Rumor: Insider Claims Half-Life 3 is 'Playable End-to-End' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 05 May 2025 / 4,316 Views
There is a new rumor from Valve insider Tyler McVicker claiming Half-Life 3 is "playable end-to-end" and could be announced later this year.
McVicker claims Half-Life 3 is codenamed HLX and it has been playtested by a decently sized group and some of have leaked plot details.
"HLX is being playtested so religiously and so widely that there are individuals who will just talk," claims McVicker (via Eurogamer). "I personally have a policy of avoiding any story-related questions or information wherever possible, so I currently have avoided all of them. But I've been offered it by people whom are trustworthy and I know some of my contemporaries have been given it so there is information out there about the plot."
He added that he "actually do[es] think [Portal's] Chell may turn up in Half-Life 3" and "Erik Wolpaw wants to do Portal 3 so fuckin' bad."
"This is the furthest (HLX) has ever been. Period," he stated. "The game is playable - end to end. Period. [Other HL3/Ep3 projects have] never been that far. And they're optimising, polishing, and they're probably content-locked and if they're not then they're mechanic locked."
He stated the procedural generation system is more "akin to taking the [AI] Director from Left4Dead 2 and making it significantly more powerful. It's not changing geometry. It's instead changing entity placement, right [... like] doors, physics props, enemies, items. NPCs of any kind."
As always this should be treated as a rumor until an official announcement is made.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.
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Without Half-Life: Alyx, it would be easy to dismiss this as just another rumour. But Half-Life: Alyx exists, indicating there's some interest in Half-Life at Valve, and I think it's not that long ago that we had some other rumours about Half-Life 3. Add in all the rumours about Valve working on new VR hardware, and this starts to look more and more credible. I still wouldn't bet my money on this, but it's a sliver of actual hope.
Not just Half-Life: Alyx's existence, but because the way the game ended has led me for years believe that Half-Life 3, or at least 2 Episode 3 was going to happen at some point.
Not to mention, Valve has been hiring developers like crazy from the likes of Naughty Dog, Rockstar, and other notable studios immediately after Alyx's release.
