The Hottest Gaming Leaks and Rumors of 2025: From Half-Life 3 to a Zelda Remake

Half-Life 3, a new Zelda remaster, and GTA 6 are the subjects of some of the biggest gaming rumors and leaks you need to know!

Half-Life
Photo: Valve

We all live for new game reveals, trailers, and surprise announcements. We love when Nintendo shows us the future of their latest platform in a 45-minute stream. Give us all those inside looks at the most highly-anticipated games of the year. We are constantly hungry and need to be fed.

Which is why we also love the leaks and rumors that fill in the gaps between major game news. The terminally online love to speculate, gossip, and claim that their uncles and aunts who work at Valve told them that Half-Life 3 is finally right around the corner (more on that below). 2024 was full of juicy leaks and rumors, some of which were true and others that were nothing but hot air.

But if you think we’ve learned our lesson, guess again! One month into 2025 and we already have quite a few gaming rumors and leaks to sink our teeth into. Regardless whether they’re actually true or not, we’ll have loads of fun talking about them until an official statement spoils the party. Below, are the hottest gaming rumors you need to know for this year. And of course, remember to approach all this scuttlebutt with a grain of salt.

New 3D Mario and a Zelda Remake/Remaster for the Nintendo Switch 2

There’s a lot we still don’t know about the Nintendo Switch 2, including the games coming to the console. The announcement trailer did tease the long-awaited Mario Kart 9, and it’s a safe bet to assume Metroid Prime 4: Beyond will be on the system, but there’s no doubt Nintendo has a few other projects to announce for this year. In fact, two particularly exciting ones seem to have leaked on a Newegg listing for a Nintendo eShop gift card.

Ad – content continues below

As spotted by Twitter user Stealth40K (via Forbes) earlier this month, Newegg originally listed a “New 3D Mario” and a “Legend of Zelda Remake/Remaster” as part of the 2025 Nintendo lineup, alongside confirmed titles like Metroid Prime 4, Pokemon Legends: Z-A, and Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition. While Newegg quickly scrubbed mentions of Mario and Zelda from the listing, it’s pretty safe to assume Nintendo does indeed have plans to put its two biggest franchises on its new console this year. After all, Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey launched within months of each other back in 2017, the first year of the original Switch.

The question is, what will these new Mario and Zelda games look like? As far as the Zelda remake/remaster goes, Nintendo has plenty of classics to choose from, including a return to the N64 era of Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask. Or is it finally time for that Wind Waker remaster Nintendo fans have been clamoring for since the Switch first launched? Perhaps we will find out during the next Nintendo Direct, which will be all about the Switch 2, on April 2.

The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Remake

A remake of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion has been heavily rumored since at least 2023, when Microsoft documents from 2020 made their way online. One of these documents confirmed Bethesda was working on a remaster of the fan-favorite fantasy RPG around the time Xbox was working to acquire the publisher. (The list also included information on a game called “Doom Year Zero,” which became this year’s upcoming Doom: The Dark Ages, as well as a Fallout 3 remaster, Dishonored 3, Indiana Jones, and more.) Now, a lot could have changed within Xbox and Bethesda since 2020, but that’s not stopped the rumor mill from continuing to churn.

The latest rumors hit just this month, including claims that Xbox would announce an Oblivion remake as a special surprise game at this year’s Developer Direct broadcast. (That surprise game was actually Ninja Gaiden 4.) While that one didn’t turn out to be true, others persist. One report (via IGN) claims that Virtuos, the studio currently working on Metal Gear Solid Delta, an MGS3 remake, is also developing the Oblivion remake in secret, using Unreal Engine 5 to overhaul many of the game’s systems. Another report alleges that the remake will be out this June. We’ll see.

Half-Life 3

We know, you’re rolling your eyes all the way to the back of your head right now. Years of rumors and supposed leaks have left even the most optimistic of us exhausted. But this might finally be the year Valve announces a proper, non-VR sequel for its most famous game series. Maybe.

While Half-Life 3 rumors are always at a constant hum online, things began to heat up when trusted games reporter Jason Schreier teased that there would be at least two announcements at The Game Awards last December that fans wouldn’t believe. Naturally, many gamers immediately turned to speculating that Valve head Gabe Newell would show up to the awards show to reveal the new Half-Life, which of course didn’t happen.

Ad – content continues below

That disappointment would have been enough to cool things down again had it not been for a Twitter post from Mike Shapiro, the actor behind the G-Man’s iconic voice. In the short video posted on New Year’s Eve, Shapiro said in the G-Man’s creepy tone that he hoped “the next quarter century [will] deliver as many unexpected surprises as did the millennium’s first. See you in the new year.” The mention of “unexpected surprises” to come would be enough on its own to send Half-Life fans into a frenzy, but as Ars Technica points out, this is also Shapiro’s first post in over four years, with the last coming around the time he finished promoting the VR title Half-Life: Alyx, which released in 2020. It was also in 2020, after the launch of Alyx, that Shapiro teased that he had also completed voice work for another “blast from the past,” saying he’d announce the “mindblowing” project “on my Twitter feed when I’m allowed to.” Well, perhaps that’s now!

But we’re not just going to take Shapiro’s word for it. There’s more: dataminers have recently dug up references to a secret Valve project codenamed “HLX” within the code of the company’s Source 2 engine. The code heavily references new physics-based systems seemingly tied to this mysterious HLX project, leading some to speculate that Valve wants to introduce new innovations to game physics with the next Half-Life. A trusted Valve watcher aptly calling himself Gabe Follower also claims (via Ars Technica) that the studio is currently playtesting the new game, and that if all goes well, we could get an announcement this year.

Wait, one more bit of speculation before we move on. The last time Valve shipped a Half-Life game, it was bundled as the killer app for the Valve Index, the company’s premium VR headset, which was promoted as the best way to experience this brand-new chapter in the shooter series. Fast-forward a few years and Valve is all about its Steam Deck handheld and the SteamOS that powers it. Valve announced late last year that it would give third-party handheld manufacturers access to its custom gaming operating system, starting with the upcoming Lenovo Legion Go S. Clearly, Valve has a vested interest in getting as many devices into its Steam ecosystem as possible, which would mean more players buying their games through Steam’s online marketplace. What’s a great way to get more companies and gamers into SteamOS? By dropping a new Half-Life game as a Steam exclusive…

GTA VI Delayed to 2026

It was Kotaku who first reported in March 2024 that Grand Theft Auto VI could miss its 2025 release window, pushing the launch into 2026 and making the wait just a bit longer. At the time, the outlet reported that Rockstar workers had been ordered back into the office five days a week, partly because development was “falling behind,” according to Kotaku’s sources. The outlet has since updated its reporting, stating that internally Rockstar is aiming for a Fall 2025 release and that “most” sources believe the studio can make that date, but also stressed that there was still a possibility of a delay.

One former Rockstar employee (via IGN) familiar with how the company’s decision-making works speculated that the studio would wait until getting further into the year before making a decision on GTA VI‘s release date: “The decision to delay GTA 4 was made four months or so before the original release date,” said former Rockstar Games technical director Obbe Vermeij, referencing how the company chose in August 2007 to delay GTA 4 from its original October date to 2008. “Any further and it’s hard to make the call. Rockstar is probably not in a position to determine whether they will hit 2025 until May-ish.”

Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier also predicted (not a confirmation!) this month that GTA VI would get pushed to next year.

Ad – content continues below

“Publisher Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. has said that the most-anticipated game of all time is on track for a fall 2025 release. But companies say a lot of things,” Schreier wrote in his newsletter Game On. “The next Grand Theft Auto is a huge and ambitious game, the pressure to make it great is inordinate and developer Rockstar Games has vowed to avoid forcing excessive overtime during the final months of development. I expect that it will slip to 2026.”

Resident Evil 9

It’s been a few years since the last mainline Resident Evil, so it’s not a huge surprise that rumors about Resident Evil 9 are heating up, particularly after a placeholder retail listing for the game popped up on Play Asia (via Eurogamer) last year. Capcom has also confirmed that it is indeed working on the next Resident Evil but stopped short of saying it was Resident Evil 9.

“It was really difficult to figure out what to do after [Resident Evil 7],” said game director Koshi Nakanishi during the Capcom Next Summer 2024 stream in July. “But I found it, and to be honest it feels substantial. I can’t share any details just yet, but I hope you’re excited for the day I can.”

We don’t know what the next game will entail, but there are of course plenty of rumors, including one particularly big one: that it will star fan-favorite zombie killer Leon S. Kennedy instead of recent protagonist Ethan Winters. Take that with a grain of salt for now, though.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Sequel

Ah yes, the yearly Call of Duty game, America’s greatest pastime. We know to expect it, whether we’ve had our fill of the current installment or not. And if popular scooper Tom Henderson’s latest CoD info is correct, those who are still trying to “git gud” in 2024’s well-received Black Ops 6 will have to deal with a second dose of Black Ops in 2025.

According to Henderson, Call of Duty 2025 is a sequel to the futuristic section of 2012’s Black Ops 2. That game pushed the story forward to the year 2025, with America now fighting a Second Cold War against China. The new sequel will allegedly be set in 2030 and feature remastered multiplayer maps from Black Ops 2.

Ad – content continues below

Halo on PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch

Xbox head Phil Spencer has made no secret of the company’s plans to port its first-party franchises to other platforms in the future. Xbox heavy-hitters like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Doom: The Dark Ages will both release on PlayStation 5 later this year, and Spencer also recently suggested that Starfield could make the jump to PS5 in the future as well.

Yet, none of those games have represented the Xbox brand for quite as long as its true flagship franchise: Halo. Which is why, until very recently, the idea of Halo games on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms seemed so unbelievable. But that’s apparently what’s coming, according to leaker NateTheHate (via IGN), who claims Microsoft is planning to release Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PS5 and the Switch 2. Windows Central corroborated the report earlier this month, adding they also heard Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Hellblade 2, Age of Mythology: Retold, and Gears of War 1 Ultimate Edition are all hitting the PS5 this year as well. What a time to be alive.