Sure they confirm it, it's not like they're gonna snap a valve or anything. Despite the fact that the first and long-delayed additional episode (formerly known as Aftermath) is still not prepared for its debut, a certain designer/engineer from Valve willingly confessed to CVG that Half-Life 2: Episode Two "has been in development for some time". Not much of a news really, given Aftermath's recent change of title, or the fact that Episode One will only cover about 4-6 hours of play... insufficient for clearing up all the questions left behind by Half-Life 2, and for telling a whole new story. Needless to say, Episode 2 is not bearing any release date at the moment - which was also to be expected. So hang on in there, this might take a while!

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)