It’s time for your yearly Half-Life 3 rumour but this one looks like it’s real-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Don’t give us hope (Valve)

A voice actor’s reference to something called Project White Sands may be the best evidence in years that Valve is working on Half-Life 3.

It’s 17 years since the last non-VR Half-Life game and ever since there’s been a constant stream of rumours about the mythical Half-Life 3. But even after the release of Half-Life: Alyx in 2020 it’s never really looked like it was going to happen.

The last rumour was exactly this time last year, ahead of the Gamescom event at the end of August, but, as usual, that turned out to be nothing. This time though there seems to be more reason for hope, especially as the rumour relates to something Valve is making with the codename White Sands.

It started, as rumours often do, with the CV of a voice actor, who lists ‘Project White Sands (video game)’ as a project she worked on with Valve. A codename which fans have already connected with a different one, datamined from Valve games over three years ago.

There’s no more information from the voice actor but rather than the codename being just a random word White Sands is a place in New Mexico, which sounds an awful lot like the inverse of Black Mesa – where the original Half-Life was set.

Of course, it could quite easily be a sequel to Half-Life: Alyx, which was teased by the game itself, or some other kind of spin-off.

It’s also a little surprising to find Valve working on anything other than hero shooter Deadlock at the moment, given how un-prolific they’ve been over the last couple of decades.

Nevertheless, regular Valve rumourmonger Tyler McVicker seems convinced that White Sands relates to a project codenamed HLX, which dataminers discovered back in 2021.

In his latest video, McVicker doesn’t explain why he’s so sure of that, but he does point to other CVs in the recent past that mention an unannounced Valve game – one of which is definitely not describing a hero shooter, since it talks about ‘combat encounters’ and ‘puzzles’.

Datamined references to the HLX project include a main character wearing a HEV suit (hazardous environment suit – the same one Gordon Freeman wears), driveable vehicles, and various Xen (the aliens from the series) creatures, including a ‘Xen gorilla’.

It seems that whatever HLX is, Valve has been working on it for the last four years, which in theory means it could be announced anytime now.

The problem with all this though is that Valve cancels far more games than it ever releases. That’s common in the games industry but Valve takes it to such extremes it’s the main reason they’ve released so little over the last s.

Compared to Half-Life 3 rumours of the past, this one does seem more promising than usual, but at the end of the day it is just a rumour and it’s going to need a lot more evidence than this to make Half-Life 3 seem like more than just a fan dream.

At the every least, Half-Life: Alyx promised a follow-up (Valve)

Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.

To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.Entertainment – MetroRead More