Forget Half-Life 3, Valve’s CEO is investing in a brain chip company instead

Are you itching to play Valve’s Half-Life 3, hoping that its existence is more than just a rumor? While it still could be happening, Gabe Newell, Valve’s CEO, very much has other things on his mind. In fact, he’s invested in a company that wants to put chips in your head, potentially creating a direct link between brain and PC.

Half-Life 3 is reportedly in the late stage of development, but you could be playing the next iteration of this sci-fi FPS with your gray matter, if Newell’s investment pans out. The good news is that Newell hasn’t teamed up with Elon Musk’s Neuralink company. Instead, he’s involved in a new startup by the name of Starfish.

Newell is one of the co-founders of the company which is “Developing a broad range of foundational technologies to enable new ways to interact with the brain.”

However, it’s not looking at a single-chip approach. Rather, as reported by The Verge, Starfish believes several smaller implants are the way to go. The company is also, wisely, taking things slow, as noted in a recent blog post. One of their tasks is finding a chip that has a low enough energy requirement that it can be run via wireless power.

The company is focused largely on the medical applications of neural implants, so it may be a while before you’re beating the Combine to death with your mind. But given the 20+ year gap between Half-Life Episode 2 and the alleged Half-Life 3, the tech could be perfected by the time Half-Life 4 rolls around.

While you wait (and hope) for Half-Life 3 to continue Gordon Freeman’s tale, here are the best story games to play, as well as the best games on Steam, Valve’s own platform.

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