything to social media, so a video like this (performed in character, no less) is either a brilliantly sadistic tease or a hint that something is on the way. Another voice actress named Natasha Chandel shared a now-unavailable post six months ago that she was involved in something called Project White Sands, an unannounced Valve project. For reference, White Sands is a park and missile range in New Mexico, not terribly far from the setting of the original Half-Life.
Geoff Keighley previously wrote and released a sort of digital storybook called Half-Life: Alyx — Final Hours, and the game reveals that multiple projects were canclled, including one internally referred to as Half-Life 3, according to IGN.
The 30-year anniversary of the original Half-Life is in 2028. It’s possible that Valve could announce the project this year with a release date to coincide with the anniversary, but many fans hope the release is closer at hand. And the popularity is there, especially as recent mods have more than doubled the original game’s player count.