"Half-Life 3" is one of the most anticipated first-person shooters in the gaming community. It has been in the rumor mill for years, but nothing has really materialized. However, it is again expected to be unveiled at the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016 and is rumored to be ready by 2018.

Valve, the game developer and publisher, has been quiet all these years about any projects related to "Half-Life," but fans are speculating that something is up. It is expected that "Half-Life 3" will see the light of day by 2018 and will be in full VR format, Master Herald reported.

Market analysts are also anticipating that when that year comes, video game consoles such as Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will be totally capable of supporting VR technology. Thus, players will have a better gaming experience.

This kind of scenario is bound to happen to games developed by Valve. The company is involved in the development of the HTC Vive. Many games for the VR headgear are also available from Steam, the digital gaming distribution platform, which was also developed by Valve Corporation.

The News Independent reported that the year 2018 will mark the 20th year since the first "Half-Life" game was released, so this is an extra special year for the community.

The report also mentioned two possible reasons why the game has suffered delays. The first was when Mark Laidlaw left the company, making the project lack a creative force for guidance. Laidlaw was the lead game designer for Valve. Second was the lack of interest of the company's current CEO, Gabe Newell.

Newell said in an interview, "The only reason we'd go back and do like a super classic kind of product is if a whole bunch of people just internally at Valve said they wanted to do it and had a reasonable explanation for why.

He added, "If you want to do another Half-Life game and you want to ignore everything we've learned in shipping Portal 2 and in shipping all the updates on the multiplayer side, that seems like a bad choice. So we'll keep moving forward. But that doesn't necessarily always mean what people are worried that it might mean."

Fans are looking forward to seeing "Half-Life 3" come alive at E3 2016, set to happen on June 14 to 16 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.