Contemporary leaks counsel Half-Life 3 improvement could also be nearing completion
Don’t you dare give me hope
The newly found engine updates are a very good signal for the HLX mission after credible stories that the sport had gone right into a family and friends playtesting part at Valve close to the tip of 2024. Whereas many Valve initiatives have seen main adjustments after that sort of testing, McVicker says that these new engine updates are “affirmation certainly that HLX survived the vacation break, doesn’t appear to be going via any type of reboot, and [that] an announcement appears to be inching ever nearer.”
A December video from “Gabe Follower” suggesting that Half-Life 3 had entered a good friend and household testing part.
Whereas McVicker would not go into element on each single engine variable hinted at within the newest Valve sport updates, he supplies a abstract model with knowledgeable hypothesis on what all these variables might imply for HLX. That features indicators of a “closely advanced” physics engine from Half-Life 2 that may seemingly observe object traits reminiscent of buoyancy, flammability, deformation, in addition to fluid simulation and dynamic sound properties based mostly on an object’s standing.
Most intriguingly, McVicker talks up indicators that HLX could embrace a brand new NPC “temper system,” letting these AI-controlled characters react “verbally and non-verbally” to what they will see, hear, and even scent within the fast space. The code additionally hints at “dynamically adjustable nav meshes” that can let NPCs navigate simply round destructible environmental hazards, and at a system for in-game objects to be positioned semi-randomly throughout a number of playthroughs, a la Left 4 Useless‘s director system.
We all know it is easy to be skeptical after so many years of fruitless hypothesis relating to Half-Life 3. However when McVicker says that indicators counsel that an precise Half-Life 3 announcement might come this yr, let’s simply say we need to imagine.
