Gabe Newell and J.J. Abrams onstage at the DICE Summit in 2013. (credit: Kyle Orland)

Valve Software chief Gabe Newell logged into Reddit on Tuesday to answer questions in an “ask me anything” thread. As expected, waves of fans shouted “HALF-LIFE 3?!” as if that blurt were a question.

Unsurprisingly, Newell didn’t offer hard answers about any closure to Valve’s beloved FPS series. He and his coworkers have dodged such questions for years now—but he did offer a mix of pessimism and optimism regarding the Half-Life universe in general.

Early in the AMA, when he was asked what his favorite single-player Valve game was, Newell answered that it was Portal 2. A joke response from an apparent Half-Life fan prompted this Newell follow-up: