Valve research expert Tyler McVicker has confirmed rumors about Half-Life 3 development. The files he found indicate that it seems to be true. The game, codenamed HLX, seems to McVicker to be a full-fledged Half-Life game that is not VR.
He claims that Valve and the Half-Life Alyx team began pre-production on another single-player title around the same time as Half-Life Alyx. The game’s codename HLX has been known since 2021.
«At the time and in the years that followed, arguments were made that HLX was not really a full-fledged game in development, but was perhaps a function of the engine or just a file format for saving. …Meanwhile, I’ve been slowly and silently digging into this story. HLX is confusing. HLX seems to be a full-fledged Half-Life game that is not a virtual reality game, something that seems too good to be true and something I would like to be very sure of before releasing information».
McVicker says that the time since Half-Life Alyx was announced (almost five years ago) has also been spent on developing the next big single-player game, codenamed HLX. Now we know another possible codename — Project White Sands. It was probably used during the casting of actors. The researcher notes that like many other studios, Valve uses very random codenames. Therefore, it is useless to look for a hint of Half-Life in the name itself.
Over the years, McVicker has learned a lot about the project through data analysis. He claims 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 it’s Half-Life 3? I have to be very careful answering this question. But yes. I think it’s a non-virtual reality Half-Life game [in which] you play as a character in a HEV suit and it’s been in development by Valve Software since Half-Life Alyx»,” McVicker adds.
Previously was reported that voice actress Natasha Chandel’s resume read «voiceover» in a game codenamed Project White Sands. Chandel did not name the characters, but the project was clearly labeled as a Valve product to be announced. Natasha Chandel’s website is currently down. Shortly before the site stopped working, any mention of Project White Sands disappeared from it.
Source: Eurogamer