A Half-Life 3 insider has shared more information that's come to light surrounding the game, and it bodes well for its release. The news is likely to excite fans who have been waiting for Half-Life 3 ever since Half-Life 2 Episode 2 closed out on a cliffhanger back in 2007.
Half-Life: Alyx delighted a lot of fans of the franchise back in 2020, but some caveats have kept it from being the game fans wanted most. Half-Life: Alyx is a prequel, so it doesn't help to wrap up the story of Gordon Freeman or resolve the cliffhanger that the game was left on in Episode 2. Further, outside of using unofficial mods, Half-Life: Alyx is only playable in VR, leaving a considerable subset of the gaming population out in the cold.
It's the End of an Era for Half-Life 3
A new discovery surrounding Half-Life 3 has Valve fans slightly worried about the long-awaited game's rumored announcement.
New information has now come to light from Gabe Follower regarding the development of the next Half-Life game, which has been codenamed HLX. The game still hasn't been announced by Valve, but its other modern games, Counter-Strike 2 and Deadlock, have just received updates that seem to include code referencing Half-Life 3. The most exciting element of the discovery is that dataminers have discovered a great deal of code refactoring, which is essentially cleaning up the code. This is usually done in the late stages of a project, typically to improve efficiency prior to an official release, which could mean that Half-Life 3 (or X) will release sooner than players might expect.
What the Half-Life Code Leak Indicates
While these details don't provide any solid information about the game's story, they do give players an idea of how the technology powering the Half-Life games has evolved, and how that could impact gameplay. Gabe Follower has shared that some significant discoveries have been made that will impact physics, weather conditions, NPC AI, and vehicles. Dynamic wind systems, as well as improvements and optimization to NPC and object physics were part of the finds. Interestingly, the code also references Thumpers and Antlions, which are notably only found in the Half-Life franchise, further cementing that this code is likely connected to Half-Life, despite being found in other Valve games.
While these new details are certainly exciting, fans shouldn't hold their breath for the game's release. Valve is notorious for doing things at its own pace, and while it's certainly surprised the community by abruptly making big reveals in the past, there's no guarantee that will be the case here. After all these years of fans waiting for Half-Life 3 to be a reality, if it is indeed approaching its release, Valve is likely to take the time to ensure the game is as stable and bug-free as possible so as to not let down its long-time fans.
