The Gordon Freeman copium meme has never felt stronger.
A new video out of GameSoundCon, a convention about game music and sound design (who knew?), is quickly going viral today as Valve composer and audio artist Mike Morasky may have accidentally spilled the beans on the upcoming Half-Life project long rumored to be in the works.
Clipped by Tyler McVicker on X (and re-posted by noted Valve leaker gabefollower), the video shows Morasky speaking on a panel during a Valve Q&A and mentioning “HLX” by name, likely the first time it’s been publicly acknowledged outside of lines of code. This project’s name has been found in Steam files a few times now, and it’s widely believed to be the internal codename for a new singleplayer game being developed by Valve.
Prevailing thoughts among the community of data miners and most leakers are that it’s a new Half-Life game. Half-Life 3, maybe. Or Half-Life X? We’ll see, but honestly, I won’t get too excited until it somehow becomes official.
In the video, you can hear the person aside Morasky say something like “nice work” or “nice job” next to him after the comment, making light of the situation that appears to be unfolding before our eyes. Could we be having some actual news soon? According to McVicker, who said, “HLX files today, I’m working as quickly as I can,” there could be more to the story very shortly.
Valve’s last Half-Life game was the VR-only Half-Life: Alyx back in 2020. Half-Life 2: The Orange Box launched nearly 20 years ago in 2007. Franchise fans can’t wait to find out soon enough if Valve does indeed know how to count to three.
Could we possibly be getting confirmation of the next Half-Life soon? The next possibility is The Game Awards, which is less than two months away now. Sit tight.
