A slip-up by Valve employees has revived rumours of a new Half-Life game, following years of speculation.
Half-Life 3 is one of the last remaining gaming holy grails, which still hasn’t been announced, but there’ve been so many rumours over the years that it’s hard to take any of them seriously anymore – even if the more recent ones have had more substance to them than usual.
Last year saw the start of a new wave of announcement rumours, to coincide with Valve’s Steam Machine. However, none of them came to fruition and the Steam Machine itself proved to be a damp squib.
That doesn’t mean a new Half-Life game doesn’t exist, but rumours have been scarce in 2026 and there’s been no sign of an official annoucement. That is, until, Valve just mentioned the rumoured codename out loud at a conference.
The slip-up took place during a panel at GameSoundCon dedicated to ‘Valve’s approach to an open and flexible audio engine’. During the panel, Valve composer and audio artist Mike Morasky dropped a mention to HLX, a rumoured Half-Life codename, out of nowhere.
In response to a question about managing the number of sounds that can play at once, Morasky brought up Valve’s HDR system. ‘Deadlock has their own version of HDR,’ Morasky said. ‘HLX has its own version, and so on and so forth.’
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Mike Morasky, a developer from Valve, directly mentioned HLX (rumored to be Half-Life 3) during his Q&A session. pic.twitter.com/6ZeaYaD9tb
— Gabe Follower (@gabefollower) October 22, 2026
References to HLX first appeared in a Counter-Strike 2 update, and gained traction because it shares some resemblance to HLVR, aka the codename for Half-Life: Alyx. While it’s unclear if HLX relates to Half-Life 3 specifically, or another Half-Life project, it’s the most concrete piece of evidence that a new entry is cooking away at Valve.
The fact it’s now been mentioned by a Valve employee only solidifies that HLX is a project that definitely exists.
At the event, Morasky’s co-panellist, David Feise, even turned to him, following the HLX mention, and appeared to whisper ‘nice work’ in response – indicating it’s something he shouldn’t have said.
Later, at the end of the panel, Feise leans in to Morasky and, in a moment picked up by the mics over the applause, says: ‘Good job, you only said HLX once.’ This appears to be a reference to Morasky’s previous slip-ups, where he almost mentioned HLX in 2025.
Aside from knowing what HLX actually is, the big question is when it could be announced. The Steam Machine launched in June this year, priced at £879, but Valve has been pretty quiet when it comes to its future games. Deadlock, the company’s next online shooter, has been in the closed beta phase for the past two years.
Valve usually operates by its own rules, but if you want some hope, The Game Awards are around the corner on December 10, 2026.
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