Various insiders have been talking about a November announcement of Half-Life 3, so fans have begun looking for hints from Valve. The community's attention was drawn to the profile of one of the company's long-time employees.
Attentive players noticed that he recently played Half-Life 2 for 18 minutes - because of this, theories about an imminent announcement have started to be built again.
Some participants in the discussion found such surveillance of employees to be an overkill, for example, Cigerza ridiculed fan theories:
But why exactly 18 minutes? Think about it with me: what do you get if you divide 18 by 2? 18 minutes, divided in half (Half‑Life 2) - that's 9, right? If you add 1 + 8 you get 9, right? And what is 9 squared? 81 - that's 18, only written backwards. So, we already have three mathematical operations. By this logic, 9 divided by 3 - you get 3. Do you need more confirmation? Come on!