The entire gaming industry is merely a farce: a place where people gather not to play games but to hope for new ones. It’s the ultimate assembly of tinfoil hatters, who predict, decrypt, and huff and puff the hopium. And this time, it’s the HL and GoW fans doing it together.
After Geoff Keighley, the host of The Game Awards, shared two cryptic images portraying some sort of demonic portal and a desert in the middle of nowhere, fans were quick to conjure up hype. For what? No one seems to know, but some think it’s a new God of War game that is to be announced at the upcoming TGA.
There’s a lot to back this up: the portal has various fantasy creatures that are reminiscent of the last two games, and a chest plate on it is strikingly similar to one Kratos wears in God of War: Ragnarok. The portal is in more ways than one borne out of the fantasy genre, which is hard to connect with Half-Life. But that hasn’t stopped its eager fans.
Jumping on the second image shared by Geoff, the one showing just a desert in California (that curiously contains the name of the road running through it, Yucca Mesa Road) Half-Life fans are convinced this is red hot desert proof that HLX is going to be announced at The Game Awards. I mean, Half-Life starts in a desert and a facility called Black Mesa, so this is as clear cut as it gets? Right? Maybe. Probably not, though.
Geoff Keighley is known for sharing images that are oddly similar to various games, usually done to generate hype and excitement for annual events like the Summer Games Fest or The Game Awards. Sometimes these are actual teases of what is to come, but usually end up being something completely different to what fans imagined.
HL fans are extra eager to believe anything and grasp at any straws they can reach for, given how much hype was generated for Half-Life 3 in previous weeks. This hypothetical final game in the 27-year-old series hasn’t been talked about more ever since HL2 Episode 2 came out, so I can understand the fans who are desperate to get closure on one of the biggest cliffhangers in the industry’s history.
The Game Awards is going to give us a ton of good announcements, that much is sure, as it does every year. Whether or not that’ll end up being a new God of War or Half-Life (or even both) is anyone’s guess. But I think it’s safe to say that no, Geoff did not just reveal these two games to us.
Or maybe he did?
