A YouTuber claims to have uncovered information that suggests Half-Life 3 may not be far off a release.
Half-Life 3 is a legendary phantom project among PC gamers but, 20 years on from the release of the iconic Half-Life 2, it may be coming soon according to data-mining YouTuber Tyler McVicker.
McVicker has extracted strings of data from recent releases of Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2, and claims to have found information related to a new single-player Half-Life title.
He says he decided to release the information now because of a recent leak that points to the internal development codename used for the project.
“Thanks to a screw-up by one of the voice actors on the project, we now know the internal code name that Valve uses to hide the real project name,” says McVicker.
That codename is Project White Sands, a Valve project that appears to have recruited actors to provide in-game voice work.
But why does mining other games tell us anything about this Project White Sands, also previously known online as HLX? The games all use Source 2, the engine Valve has implemented since 2015.
“HLX seems to be a fully fledged, non-VR, Half-Life game – something that seems too good to be true,” says McVicker.
“Do I think this is Half-Life 3? I have to be very careful in answering that question, but yes. I think this is a non-VR Half-Life game that you play as an HEV-suit-wearing character that has been in development since Half-Life: Alyx released.”
Half-Life: Alyx was released in 2020, suggesting four years of development work so far. The reference to a “HEV suit” comes from data-mining efforts that dredged up that term in game code.
Valve is yet to make any official announcement on an upcoming Half-Life game, but McVicker speculates it’s "nearing a completion date, sooner rather than later”.
So, is Half-Life 3 being released soon?
While these leaks do appear to suggest Valve is working on something, to suggest Half-Life 3 is about to arrive may be a stretch.
Valve has also been working on an as-yet unannounced multiplayer game, currently called Deadlock, for years. More than 15 minutes of gameplay of this in-progress title has been leaked, without Valve having acknowledged its existence.
Last year, McVicker claimed an earlier iteration of Half-Life 3 was cancelled way back in 2015, citing “internal conflict” among Valve bosses about the studio’s development priorities.
The company’s most recent games include Counter-Strike 2, released in 2023, and Aperture Desk Job, which was used as a showcase for the Steam Deck handheld PC.
Counter-Strike 2 is currently the most-played game on Steam, peaking at more than 1.2 million concurrent players each day. Valve’s Steam game platform saw estimated annual revenue of £7bn in 2023, as reported by VentureBeat.
