There's been the t-shirt that cause all sorts of fuss, the Wheatley acceptance speech that supposedly contains all sorts of strange symbols and secret hints and, most recently, the Black Apeture website which boasts a Half-Life 3 logo. All of this, believe it or not, is "the community trolling the community," according to Chet Faliszek at the Steam forums and any belief that the third title is on its way is complete based in that trolling.
"There is no ARG," he wrote. "Wheatley’s speech was set in Portal 2 fiction – that is all. There has been no directive from Gabe to leak anything. That is all false.
"I just want to say this so there is no confusion. This is the community trolling the community nothing more. While it is nice to see people excited about anything HL, I hate seeing people be trolled like this."
Of course, some users took this as an indication that Valve are trying to throw them off the Half-Life 3 scent. Why, they asked, would a Valve employee take it upon themself to debunk a single rumour after years of allowing them to carry on unchecked?
For now Valve are keeping quiet, but it'll be interesting to see how things develop between now and E3.
