Hear me out on this. We know Retro isn't working on Metroid. We know that Alexander Brandon, the composer for Deus Ex and Unreal is working with Retro, which would fit well with Half-Life. We also know that Tanabe isn't working with Retro, even though Tanabe is the producer for nearly all non-Nintendo made Nintendo projects. This makes sense in two ways, it means there's a good chance Retro isn't working on a Nintendo project, and Valve would likely want themselves overseeing production, meaning they get their producer from there. Nintendo has also been much more flexible lately. Valve would certainly want themselves to publish it, and would want to include Steam with any console versions (they did this with Portal 2). Well, Nintendo agreed to allow Xbox Live on Switch in order to get Minecraft crossplay, and they're allowing Ubisoft to self-publish Mario X Rabbids, indicating they'd let Valve do both of these. Valve being the publisher would again, render Tanabe moot.
Think about it. It's 2014, and Valve really wants to start work on VR titles now that they have a system in development, but they've been working on Half Life 3 since Portal 2. Luckily for them, a company with an award-winning reputation just finished their latest game, and their parent company is in trouble, desperately needing a killer app. So Valve goes to Retro/Nintendo, and says 'You develop Half-Life 3 for us for free and to our standards, and you get console exclusivity.' They've contracted Half-Life out before, so they'd have no qualms with doing it again. Again, I know this sounds insane, but this was right around the time that they also greenlit Mario X Rabbids. It would also explain why we've heard absolutely nothing from them, because Valve is running the show and they don't want anything getting revealed until it's ready.
