Half-Life 3 reportedly nearly finished and could see a 2025 reveal
A seemingly minor update to Dota 2 is enough to spark speculation that Half-Life 3 is nearing completion.
A seemingly minor update to Dota 2 is enough to spark speculation that Half-Life 3 is nearing completion.
Rumours of Valve making Half-Life 3 have persisted for years, to the point where they’re now considered more meme than rumour, but things did ratchet up in the second half of 2024 – to the point where they’re sounding almost believable.
The purported evidence mostly comes from datamining of other Valve titles, which contain files for a project codenamed HLX, as well as claims of a new Half-Life being playtested in recent months.
We’re now nearly three months into 2025 and YouTuber Tyler McVicker, who’s been pushing Half Life 3’s existence for a while, believes the newest datamine discoveries could point to a formal announcement this year.
It’s always worth remembering that Valve has cancelled far more projects than they’ve ever released, including multiple iterations of Half-Life 3. McVicker is confident that this newest attempt has avoided a similar fate, but we wouldn’t count on anything until it’s sitting on your hard drive.
Nevertheless, in his latest video, McVicker references how whenever Valve breaks for the Christmas period, projects that were in development beforehand tend to get scrapped once everyone gets back from their holidays, citing Left 4 Dead 3 as an example.
Valve has also often abandoned or re-evaluated projects after the kind of external playtesting HLX is believed to have gone through. According to McVicker, though, the latest update to Valve’s Dota 2 proves that HLX is alive and kicking and apparently nearing the end of development.
McVicker does admit that all the strings of new code found in the updates aren’t particularly important, covering small changes to the game’s graphics engine. For the record, since 2015, all of Valve’s games, including Half-Life: Alyx, have been built with Source 2.
However, these changes pertain to optimisation and polishing, which McVicker says are indicative of Valve reaching the end of a production cycle.
Basically, whatever Valve’s new game is, it’s nearing completion and thus McVicker thinks it will be annouced later this year. Something fans also suspected Mike Shapiro, the voice of the series’ G-Man character, teased in his New Year’s message.
If this is the case, there’s no telling when or where Valve would make such an announcement. Summer Game Fest is perhaps the safest bet and we’re sure Geoff Keighley would be thrilled to host a Half-Life 3 reveal.
If we were feeling particularly spicy, we’d say it could be a surprise third party reveal at the April Nintendo Direct for the Nintendo Switch 2.
The console’s new mouse controller functionality could be of great interest to Valve, although traditionally they’ve shown little enthusiasm for supporting Nintendo platforms.
The Switch has proven far more popular than Valve’s own Steam Deck, but Valve likely makes enough money through Steam to outweigh any risks it takes on hardware. Plus, for a game with Half-Life 3’s status, Valve may want to keep it exclusive to its Steam platform, at least at first.
Ultimately, this all remains speculation and HLX may very well be a different Half-Life project altogether. For example, Half-Life: Alyx is still meant to be getting a sequel, although there’s been nothing to suggest HLX is a VR title.
It has been nearly five years since Half-Life: Alyx (Valve)Email [email protected], leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.
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