A Valve employee mentioned the name “HLX” during a public panel this week, the first time anyone at the company has said the widely reported internal code name for its next Half-Life project in public. The remark came at GameSoundCon, an industry conference focused on the art, technology and business of game audio, during a panel about Valve’s use of open audio engines. A Vimeo clip captured the moment.
Valve composer and audio artist Mike Morasky let the three letters slip while describing how the company implements high dynamic range audio. He said Valve’s HDR system is one of three pieces that come together to make an HDR that can be easily optimized, and noted that Deadlock has its own version of HDR before adding that HLX has its own version as well. The code name has appeared in Valve engine code since at least 2024, according to the report, but no Valve employee had referenced it publicly until now. Morasky came close during an interview last year.
Fellow panelist and Valve sound designer David Feise could be seen muttering a sarcastic “nice work” to Morasky after the code name came out, according to the panel video. Later, as the audience applauded at the end of the question-and-answer session, Feise leaned toward Morasky and appeared to tell him he had only said HLX once.
The public mention is a positive signal for players watching for any sign that the franchise will continue beyond 2020’s Half-Life Alyx, though when Valve will formally announce its next Half-Life project remains an open question. The report noted that just under a year ago journalist Mike Straw insisted Half-Life 3 would be a Steam Machine launch title. That launch has since come and gone without any hint of an announcement.
Longtime Valve watcher Tyler McVicker, who last year said Half-Life 3 was in the final stages of development and suggested a 2026 announcement was likely, said in a recent video that he no longer believes HLX will be announced this calendar year. He also pointed to recently increased coding activity inside Valve, as measured by externally viewable internal commit numbers, as a sign that something significant might arrive sooner than later.
The episode lands with a US audience that has followed years of speculation about the franchise. The report observed that whenever Half-Life 3 is finally announced and released, it will have to be truly incredible to make up for the loss of the long-running metagame of speculating about its mere existence.
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