Half-Life 3 trademark filing was fake

It seems the excitement that Half-Life 3 might be in development was premature.

Previous reports had the Trademarks and Design Registration Office of the European Union (OHIM) listing the title. However, it appears that OHIM may not have rigorously checked the filing.

As reported by ValveTime, the database entry for Half-Life 3 has now been removed from the OHIM database, indicating that this was very likely a hoax.

The filing was widely reported, generating much excitement about the possibility of the next entrant in the beloved Half-Life franchise.

Perhaps it will be wise to remember this and wait for Valve themselves to officially confirm the game is being developed before getting ahead of ourselves.

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.