It’s been two decades since we last checked in on Gordon Freeman in Half-Life 2: Episode Two, with the promise of a third Half-Life game languishing for an absurdly long time. In the intervening years, Valve has neither confirmed nor denied a third mainline Half-Life game, though the secretive studio is rumored to have canceled at least one attempt to make Half-Life 3. Surprisingly, there’s fresh evidence of a new Half-Life game directly from Valve, though the person revealing that information seemingly didn’t intend to.
The latest morsel about the long-rumored existence of Half-Life 3 comes after years of leaks about a game codenamed “HLX.” One Valve employee just casually dropped the name HLX during a gaming convention this week, restarting the rumor mill.
HLX = Half-Life 3 (maybe)
At this week’s GameSoundCon, a game music and sound design conference in Burbank, California, Valve composer Mike Morasky appeared on a panel with sound designers David Feise and Carlye Nyte. Their talk, titled “Valve’s Approach to an Open and Flexible Audio Engine,” was meant to discuss Valve’s Source 2 audio engine and extensible open systems. What most people will take away from that talk is that Morasky let slip Half-Life 3‘s supposed codename HLX in a public forum, seemingly to the chagrin of one of his panelists.
As spotted by a member of the Gaming Leaks and Rumours subreddit, late into the panel (which is available on Vimeo), Morasky says, “I think Deadlock has their own version of HDR. You know, HLX has its own version, so on and so forth.” Feise then appears to whisper to Morasky, “Nice work.” As the panel comes to an end, Feise leans in and says to Morasky what sounds like, “Good job. You only said ‘HLX’ once.” To which Morasky responds with what sounds like, “I did?”
Half-Life fans believe they’ve heard Morasky make this same flub before. In a post on the Half-Life subreddit last year, Redditors posted video interviews of Morasky saying “HLX,” referring to a Valve project, before quickly correcting himself. In another instance, Morasky supposedly mentions working on two Half-Life games for Valve, when he’s only officially credited with working on Half-Life: Alyx, the 2020 virtual reality prequel to Half-Life 2.
HLX is the supposed codename for Half-Life 3, or at least a direct follow-up to the events of Half-Life 2: Episode Two. The codename’s existence was uncovered by dataminers who had pored over updates to the Source 2 engine after Half-Life: Alyx‘s release. HLX is rumored to be a non-VR game set in the Half-Life universe. Supporting the rumors of HLX/Half-Life 3‘s existence is a report from longtime Valve reporter Tyler McVicker, who said in 2025 that the game isn’t just in development, but “playable from end to end.”
There’s no indication that Valve plans to announce Half-Life 3 anytime soon, but fans of the first-person shooter franchise have gotten used to waiting. They can certainly tolerate waiting a little longer.