Could it be ... Half-Life 3?

And when I say "Half-Life 3," I do not mean "Half-Life 2, Episode 3." 

Consider the following:  There was a gap of five years between the original Half-Life and HL2.  During that time, Valve created the Source Engine to replace the GoldSrc Engine that powered HL1.  

Half-Life 2 was released on November 16, 2004.  HL2-Episode One followed about a year and a half later, in June 2006, and Episode Two showed up about 16 months after that, in October 2007.  That's when the Orange Box was released, which included a pretty hefty update to the Source Engine.

So, we're coming up on three years.  The notion of "episodic content" -- wherein shorter Half-Life installments are released over shorter intervals -- has withered and died.  Episode One took forever, but it didn't take three years.

As we noted a few days ago, Valve has a surprise in store for their June 14 E3 exhibition, and Gabe Newell later said (maybe) that the surprise is not Episode Three.  Fire up the rumor mill.

VG247 says it has a source, and that source is saying that the surprise may, in fact, be the announcement of Valve's Source Engine 2.  The anonymous informant is even saying that the game the next Source Engine will be running at E3 might just be Half-Life 3.

After three years, maybe it shouldn't be a surprise, but if this is real ... holy hell.  I've been predicting this since L4D2 came out -- without Episode Three -- and I still don't believe it.

(I'm not being facetious here.  I really don't believe it.)