Between a mix of Valve leaks and data mining, it’s been revealed that a title named HLX/Project White Sands is in development. After all this time, we may finally be getting Half-Life 3.
It’s been difficult to pinpoint what Valve’s been up to over the past few years due to an unannounced project, Deadlock. But, with leaked gameplay footage and several creators talking about it, its existence is all but confirmed by Valve as a multiplayer, MOBA-like shooter.
With information about Deadlock now more widespread than ever, picking up the pieces and figuring out what is and isn’t related to that game is a bit easier for dataminers.
According to prominent Valve leaker/dataminer Tyler McVicker, Half-Life 3 may be in development. A mix of publicly posted information from actors and former employees, as well as datamined enemy types, have made for strong indicators that Half-Life is coming back.
An actress involved with the project put a reference to “Project White Sands,” a game from Valve that doesn’t match any prior datamined codenames for Deadlock. The credit they put in their resume has since been deleted, however.
This coincides with a resume from a former employee at Valve who worked on level design for an “unnanounced” Valve project that included “layouts, lighting, combat encounters, and puzzles”.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
Additionally, their resume noted that they worked on the game from 2020-2023, meaning it may have been in development for years.
Considering that Deadlock is a MOBA-like multiplayer title, the description of puzzles and combat encounters doesn’t match that sort of gameplay style. Not to mention McVicker’s datamining revealing some Xen enemies and an HEV suit.
File names indicate Xen Jellyfish, Xen Gorillas, Swoopers, Pentatanks, Feral Manhacks and more could be included in the game, though we don’t have any indication as to what these enemies look like.
Regardless, it’s the most solid news we’ve had on a new Half-Life entry yet. Though this could be another spinoff in Valve’s pursuit to never once count to three, there’s also a chance this is the Half-Life 3 people have wanted for almost two decades.