HTC Apologises For Insinuating New 'Half-Life' Game For Vive VR Headset

HTC has managed to pull off what Valve hasn't been able to do for the last seven years – confirm a new "Half-Life" game. Unfortunately, this has been an inadvertent mistake on the Taiwanese smartphone maker's part, much to the collective dismay of the scores of Half-Life fans who have been fervently waiting for Valve to release "Half-Life 3."

HTC Chairman Cher Wang had insinuated that a new "Half-Life" game was being developed for the new Vive VR headset, according to Gamespot. The faux pas was committed during an interview conducted at the 2015 Game Developers Conference. Wang was speaking to the press about the recently unveiled VR headset. HTC is currently developing the device in conjunction with Valve, using the latter's SteamVR technology.

Although, Wang hadn't explicitly mentioned that a new Half-Life game was in development, her comments led to rumours about the resurgence of the wildly popular franchise that has been lying dormant for nearly a decade. The HTC boss has subsequently apologised for the confusion and issued a statement to BBC clarifying the issue, after the network reached out to Valve and discovered that it wasn't working on a "Half-Life" game for the Vive VR platform.

"Regarding my BBC interview with Dave Lee yesterday, I would like to apologise for any confusion caused when I referred to individual games titles," said Wang in her statement to BBC. "In response to a question on specific games, I misspoke when I referred to our working together with Valve on a particular game, when instead I meant our collaboration with Valve on developing next-generation virtual reality experiences for gaming."

Anything talk related to the Half-Life franchise is a touchy issue with Valve, with the company boss Gabe Newell being notorious for avoiding any comments about the franchise's future. The last episodic "Half-Life" instalment was released seven years ago, whereas it has been over a decade since the last core title "Half-Life 2" was released. The uncertainty surrounding the status of the franchise has resulted in disheartened fans taking to humour, which has spawned many running jokes and memes around the famously unconfirmed "Half-Life 3."

Meanwhile, Valve is closely collaborating with HTC to produce the Vive VR headset, which is slated to compete with Facebook's Oculus Rift and Sony's Project Morpheus wearable VR devices. The developer edition of the Vive VR headset is slated to release sometime this spring, with the final retail version promised for the 2015 holiday season.

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HTC RE Vive (credit: HTC YouTube channel)