Bossa Studios denied that a note found taped to an object in the game earlier this week was a tease for the much anticipated sequel to the popular Half-Life series.  

Much to the excitement of many fans, the note evidently contained the words “The time is,” followed by dots possibly pertaining to planets within the solar system. The first Half-Life included the words, “The time is 8:47 a.m.” in its opener. The discovery was made shortly after the Team Fortress 2 update for Surgeon Simulator.

Yet Bossa Studios sent out a Tweet earlier today that clarifies the note has nothing to do with any Valve game.

Earlier this year, Valve’s Gabe Newell stated that it would be in the best interest of gamers for Valve to not divulge details on any upcoming Half-Life game, because trying to explain the repetitive “twists and turns” of Valve’s development cycle would “probably drive people more crazy than being silent about it until we can be very crisp about what’s happening.”

Despite his words, the impatient fanbase has been searching for rumours. Half-Life has not seen a sequel in six years. Half-Life 2: Episode Two appeared in 2007, and the original Half-Life was released in 1998. Plans for a third episode for Half-Life 2 have yet to yield any results.

Recently, a listing for Half-Life 3 was found in Valve’s project management software by an anonymous source. The legitimacy of the sceenshots is unconfirmed. However, they do show a mailing group for a project titled “Half-Life 3”, which contains 42 employees.

Earlier this month, fans were excited by an update to Half-Life 2 that accidentally left NPCs speaking Korean. The theory here was based on Valve slipping clues into the Portal update for Portal 2. Unfortunately, it was a false alarm.

Valve has yet officially to confirm that Half-Life 3 is in development.