Half-Life 3 Is Reportedly Playable From Start to Finish, Says Insider

Half-Life 3 is reportedly complete enough to be played from start to finish.

Tyler McVicker, a well-known Valve insider with a history of reliable reporting on the company's projects, shared this news during a recent YouTube Q&A session.

According to McVicker, the game (reportedly codenamed "HLX") has reached a development stage where it can be played completely through.

"This is the furthest it's ever been. Period. The game is playable end-to-end," McVicker stated during his livestream. He emphasized that previous attempts at Half-Life 3 or Episode 3 had never reached this level of completion.

The development team is now focusing on "optimizing" and "polishing" the game, suggesting that most of the core content and gameplay mechanics are already in place.

McVicker believes the game is either "content-locked" or at least "mechanic-locked," meaning that major features and story elements are unlikely to change significantly.

One interesting feature mentioned involves procedural generation, though McVicker clarified that this has been "misunderstood" by many people. The system won't be creating entirely new levels but will instead change the placement of elements like doors, physics objects, enemies, items, and NPCs. This approach seems inspired by the AI Director system from Left 4 Dead 2 but with significantly more power and complexity.

For fans concerned about format, McVicker was clear: "Half-Life 3 is not a VR title." This confirms the game will be a traditional non-VR experience, unlike Half-Life: Alyx which required virtual reality hardware.

The game is reportedly undergoing extensive playtesting, with McVicker noting that it's being "playtested so religiously and so widely that there are individuals who will just talk." This widespread testing suggests the game may be nearing its final stages of development.

In terms of timing, McVicker speculated that Half-Life 3 could be announced as early as summer 2025 with a possible release by winter 2025. However, he emphasized that this timeline is his personal guess rather than confirmed information.

Interestingly, McVicker also dropped some hints about potential connections to the Portal series, suggesting that Chell (the protagonist from Portal) might make an appearance in Half-Life 3. He also mentioned that Erik Wolpaw, a writer at Valve, "wants to do Portal 3 so badly," hinting that Portal 3 could be Valve's next single-player project after Half-Life 3's completion.

As for the future of Valve's development team, McVicker suggested that many team members might retire after finishing Half-Life 3.

For longtime Half-Life fans who have been waiting since the cliffhanger ending of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 in 2007, this news provides hope that the story might finally continue after nearly two decades of waiting.

Source: Eurogamer