Valve Dataminer May Have Good News for Half-Life Fans

Summary

The long-awaited title Half-Life 3 may be in active development, according to a recent datamine.
A Valve project codenamed Project White Sands may allude to the setting of Half-Life 3.
Fans have been eagerly awaiting a new mainline entry for almost two decades, as Half-Life 2 was released in November 2004.

A notable dataminer has recently discovered evidence of an in-development project at Valve that might be the long-awaited Half-Life 3. While rumors around the third mainline entry in the cult-classic Half-Life series have circulated for years, this new development does have some plausibility behind it.

For nearly two decades, fans of the Half-Life franchise have been clamoring for a continuation of the story, which left on a cliffhanger at the end of 2007's Half-Life 2: Episode 2. Valve's silence on the matter, combined with the series' iconic status, has turned Half-Life 3 into one of the most enduring and popular memes in gaming culture. Over the years, Half-Life fans have tried to scrape together any evidence they can find about the next entry, even going so far as to keep an eye on Valve trademarks in case Half-Life 3 shows up at any point. Sadly, the highly-anticipated game has remained elusive.

However, speculation around Half-Life 3 has reignited thanks to a recent Reddit post revealing voice actor Natasha Chandel's involvement in a Valve project codenamed Project White Sands on her resume, which has since been taken down. Now, credible Valve insider Tyler McVicker has stepped forward, asserting that this project is indeed a new, fully-fledged "non-VR" Half-Life game known internally at Valve as HLX. McVicker’s confidence comes from extensive datamining of Valve’s recent game updates, revealing tons of details that lend credence to this project potentially being the fabled Half-Life 3.

Valve Datamine Uncovers Strange Terms That May Reference A New Half-Life Game

On McVicker's YouTube channel, the leaker revealed that the aforementioned updates to Valve's Source 2 games include "string" references to an HEV Suit-wearing character in HLX who goes "Offworld" and encounters "workers, storks, pentatanks, feral man hacks," and "Xengorillas, Xenjellyfish, and Xenswoopers," which all sounds straight out of Half-Life. McVicker speculates that these details were cut from Half-Life Alyx but have continually received "some form of development" since then, and that the name "White Sands" alludes to Half-Life 3's New Mexico setting, which lines up with the series' lore.

Even though the last mainline Half-Life entry was released 17 years ago, fan reverence for the first-person shooter series remains as strong as ever. With 2023's Counter Strike 2 and the heavily leaked Deadlock, as well as Valve's confirmation of multiple exciting projects in the works, the company is keeping busy, with plenty of games in active development. While this HLX rumor is not an official confirmation of Half-Life 3, it wouldn't be too surprising if Valve finally followed through on the third mainline entry to the series all these years later.

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