Is Gabe Newell Teasing ‘Half-Life 2: Episode 3′ Release Window?

At this point in time, there are some people who are less than pleased with Gabe Newell, Valve‘s managing director. Some might be disappointed, some might have raging fury, and some are just at the whim of his cryptic meanings and discussions when it comes to one of Valve’s most precious IPs: Half-Life 2, specifically regarding the nary-talked about Episode 3.

The latest news regarding Half-Life 2: Episode 3 had to do with a DOTA 2 beta tester digging around in the system client and finding some interesting weapon-related information. Other than that, details have been scant and harder to find than a needle of ice in the Kalahari desert. However, Gabe Newell ended up responding to a Reddit user’s email about Half-Life 2: Episode 3 with some pretty vague information that will no doubt result in head scratching and fan agony.

It couldn’t be said that this particular piece of information, if you could even call it that, was even confirmed by Newell, who might have just been playing along with the previous poster. The “information” comes in the form of a haiku, which is how the first poster posed the question to Newell, who replied in a similar manner, with a slight twist. Here’s what the original poster put:

Do you like haikus?

I like to write them sometimes…

Episode 3 soon?

And then Gabe Newell responded with this:

Haikus are neato

They have a rigid structure

Episode 3 ship in

Anyone who remembers their 5th grade English lessons will remember a haiku has a structure of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and then 5. What Gabe Newell did in his last line was add another syllable, for a total of 6. Even though the man may have dropped out of Harvard, he probably knows how to write a haiku. The big question now, what does the 6 mean?

Does it mean 6 months? 6 years? 6 days? Nothing at all and he’s just messing with us? The fact that Newell would be contradicting himself by announcing episodic content is enough to disbelieve this a little bit. It would be an exercise in futility at this point to just ask him straight up whether or not an announcement regarding the Half-Life franchise would be continuing in our lifetime. In fact, Half-Life 3 might not even see the light of day.

Half-Life 3 or Half-Life 2: Episode 3 might be coming some day to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

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Source: Reddit