Valve is working on Half-Life 3 - code analysis and data from the actress' resume prove it

Valve research expert Tyler McQuicker has confirmed the rumors surrounding the development of Half-Life 3. The files he discovered indicate that this may indeed be the case. The game, codenamed HLX, appears to McQuicker to be a full-fledged Half-Life title that is not VR.

He claims that Valve and the Half-Life Alyx team began the pre-production of another single-player title around the same time as Half-Life Alyx. The codename HLX has been known since 2021.

“At that time and in the years that followed, there were arguments made that HLX was not actually a full game in development but possibly just an engine feature or merely a file format for saving. … Meanwhile, I've been quietly digging into this story. HLX is convoluted. HLX appears to be a complete Half-Life game that is not related to virtual reality, something that seems too good to be true, and which I wanted to be very sure about before making any information public.”

McQuicker mentions that the time since the announcement of Half-Life Alyx (almost five years ago) has also been spent on developing the next big single-player game codenamed HLX. Another potential codename, Project White Sands, has recently come to light. It was likely used during the casting of actors. The researcher notes that, like many other studios, Valve employs very random codenames. Thus, searching the name for hints about Half-Life is futile.

Over the years, McQuicker has “learned a lot” about the project through data analysis. He asserts that lines of code in games like Dota 2 contain borrowings from Half-Life Alyx but “continued to be developed” in unknown subsequent projects.

“Do I think this is Half-Life 3? I have to be very careful answering that question. But yes. I believe it’s a Half-Life game unrelated to VR, [in which] you play as a character in an HEV suit and which has been developed by Valve Software since the time of Half-Life Alyx,” McQuicker adds.

Previously, it was reported that a voice actress, Natasha Chandel, mentioned a “voiceover” in a game codenamed Project White Sands in her resume. Chandel did not specify any character names, but the project was clearly marked as a Valve product that would be announced.

Currently, Natasha Chandel's website is no longer operational. Shortly before the site went down, all mentions of Project White Sands disappeared from it.

Source: Eurogamer