We have known about the project codenamed ‘HLX’ for years at this point, with the name appearing in numerous code strings for Source 2 games, including Dota 2, Deadlock and Counter-Strike 2. Unfortunately, this new Half Life game has not yet been publicly announced, or even acknowledged by Valve, but that changed earlier this week.
Mike Morasky, a developer at Valve, recently spoke on a panel about sound design in videogames. During that panel, he mentioned HLX, right alongside Deadlock, the two biggest projects currently in development at Valve.
The mention didn’t go unnoticed by Morasky’s fellow Valve developers also on the panel. One of them whispered to him “good job, you only mentioned HLX once”, and later, Morasky denied that HLX exists, but there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
HLX is supposed to be the next Half Life game, likely following on from Half Life Alyx, but this time, it won’t be a VR-only game.
There was a time where we thought HLX would be a launch game for the Steam Machine, as the game was reportedly undergoing playtests late last year, shortly after the Steam Machine was announced. However, very little information has come out since then. It is entirely possible that like Half Life Alyx before it, HLX went through a period of re-working after the private playtests. This same thing happened with Half Life Alyx back in 2019, with the game’s story being re-worked over its last year of development.
KitGuru Says: We’re all looking forward to the return of Half Life. While HLX is clearly in development at Valve, there is no telling when the company will be ready to announce it officially.
