Actress Ashley Johnson caused a stir with a misleading photo, tagging it as a Valve production still. Showing Alyx Vance’s voice actor (Merle Dandridge) in a motion-capture outfit, Johnson teased it as Half-Life 3 work.

However, the whole thing is nothing but a ruse.

NeoGAF went to work and quickly debunked the rumor, citing that Johnson and Dandridge are both currently working on The Last of Us, and the image likely came from a production session.

Johnson, for her part, openly admitted the joke roughly four hours afterward, confirming that the motion capture photo came from Naughty Dog’s upcoming post apocalyptic title, and not from anything Valve is currently doing:

“Alyx Vance” #HL3 #insidescoop twitter.com/TheVulcanSalut…

— Ashley Johnson (@TheVulcanSalute) September 27, 2012

That’s a bummer for Half-Life fans, although the situation didn’t go on long enough to hit every gaming news site.

Merle Dandridge’s only video game credit to her long career is Half-Life 2 and all its associated episodes, although she’s a well-established Broadway and TV actress. Her Wikipedia page lists Half-Life 2: Episode Three as a future “TBA” project.

Source: Twitter