'Half Life 3' game update: Third installment of highly praised series happening?

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

There have been very few details about the development and release of "Half Life 3," and an official statement is yet to be made about the highly anticipated game.

Valve Corporation co-founder Gabe Newell did announce earler that the company may not have a final plan for a third installment in the "Half-Life" series.

He told the Washington Post that fans should not expect much when it comes to "Half-Life 3" as it may not be included in their plans in the near future. "Half-Life 2" raked in mixed reviews, and had reportedly failed in attaining a similar level of success as the first "Half Life" game.

"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 explained to Washington Post as he talked about the company's initial plans.

In previous reports, however, rumors have circulated that former Valve employee Minh Lee spotted the artworks for the forthcoming "Half Life 3" and the drawing board for "Left 4 Dead 3." It was also confirmed by the "Counter Strike" co-creators that the third installment for "Half Life" is already in the works.

Such claims have been criticized by gamers and news sites as Lee may have spotted an obsolete "Half Life" artwork due to the fact that he already left the company years ago.

Despite the possibilities of "Half Life 3" not being developed or made available soon, Newell still released a statement about how the team behind the "Half Life" series values the expectations of their players.

"We definitely in a sense have an army of customers who are always helping us stay honest..." Newell said. "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."