'Half-Life 3' release date: Game might not be included in Valve's plans for near future - Developers set sights on Steam

A screenshot of Half-Life 2, the last installment in the Half-Life series[Photo credit: Half-Life 2]

Valve Corporation co-founder Gabe Newell recently announced that there may not be concrete plans for a highly anticipated third installment of the "Half-Life" series.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Newell explained that "Half-Life 3" might not be included in their plans in the coming months. Due to mixed reviews of the second installment, "Half-Life 2," the game was reportedly unable to rake in the same amount of success that the first ever "Half-Life" game generated. Nonetheless, "Half-Life 2" had still been deemed as a critically acclaimed video game and won various awards.

"When we started out we were a single-player video game company that could have been really successful just doing Half-Life sequel after Half-Life sequel, but we collectively said let's try to make multiplayer games even though there's never been a commercial successful multiplayer game," Newell stated, referring to their initial plans.

However, the team behind "Half-Life" also focused on a new venture, Steam, which may have diverted their potential plans on a third installment for the video game franchise.

Nonetheless, the 51-year-old game developer has expressed his appreciation for fans' proactive responses toward Valve's past and present ventures.

"We definitely in a sense have an army of customers who are always helping us stay honest...," Newell stated. "We've essentially crowd-sourced supervision of a lot of these decisions to our customers and it works way better than almost any other system we could design. They're rabid, they're passionate, and there are a lot of them."

The "Half-Life" series had already gained considerable success, and became one of the most widely recognized first-person shooter games in the world after it was launched in 1998. "Half-Life 2" followed in 2004 and also received positive responses from all over the world.

However, after "Half Life 2: Episode 2" was launched in 2007, there had been no more official updates on a possible third installment for the "Half-Life" series.