Valve Corporation’s project HLX, allegedly Half-Life 3, is currently in the final stages of its development, based on a new rumor.
In his latest YouTube video, content creator Tyler McVicker shared details from a data mine of the recent DOTA 2 update, which indicated that Valve is making a lot of finite changes to the game’s engine. The update allows the engine to tone down the computational power of each AI entity within a certain radius based on its distance from the player. Such optimization work usually happen near the end of a production cycle.
Based on the aforementioned engine optimization work, McVicker believes that the development of project HLX, suspected to be Half-Life 3, may be nearing its completion. As per him, an announcement could be expected sometime later this year in 2025.
Furthermore, on February 25, 2025, a major update for Deadlock was rolled out by Valve, and it changed the game’s four-lane map into a three-lane map. Along with that, the update made several changes to its engine. While McVicker hasn’t data mined the Deadlock update himself, a few others have done a basic search and found the string “+R_HLX_FSR3_MIN_REACTIVENESS” mentioned in the files.
McVicker pointed out that AI upscaling technology such as FSR isn’t incorporated until a developer is nearly done with a game. The Deadlock update added FSR 3 support, and it’s using HLX’s FSR 3 implementation, as indicated by the aforementioned string. As such, there’s reason to believe that HLX now has FSR 3 working in its development build.
Based on prior details gathered about project HLX, the game appears to be a single-player first-person shooter. It involves heavy use of physics, with mechanics like buoyancy, flammability, deformation, and weight thresholds required for specific materials to deform. There’s also fluid simulation and interaction between fluids and objects. The game appears to feature advanced NPC AI, with a mood-based system in place that picks audiovisual cues from surroundings. AI entities can dynamically adjust their navigation meshes if and when destruction occurs within a map’s environment. HLX features vehicle simulation that is said to be on par with that of games primarily focused on driving.
