After 17 years without a proper, non-VR Half-Life title, fans have at least a little reason to hope again.
That's due to supposed leaks appearing in a couple of different places, per Eurogamer.
First, a voice actor's website was found to include a reference to something called "Project White Sands," which was attributed to Valve. That, alone, doesn't tell us much. Valve occasionally still makes new video games — even if they aren’t called Half-Life. It's worth noting that White Sands is the name of a national park in New Mexico, the setting of the original Half-Life.
But after people found that and flooded the webpage, all references to Project White Sands were removed. Then, Valve data miner Tyler McVicker posted a YouTube video explaining that he believes he has found explicit references to a non-VR, single-player game set in the Half-Life universe that is either actively in development, or was in development recently, in Valve's code updates.
Specifically, the project is called "HLX" and many of the files associated with it are obviously linked to Half-Life. The main character wears an HEV suit (as did protagonist Gordon Freeman in the first two games). There are also multiple references to "Xen," a prominent alien location in Half-Life. Enemies such as "Xengorilla" and "Xenjellyfish" are even named.
One has to wonder why Valve would put so many obvious references to Half-Life in a place where people could see it without using codenames, but still, this is the most substantial lead on a proper new Half-Life game in quite some time. 2020 saw the release of Half-Life: Alyx, which was well-received as the first extension of the series since 2007, but it remains a VR-exclusive title that requires both a powerful PC and a headset to play. Before that, a former series writer posted what may have been the story for a canceled Half-Life single-player game in 2017, but that was after he left Valve and what he posted probably shouldn't be seen as indicative of what Valve's future plans might be.
Since Half-Life 2: Episode 2 came out and ended on a massive story cliffhanger in 2007, Valve has shifted to mostly developing multiplayer games with some sort of live service elements, like Dota 2 and the recently data-mined Deadlock. These games, combined with all of the money that Valve gets from running the pre-eminent PC gaming digital marketplace Steam, have made it difficult to believe Valve would ever revisit Half-Life without a serious incentive to do so.
But maybe it's actually happening. Or maybe it isn't. At least we all have a reason to talk about Half-Life again.
