Rumors about the release of "Half-Life 3" intensify
Insiders report secret tests for "Project HLX". A cryptic video of the G-Man voice actor fuels the rumors of a 2025 release.
Can we really expect part 3 of "Half-Life" in 2025?
(Image: dpa, Valve/dpa)
New year, new rumors about Half-Life 3: Hopes were high that Valve would use the 20th anniversary of "Half-Life 2" to finally announce the third part of the shooter series about physicist Gordon Freeman. However, these hopes were also dashed. Now there are increasing signs from various sources that 2025 could be the year after all. Allegedly, "friends and family" of Valve Software are currently privately testing "Project HLX", as the account "Gabe Follower", which specializes in information and leaks about the Half-Life series, claims to have learned. He assumes that the project can only be "Half-Life 3", as he explains in detail on his YouTube channel.
The rumors are further fueled by the fact that Mike Shapiro posted an ominous video on X on December 31 at 11 p.m. CET, after not having posted anything for years. Shapiro voices the original "G-Man" – Freeman's antagonist in the Half-Life series. In the video, he hints that we'll see him again in 2025.
"Another year already. Good to see and hear from so many of you. May the next quarter century deliver as many unexpected surprises as did the millenniums first. And again, time is fluid like music. See you in the new year."
Similar videos before the release of "Half-Life: Alyx"
Shapiro recently did something similar before the announcement of the VR spin-off "Half-Life: Alyx", using the same hashtags: #Valve #Halflife #GMan – this time just adding #2025. Shortly after the game's release , Sharpiro said in an interview that the next game in which he voices a character would be like a reunion with an old friend.
During the video, the virtual camera moves through the image from bottom left to top right, showing scenery and a simple, drawn house. Neither is very reminiscent of Half-Life graphics. Instead, X users discovered that it is an excerpt from the cover image of the song "Best Long Dog" by Shapiro, which can be found on YouTube. There is speculation that the dog being sung about could possibly be a reference to the robot dog "Dog" by Alyx Vance, but given the lyrics of the song, this seems unlikely.
Why is it taking so long?
Shortly after the release of "Alyx", Valve explained in an interview with IGN why the publisher ended the planned trilogy of shorter episodic games after just two episodes. On the one hand, Valve was confronted with "scope creep", which meant that the planned smaller episodes grew into larger projects and development was delayed. In addition, Valve wanted to stabilize the Source 2 engine before developing a new game on it, and internal experiments did not meet the requirements they had for the Half-Life series. In addition, Valve was heavily involved in other projects such as Steam, Dota 2 and VR technologies, which further strained resources and prevented the development of "Episode 3".
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Gabe Newell himself said in the documentary on 20 years of "Half-Life 2" that he wanted to push technological boundaries with new titles in the series [...]. From this, Gabe Newell deduces that Valve Software has been working on a new version of the Source Engine since 2020 to meet these demands. However, even if all indications of "Project HLX" point to an imminent release of "Half-Life 3", fans shouldn't get too excited after 20 years of waiting. On the other hand, Valve Software has been good for surprises in the recent past, as the online shooter "Deadlock", which appeared out of nowhere, proved last year.
(vza)