Valve Speculation

So... there is some almost news that Valve, (those guys who make Half Life) are planning a surprise for this years E3 Expo.

This led to a fair bit of internet humour as to what Valve could be doing. A fair bit of parody at how slow they are at doing anything, for example. Of course, I immediately thought of joking how "the surprise is a lie" before realising that was pretty much the joke everyone had made, instantly, and so I was already five minutes behind the entire internet.

So. Yeh.

Warning: From now on this is pretty much just me speculating what Valve are gonna do this E3. If you don't know what E3 is, or who Valve are, then don't worry, it is not really that important. But if you don't know, this post is either going to make little sense, or be pretty dull. Maybe both. Who can tell.

But what could this surprise be? The most obvious would be for a sequel to be announced... but of the various IPs Valve have, we already (pretty much) know the status of these. Portal is definitely getting a sequel sometime "soon", Half Life Ep3 is in "development", and since Team Fortress still has a few class updates to go, so I doubt there would be sequel talk there. That leaves Left 4 Dead, but that just had a new title last Christmas, and I don't think Valve are gonna try to make that an annual thing. So I don't think the "surprise" is going to just the announcement of a new game. We already know, kinda, how those series are playing out. I doubt a "big surprise" would involve any of those.

So here is my guess. New Counter Strike. Considering how many people played CSS back in the day, a new version of CSS could draw all those people back. Valve have been tweaking CSS in recent patches, maybe testing things out to see how the community reacts. This is because they are planning a new game. Vavle love teasing the community, they love to have anticipation build for a very... long... time. Remember how long we had to wait for the original L4D? Or how long we have already been waiting for Ep3? Valve will drop a bombshell and then wait over a year before bringing results. This would be a big project. That project will be Counter Strike. You heard it here first.

(Of course, this is not what I really want. I want Episode 3. So get on that Valve.)