Half-life 3 in VR: "We're not saying no," says Valve

Half-life might work in virtual reality, or it might not. That's Valve's stance on the matter.

Half-life 3 in VR makes perfect sense and should definitely happen, but Valve says it hasn't made any decisions yet.

"We're not saying, 'no' but we don't know what the right thing is [yet]," Valve programmer Jeep Barnett told Kotaku when asked about the possibility.

"Our most precious resource is time, and we don't have enough time for people to do everything. Would we like to make all of our franchises in VR? Absolutely. But we don't have enough time or people. So we have to figure out what's the best fit, what plays to the strengths of VR."

Valve has thrown a few Half-life assets around while experimenting with VR, Barnett admitted, but of course that doesn't mean anything will come of it - just as the VR demo Valve is showing at GDC 2015, which is set in Aperture Science, means Portal 3 is happening.

"So yeah, we'll grab some headcrabs, we'll grab the machine guns from Half-Life, the rocket launcher - all those different fun things - and see how they play in VR," Barnett said.

"But right now, it's a tool for exploring the different kind of game designs we want to do.

"Is Half-Life a good fit? Is Left 4 Dead a good fit? Is a new franchise a good fit? I don't know yet. We're really trying to cover the broad spectrum of what we could do, and then we'll start focusing on spearheading that."

Valve unveiled the Vive VR headset this week, as well as its Lighthouse technology, which upgrades VR form a seated to a full-room experience.