Could Half-Life 3 Get Announced at The Game Awards?
What’s good, Deck Gang? Welcome to another news video but this one is a little bit different. The Game Awards are happening tonight and people are beginning to speculate that Valve will make some announcement there at The Game Awards. Given Valve’s track record, this seems unlikely but let’s talk about the possibilities and likelihoods of all the things they could potentially announce. Of course, as we get started folks, don’t forget to like and subscribe. It really helps the channel to grow which is awesome because, in the spirit of giveaways, it helps me to give away keys like
the ones I have sprinkled throughout this video. Let’s start with why some folks believe Valve might make a big announcement at The Game Awards. The reason, of course, is the Steam Deck giveaway. As you must know by now, Valve is giving away one free Steam Deck per minute during the airing of the video game grammys. In addition to registering (and some other restrictions), you have to actually watch the game awards on Steam to be eligible. And by giving away one Steam Deck every minute, they’re making sure you stay tuned to the entire show. Even if
they make no announcement, this is a huge upside for Valve because it costs them a couple hundred Steam Decks but basically the entire show is a huge advertisement for the
would make a whole lot of sense for Valve to take advantage of this occasion to make some sort of big reveal. In fact, let me show you what I mean. I put up a poll yesterday asking how many of you will be watching The Game Awards specifically because Valve is doing a giveaway. 40% of you responded that yeah you’ll be watching the Game Awards but specifically because Valve is doing this giveaway. Well one viewer, Dean Barnes said this: “I definitely think Valve are up to something with The Game Awards. I can’t remember Valve ever incentivising
people to watch a games conference like this before. I reckon we’re about to find out what ‘Neon Prime’ is and how that will help shift many more Steam Decks!” So based on the rumors we’ve talked about on this channel in the past, I’ve come up with 6 possibilities. My heart wants to believe that one of these is true but my head thinks that there won’t be some big reveal. I’ll tell you why I think each possibility is unlikely as we dive in. Number 1: Valve announces Steam Deck coming to more regions. I won’t spend much
time on this because this has to be the least likely option, right? The giveaway is specifically for people in the US, Canada, the EU, and the UK. Not to mention this is a US-centric show airing at a US-centric time. Valve is attracting an audience of people that largely can already order a Steam Deck if they want one. If we’re being honest, the people watching will mostly be people that don’t care if the Steam Deck is launching in Brazil or the Middle East. So in my opinion, this possibility is out. Number 2: Valve announces SteamOS 3
for all. Once again, no I don’t think there’s any way Valve would announce this at The Game Awards. And it’s pretty much the same reason – I don’t think this is an announcement that would get a big pop at The Game Awards. I think the typical person that’s watching this awards show is someone that’s unlikely to install a new operating system on their gaming PC, assuming they have one. So that’s gonna be a no for me. We’re 0 for 2 up to this point, but comment down below with what you think so far. Number 3:
Valve announces the Steam Controller 2 Ok now things are starting to heat up. Steam Controller 2 seems like a possible, albeit still unlikely, announcement. We’ve seen prototypes of alternative Steam Controllers so we know they’ve at least been working on it. Of course, just because they’ve worked on it doesn’t mean they’ll actually release a new Controller. It’s hard to say how well this announcement would go over. I kinda think this is sort of mid-tier as far as announcements go. Some people would be very excited and very few people would be annoyed by this reveal. I imagine
the worst reaction from a casual crowd for this would be like “that’s cool, I guess”. That sort of apathy would kind of undercut the excitement around the Steam Deck so I still think this is a “No” even though you all know that I would love to see it. Number 4: Valve announces the Deckard You know the Deckard right? The long rumored wireless and/or standalone VR headset that Valve has been developing for some time now? Now this… this is an announcement that would pop, right? The demographic fits too. Valve could take advantage of the heat that
Meta Quest has gotten and swoop in as the heroes of VR. But I think this one is unrealistic too. Here’s a reply to one of my tweets that nails it, in my opinion: “With the troubles that Meta has had getting VR off the ground I wouldn’t be surprised if any future headset releases are put on hold indefinitely. Valve has an actual foothold with the Deck and SteamOS and I would bet that is the direction they start to move rather than VR.” VR seems to be in a tough spot right now. Interest in Meta Quest has
slowed down and the price point of Playstation VR 2 appears to have put a damper on the hype. On the one hand, this gives Valve an opportunity to garner a fanbase that feels burned by other companies but on the other hand, those price points didn’t come out of thin air. It’s hard to make an affordable VR headset and I would imagine that Valve can’t take as much of a loss on VR hardware as they were able to take on the Steam Deck. So we’re still 0 for 4 with 2 possibilities left to go. Number 5:
Valve announces Neon Prime (or some other game) Ok finally. This is the first realistic possibility, in my opinion. Announcing a game at The Game Awards is a pretty low bar. Everyone does it. And based on the announcements we’ve seen in previous years, it doesn’t even have to be very far in development. There were games announced last year that we STILL haven’t heard from. We already know Valve is working on one or more games and many people are speculating that Neon Prime is actually in the Half-Life universe and may even be Half-Life 3. So I think
it’s somewhat reasonable to hope that they make a big game reveal at the annual Keighly show. Announcing Half-Life 3 or any game in the Half-Life universe would get a huge pop, no question. I still won’t go as far as to say it’s likely but likely is an extremely high bar, right? For now, I’ll settle for the fact that I consider this a realistic possibility. That’s 1 out of 5 so it’s time for the last potential reveal. Number 6: Valve announces the Steam Deck is coming to retail stores. This seems like a somewhat realistic possibility. Not
nearly as realistic as Valve announcing a new game but this reveal would be most in line with the audience they’re attracting. By having a giveaway, Valve is asking for an audience that wants a Steam Deck or is curious about the Steam Deck. The best thing you can announce to this group of people is that the Steam Deck is available to try and buy at Target, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart. Still, the logistics of this would be challenging, if not just a total nightmare. I don’t think new hardware ever launches in December so if Valve were to
announce this, I’d imagine it’d be for January or later which isn’t exactly ideal either. So I’m going to give this a half a point. We have one and a half realistic possibilities out of 6 so let’s run those down and let me tell you what I think will actually happen. SteamOS 3 and More Regions are both very unrealistic. I just can’t imagine The Game Awards being the place to announce either of these. I think Steam Controller 2 is more of a possibility than those 2 but still seems pretty unrealistic. Steam Deck coming to retail stores
seems somewhat realistic but no way it would be in 2022. Lastly a game announcement seems pretty realistic, especially if it’s related to Half-Life or Portal. But you know what’s more realistic than that? This tweet from SirLimonada. It says: “valve will be there and we’ll see: a portal rtx “now available announcement” something about the steam deck amount of sales and something related to it like it’ll be sold in more countries something about the next sales” I assume when SirLimonada says sold in more countries, that’s just a general hey we’re now selling in Asia too. And yeah,
plugging the upcoming Winter Sale seems smart as hell for Valve. So yeah, I think this is spot-on. This is a big opportunity for Valve to spread the word about the Steam Deck and we’re going to get the basics. Portal RTX is out, Steam Deck is selling well, and you can buy games on sale. Maybe we’ll get some Steam Deck testimonials or something. But that’s just me. What do you think? Let me know in the comments. Congrats to the winners of today’s games and good luck to everyone watching The Game Awards tonight – I hope someone
from the Deck Gang wins a Steam Deck. Deck Gang out. Goodbye!
