Valve dev mentions rumored Half-Life game HLX, coworker immediately calls him

Half-Life 3 rumor vessel HLX has once again been mentioned, this time by a veteran Valve designer at an official presentation digging into game audio.

A post on the GamingLeaksAndRumours subreddit archives a recent talk from three Valve designers who attended the latest GameSoundCon, a convention dedicated to game audio and music.

Speaker Mike Morasky, a Valve composer and audio artist whose experience covers everything from Team Fortress 2 and the original Portal to Half-Life: Alyx, was joined by sound designers David Feise, a 17-year Valve veteran, and Carlye Nyte, a newer Valve hire with experience at Bungie and several other studios.

During the Q&A portion of a panel covering "Valve's Approach to an Open and Flexible Audio Engine," Morasky fielded a question about voice count. He brings up a group system within Valve's setup and how it folds into its HDR system.

"In fact, I think Deadlock has their own version of HDR," Morasky says, before casually adding, "HLX has its own version. So on and so forth."

In response, a barely audible Feise certainly seems to whisper "nice work" before cutting in. "Groups is its own one-hour talk, so come talk to us about that afterwards," Feise adds.

That sure is a Valve veteran saying "HLX" before seemingly being ribbed by his coworker. The jar of hopes for a new Half-Life game is so overstuffed that I hesitate to infer more than that, but it's hard not to read a little into this.

HLX has been rumored for years now, and Valve has actually mentioned it in passing before, but this might be the loudest and clearest nod yet. Heck, Morasky himself has hinted at its existence more than once: in a 2023 interview, he famously mentioned "both the Half-Life games" he's worked on before correcting that to "well, game." He's been at Valve for years, but for Half-Life, Morasky has actually only worked on Half-Life: Alyx officially, raising questions about that hastily corrected plural.

Morasky did, of course, stop short of promising an imminent new Half-Life game, but Valve sleuths have been hanging on three characters for years, so any mention of HLX will set tongues wagging. If people keep predicting an announcement from Valve every year, surely it will come true eventually.

Half-Life 3 "would register on a GDP level" as a Steam Machine launch title, but "Valve doesn't need a Half-Life-sized spectacle to sell hardware," analyst says.