Half-Life 3 is not just in development, but it’s now “playable, end-to-end”.
That’s according to Valve insider Tyler McVicker, who posits the eagerly-anticipated sequel could be announced as early as this summer (Q3), with a possible release before the end of 2025, probably winter (Q4).
We already had strong evidence – if no specific confirmation – that Valve is once again working on a major new Half-Life project of some kind, codenamed HLX, with a trustworthy report last summer detailing datamined assets and code snippets backing up a leak from an actor likely involved.
I’ll go into some of the details after the video embedded below, but please be mindful there may be spoilers for this new game… if it’s real, of course.
As first reported by Engadget, McVicker gave a livestreamed Q&A packed with explosive clues and hints about what’s to come, and he has once again stressed: “The game is not VR. Half Life 3 is not a VR title.”
“HLX is being playtested so religiously and so widely that there are individuals who will just talk,” McVicker said. “I personally have a policy of avoiding any story-related questions or information wherever possible, so I currently have avoided all of them. But I’ve been offered it by people whom are trustworthy and I know some of my contemporaries have been given it so there is information out there about the plot…”
That said, he did tease that he “actually do[es] think [Portal’s] Chell may turn up in Half-Life 3”, and stressed: “Erik Wolpaw wants to do Portal 3 so fuckin’ bad”. McVicker also opined it was possible Portal 3 could be the next single-player project developed at Valve, but that may depend upon who is “gonna retire” after Half-Life 3.
“This is the furthest (HLX) has ever been. Period,” he added. “The game is playable – end to end. Period. [Other HL3/Ep3 projects have] never been that far. And they’re optimising, polishing, and they’re probably content-locked and if they’re not then they’re mechanic locked.”
He also addressed the procedural generation system, saying it has been “misunderstood” by the general public.
“The way Valve is going about that is akin to taking the [AI] Director from Left4Dead 2 and making it significantly more powerful. It’s not changing geometry. It’s instead changing entity placement, right [… like] doors, physics props, enemies, items. NPCs of any kind.” He also disputes claims the story will be procedurally generated.
What we do know for sure is Half-Life 3 was in development 2013/2014, and was set to be a procedurally-generated, replayable game that fused Left 4 Dead-inspired gameplay with scripted story moments. It was cancelled because it was built on the unfinished Source 2 engine.