Robin Walker, one of Valve's senior developers who has a history within both the Half-Life and Team Fortress universes, recently spoke to The Gamer about Half-Life: Alyx, and dropped a hint about the future of the Half-Life franchise.

According to Walker, Valve spent the first couple of years of Alyx's development "sceptical that we were going to actually build and release a Half-Life product again," suggesting that the scepticism that Valve was working on Half-Life existed inside the company, not just among players.

"All the scepticism about Valve working on Half-Life that’s out there was just as alive within the company itself, and you just resign yourself to thinking that we’re never going to do it," said Walker, before adding that "fear is a good motivator... the worst thing we could do is ship a bad Half-Life game, but if we ship a good one that is worthy of the name, then I'm sure people will be able to experience it in time." 

As for the future of the series outside of VR, Walker hinted that Alyx has taken the Half-Life series out of "narrative limbo," and that the game ended in a way that makes it "open-ended" and allows for the possibility of future content.

"We wanted to be excited about possibility again,” said Walker. “We gave you a red herring where you think you know how it’s going to end with a fully plausible ending and we then subverted that, which were all really important elements that took a lot of iteration and came together towards the end."

So while far from an official confirmation, it's interesting to know that, at least internally, the possibility of a sequel or continuation is still on the table, even if it isn't "Half-Life 3" per-say. Given its nearly 2 decades since the release of Half-Life 2, it does make you wonder just how long the series can stay untouched.