Half-Life 3 Leaker Explains Why the Announcement Was Delayed

Earlier this year, Valve reporter Tyler McVicker claimed that a Half-Life 3 trailer had entered production and could be released as early as November, but a month passed without any official news. Other insiders soon confirmed McVicker's claims, explaining that they had been told several different dates and that it was still planned for 2025, although they declined to reveal those dates, fearing that Valve was trying to shut down the leaks.

With the company now on vacation for the holiday season and The Game Awards over (though it was always incredibly unlikely that it would be announced there), it's safe to say that we won't see Half-Life 3 until 2026, but why is that? Well, according to Insider Gaming Editor-in-Chief Mike Straw, we have AI to thank.

If you want someone to blame for Half-Life 3 not being announced, blame the AI

“Everything I have, everyone I've talked to is still adamant that this is a game that will be a launch title with the Steam Machine,” Straw explained. “But there's a concern that they haven't made a price decision, which is kind of holding back the announcement of anything else. And the reason is PC RAM prices right now, memory prices and storage prices. They're up 200, 300 to 500 percent of what they were in October, and it's only getting worse.”

The reason the price of memory has shot up to the point where PS5s are now cheaper to buy than some sticks of RAM is because manufacturers are shifting their production away from consumers and towards AI companies to help build their data centers. Specialists such as Uniway Computers business manager Mark Chen have likened the shift to the cryptocurrency boom that has seen graphics card prices skyrocket, though for RAM it will only get worse as demand continues to rise.

In light of this, Valve has reportedly decided to delay the announcement of Half-Life 3 as it focuses on Steam Machine pricing, although Straw said he still expects the hardware and Half-Life 3 to launch in spring 2026, so it seems only the reveal has been delayed for now. But it's unclear when we'll learn more about the Steam Machine, let alone the flagship sequel that fans have been waiting decades for.

The question now is whether or not the hardware will be delayed as Valve waits for pricing to stabilize or even drop, which could affect Half-Life 3's release date, which could explain why the team abandoned plans for a 2025 reveal. A public delay of Half-Life 3 would be deeply embarrassing after waiting so long, and it's hard to imagine fans taking it well.

Whatever happens, Straw says, the game is real. Half-life 3 does it exists and is further along in development than any past iteration. And according to leakers like Gabe Follower, it even survived winter playtests without major delays, unlike Alyx, which underwent drastic rewrites.

“There's no denying that,” said Straw. “At this point, it's just a matter of when, not if. All signs pointed to it being announced sometime in December, then everything hit the fan.”