Half-Life 3 one step closer to gaming reality

Half-Life 3’s existence has finally been officially confirmed by Valve.

The company yesterday trademarked the term “Half-Life 3” through a patent filed in Europe, according to the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, the European Union’s trademark and designs registry.

The OHIM’s database lists the Half-Life 3 trademark as owned by Valve Corporation, and filed on its behalf by Casalonga & Associés, a patent and trademark firm. The trademark covers “computer game software,” “downloadable computer game software via a global computer network and wireless devices” and other goods and services.

The Half-Life series started out with Half-Life on 19 November 1998, with the first person-shooter starring a mute Gordon Freeman (a more badass scientist than Walter White) scooping up multiple awards at E3 and carrying a Metacritic score of 96.

The sequel, Half-Life 2, released on Valve’s new Steam gaming platform on 16 November 2004 and garnered 39 “Game of the Year” awards and and has been named “Game of the Decade” by several publications. Valve released episodic content for Half-Life 2, with Episode 1 and 2 following in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Both games have a Metacritic score above 85.