Rumour: Half Life 3 To Be A Open World…Due 2013?

We have another rumour going round about the highly demanded Half-Life 3. But this time it’s slightly different, according to a source that’s ‘close to Valve’ Half-Life is going to be an open world style with RPG elements. And it will be release ‘after 2013′! Of course, this is all just rumour but it does set the title as a full sequel instead of another episode. Earlier on in the year, a nice bunch of ‘leaked concept artwork’ appeared over the internet (see below) which lead to reports that Half-life 3 had been positioned as a ‘pure shooter’ before they opted to pursue something with more puzzle-solving and exploration.

The report carries on to suggest that Half-life 3 is an ‘open world’ style with quests and NPCs you can expect to find in the traditional open world games. HL3 has apparently gone through quite a few re-imaginings before reaching this point. With the rumour stating that the title will be arriving ‘after 2013′ could easily suggest that they are aiming for a next-generation release window. It also has been mentioned that Valve has been developing a new Source Engine which, as you could imagine, has made huge delays to the games announcements with Gabe Newell declaring he doesn’t want to ‘drive people crazy’ with false announcements (We all hate fake announcements!)

Hopefully something more official will be announced sooner rather than later regarding the true state and style of Half-life 3. But it does make you think, why would Valve take Half-life, which pretty much made it’s name through the amazing FPS titles we have all loved, suddenly change the style to open world? Maybe they think that they need to change and adapt to succeed in the gaming world? For now though, we will never know. As soon as something more concrete comes to light we will update you ASAP!