Valve releases a patch for Half-Life, fueling speculation and demands for Half-Life 3

Valve has released a patch for Half-Life, the seminal videogame first released in 1998. The patch contains only minor bug fixes, and not new content, but the update shows that Valve continues to maintain an almost twenty year old game. Developed by Valve, the first person shooter was published by Sierra and Valve, and distributed by Electronic Arts. The update mostly prevents the game from crashing in different circumstances. The complete patch notes are reproduced here:

• Fixed crash when entering certain malformed strings into the game console. Thanks to Marshal Webb from BackConnect, Inc for reporting this.
• Fixed crash when loading a specially crafted malformed BSP file. Thanks to Grant Hernandez (@Digital_Cold) for reporting this.
• Fixed malformed SAV files allowing arbitrary files to be written into the game folder. Thanks to Vsevolod Saj for reporting this.
• Fixed a crash when quickly changing weapons that are consumable. Thanks to Sam Vanheer for reporting this.
• Fixed crash when setting custom decals

While some fans appreciated the fixes, showing that the game continues to be played, most of the responses to the thread were full of demands for Half-Life 3. Since the release of the original Half-Life, Valve has gone on to create one of the most popular game distribution platforms, Steam. Valve never came around to releasing a third planned episode of Half-Life 2, with the second part of the series ending in an unresolved cliffhanger. Half-Life 3 has been rumoured for many years, but is probably never going to see the light of day.In a Reddit AMA, Valve’s managing director Gabe Newell has indicated that there were a couple of unannounced titles in development. In 2013, after a wait of fifteen years, Valve ported the original Half-Life to OSX and Linux. The last original title by Valve was Dota 2, released in 2013.