Rise and shine: Half-Life 3 trademarked in Europe

Half-Life 3 has been trademarked in Europe. No, really: Half-Life 3 has been trademarked in Europe.

According to the European Union’s trademark registration office, Half-Life 3 has been trademarked as “Computer game software; Electronic game software; Downloadable computer game software via a global computer network and wireless devices; Video game software”, and “Provision of on-line entertainment; provision of computer and video games and computer and video game programmes from a computer database or via the Internet.” Which sounds about right for a computer game that’ll be available via Steam, I suppose.

The trademark was filed on 29 September 2013, by Valve Corporation. So, as far my complete lack of legal knowledge can tell, it looks fairly legit.

This raises the inevitable question of whether or not it’s actually happening, of course; companies trademark stuff all the time. On the other hand… well, the fact that Valve are trademarking it now must mean something, surely? This will doubtless also raise suspicions that this’ll be something to do with the newly-revealed Steam Machine, although I sincerely doubt Valve would be stupid enough to make Half-Life 3 an exclusive for SteamOS.

Thanks, NeoGAF.