Valve – a studio well-known for its secrecy when it comes to new projects it is working on – is seemingly making progress in the development of a project known internally as HLX, and is believed to be Half-Life 3. According to Valve insider Tyler McVicker, a recent update to the Source 2 engine that powers Counter-Strike 2 has some indications of progress for the development of HLX.
According to McVicker, one key line of code in the update makes references to the thumper machines that we last saw in Half-Life 2 that can be used to drive away hostile antlions. The line of code is believed to be a direct message to dataminers, and has been taken as a sign that progress on HLX has been continuing at a steady pace.
The report indicates that progress on the project has been so good that the game is seemingly in the final phase of development. Another major update to Source 2 indicates that the game will make use of a new style of NPC scripting. Through this new system, whenever a player gets close to an NPC, rather than offering up canned voice lines or simple gestures, the NPCs will now offer more complex reactions. Datamining has indicated that this new feature being present in the recent update to the engine means that it might be close to finished.
Another leaker, Gabe Follower, has also indicated that Half-Life 3’s development has progressed to the point where it is currently in the polishing stage. According to the leaker, developers at Valve have already started moving on to other projects since the majority of the work on HLX is reportedly finished.
The timetable for these rumours lines up quite well with a report from back in May that indicated that Half-Life 3 was internally playable at Valve “end-to-end”. This means that, at the time, the core development work was completed, and that the studio was busy with other aspects of game development, which tends to include polishing up art assets, and figuring out game balance through vigorous playtesting.
