The gaming community is preparing to sound the alarm again after dataminers discovered files in Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 this week that could point to continued work on the legendary Half-Life 3. Along with a supposed voice actor leak, this is the best evidence in years that we could eventually return to the Half-Life universe.
Valve is back to dominate gaming
Content creator and data miner Tyler McVicker detailed his findings in a YouTube video on August 4, showing numerous files from recent CS2 and Dota updates that reference terms last seen in Half-Life 2 and Half-Life: Alyx. Some of these terms, McVicker explained, didn’t make the cut for the Half-Life VR title’s release, but discovered data confirms that Valve has continued to test these features on the Source 2 engine.
The data all comes from a project called “HLX,” which McVicker said wasn’t about a new game, but rather a new feature set or file format for the Valve engine. However, further investigation revealed that there was more to it, and it had nothing to do with Deadlock, Valve’s as-yet-unannounced MOBA hero shooter.
“For a while, a lot of these new features were attributed to [Deadlock],” McVicker said, but many of these Half-Life mentions are missing from previous versions of the shooter.
