Draft:Half-Life 3

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Half-Life 3 is a suspected upcoming first-person shooter game developed by Valve. It was first in development from 2013 to 2014, before being cancelled. Source 2 datamines showcase a project codenamed HLX, which is widely believed to be a Half-Life project—industry insiders initially reported that the game would be announced in 2025, with delays now claimed.

Half-Life 3 was in development between 2013 and 2014. Valve planned to use procedurally generated levels alongside a "crafted experience", similar to the Left 4 Dead series; the game would generate different routes through environments each time it was played. The team took new scans of the face of Frank Sheldon, whose likeness was used for the G-Man character in Half-Life 2. The Source 2 engine was still unfinished and the project was canceled early in development.^[1]

Following the release of Half-Life: Alyx (2020), dataminers examining updates to the Source 2 engine discovered that Valve was developing a non-VR Half-Life game codenamed HLX. According to them, the game has been in development since 2021. After releasing Alyx, Valve also hinted that they would like to develop more Half-Life games in the future.^[2]

On December 31, 2024, Mike Shapiro, the voice actor for the G-Man, posted a cryptic message on X, formerly known as Twitter, suggesting "unexpected surprises" in the new year, while also adding the hashtags #Valve, #Halflife, #GMan, and #2025.^[3] In April 2025, it was reported that HLX was "playable, end-to-end", being playtested and would be a sequel to Half-Life 2: Episode Two.^[4] Several gaming industry insiders, dataminers, and leakers later reported that Valve was planning a 2025 announcement for Half-Life 3.^[2][5][6] One of the reliable insiders, Insider Gaming senior editor Mike Straw, claimed in December 2025 that the announcement was delayed, citing the reason being that it would be a launch title for the Steam Machine, a piece of hardware allegedly facing pricing issues due to high RAM prices.^[7][8]