Get ready for a whole bunch of rumors, because it’s time to talk Half-Life. Yes, we know how tired we all are of getting jerked around by Half-Life 3 rumors, but this isn’t actually about Half-Life 3. It’s about a mysterious project that could be some kind of VR game set in the Half-Life universe.
As pointed out in the video above, numerous references to a “HLVR” can be found in the code of Valve games like Dota 2 and the VR experience Destinations. Before going into the code, the video rewinds to start at the beginning.
Citing this interview with Jeep Barnett, a programmer at Valve, it’s safe to assume Valve has experimented with VR by using Half-Life 2 art assets. Barnett was quick to note these were just experiments, and not a full game.
Fast forward to after the release of Destinations, and fans have been combing through the code to find references to anything. They did, with numerous references to “HLVR” with things like “CHLVRTripMine,” “CHLVRPropFlashlight” and others.
A later update included more code pointing to things like weapons, grenades and other items that aren’t found in Destinations. It should be noted that other VR projects made by Valve use the Unity engine, Destinations uses Source 2, similar to what Half-Life 2 was built with.
Before you go thinking whatever “HLVR” could be is Half-Life 3, other code seems to refute that idea. Lines of code added to Dota 2 in an update reference HLVR and states “Used to force the HLVR player to speak.” We all know Gordon Freeman doesn’t speak, so it seems the HLVR player will be someone else.
As for when this mysterious project might come out, we could be seeing a release as early as next year. In a post on NeoGAF, it was noted that Valve mentioned they were planning on releasing new content next year. This statement came during Valve’s Steam Dev Days, a conference held for game developers who use Steam to learn new tricks and processes for game development.
Again, this is pretty speculative, but we have references in Valve’s code to a new project, and Valve is saying new projects will be out next year. That seems pretty conclusive that SOMETHING is coming, and it might even be related to Half-Life. Don’t get on the hype train yet, but maybe start looking at reserving some seats.
So what do you think? Are you interested in seeing more projects from Valve get released? Do you think these rumors will prove to be true or false? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
