Recently, the Half-Life community began another discussion about the "imminent announcement" of a new game. This time, the reason was a discovery by a user with the nickname sameseksure.
The list of planned events in Steam is quite dense, and the researcher was attracted by a "hole" in the schedule — an unusual gap between events from November 18 to December 8.
sameseksure believes that Half-Life 3 or a new Valve device could be announced during this period.
The upcoming period of downtime (as the researcher believes) is a great time to announce a new Valve product. Allegedly, the announcement could take place as early as November 18.
He explains his logic by saying that during events, the top banner is used to promote them, and therefore developers will definitely not announce anything during sales and other events.
Valve uses the top banner on the Steam store's main page to advertise sales, events, or new products, such as games or hardware. Everything on the Steam main page gets HUGE exposure. They put Half-Life: Alyx on the main page immediately after the announcement in 2019, as well as Valve Index when it was announced. During Steam sales or events, they occupy the top banner for the entire duration of these events (summer sale, Next Fest, etc.). Therefore, they will not announce anything simultaneously with major events in Steam, as it will absorb their own sales.