Is Valve Actually Working on Half-Life 3?

As many of you know, even though it's been over a decade since the release of the last mainline Half-Life game, and with Half-Life 2 about to celebrate its 20th anniversary this Saturday, there are still thousands of dedicated fans who believe that Half-Life 3 – a game many have accepted will never see the light of day – could still be launched sometime in the future. You might also know that Valve doesn't really make it any easier for lifetime HL devotees to abandon their hopes and dreams, frequently leaving small hints that, in the eyes of many, lead to only one conclusion: Half-Life 3 is in the works.

For those fans, 2024 has been an especially hopeful year, with Valve's easy-to-miss yet publicly available updates suggesting that the conclusion mentioned above isn't as far-fetched as it might seem. Just in the last few months, we've learned that the developer is working on two brand-new Half-Life projects – one for virtual reality and another, a mysterious title dubbed HLX, for non-VR platforms. Shortly after that, it was also reported that HLX will be the third major game where players step into the shoes of Gordon Freeman, the iconic protagonist of the original Half-Life and its sequel, convincing many that Valve has, in fact, learned to count to three but doesn't want to announce it publicly just yet.

With so many mysteries surrounding HLX, and the fact that Valve seems to be the only video game company with zero insiders willing to reliably leak information, it's no wonder the question "Is Valve actually developing Half-Life 3?" has been on the minds of millions of gamers, including not only die-hard Half-Life fans but also those who may not follow the HL series closely, yet are eager to see how this long-running "will they, won't they" saga ultimately unfolds in the end.

Gabe Follower, one of the biggest Valve enthusiasts out there, has recently fanned the flames of the HL3 hype by sharing a new video, compiling the rare leaks, analyzing the files from other Valve games, and overall conducting a thorough OSINT-style investigation in an attempt to answer the question posed in this article's title.

In the analysis, Follower highlighted the numerous modders and former developers from other AAA studios, such as Epic Games, id Software, Rockstar, and Respawn Entertainment, who only recently joined Valve in different roles ranging from Artists to Software Engineers, a fact that, in the context of 2024, a year when developers get fired left and right, can only suggest that Valve is working on something big.

Additionally, the author shed light on the fact that Valve recently started renaming variables in the code from "hlvr" to "hlx," adding more credibility to the rumor that HLX won't be a VR game. Interestingly, Follower also pointed out that Valve has used the letter "X" before to conceal the number "3" during the development of Left 4 Dead 3, which was ultimately canceled due to issues with the Source 2 engine.

Speaking of Source 2, the author shared numerous findings from the code of other Valve games related to the new engine's capabilities, suggesting that HLX could feature procedural mechanics, dynamic weather and time-of-day systems, improved gravity manipulation, new NPC interactions, revamped physics, and more – the list of potential features turned out to be so extensive, it's hard to believe a game of lesser significance than Half-Life 3 would receive such a treatment.

As a cherry on top, Follower noted that Half-Life: Alyx resolved the storytelling issue caused by Eli Vance's death in HL2, meaning that Writers could seamlessly integrate a new mainline Half-Life game into the existing storyline and lore without needing to retcon anything.

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