Fans have spotted an influx of developers at Valve, and suggestions that a new game in the Half-Life series could be rolling out to Valve’s ‘Family&Friends’ playtesting group
Less than a month ago, the rumour mill went into overdrive about Half-Life 3 potentially being shown at the Game Awards but, as with Bloodborne and the second GTA 6 trailer, it didn’t come to pass.
Still, fans have waited long enough, and YouTuber Gabe Follower (named after developer Valve’s head honcho Gaben Newell) has been digging into new information about the mysterious HLX project. The title, reportedly a codename for Half-Life 3, has seen a host of developers come to Valve, with many returning after years away.
Those devs have experience with Half-Life, Portal, and Left 4 Dead, and new datamined code suggests HLX will have some kind of gravity-shifting mechanic and more. Still, what’s most exciting is that one rumour suggests people could be playing it already.
Are playtesters playing Half-Life 3 already?
Gabe Follower’s video pulls up a bunch of interesting tidbits, but undoubtedly the biggest is that according to their sources, Valve has been playtesting HLX “not only with people from other teams, but also friends and family members”.
That sounds a little like your mate on the playground telling you their uncle works for Nintendo back in the day, but with Valve it holds some water.
The studio has a history of running “Family&Friends” playtests, which reportedly led to a delay for Half-Life Alyx to rewrite some of the story, while another one led to Deadlock, gaming’s worst-kept secret and a game that was in playtesting by thousands of players before the company lifted its confidentiality agreement about it.
As Gabe Follower explains, if those playing HLX are pleased with it and there are no major changes suggested, development is likely to continue unabated and potentially give us a formal reveal in the coming months. If changes are made, the company might need to go back to the drawing board on some aspects.
Given Gabe Follower has correctly revealed information about Deadlock and Counter-Strike 2 before those games launched, there’s every reason to consider some truth to the rumours here.
Half-Life 3 has been one of the great ‘unicorns’ of gaming, alongside a Bloodborne sequel and GTA 6, but the series has been quiet since 2020’s Half-Life Alyx. That was a prequel, only playable in VR.
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