Valve is well aware that data miners thoroughly examine certain updates to its software, and Gabe Newell’s company has responded with humor.

We have not heard anything about HLX for quite some time. It is the Valve project rumored to be Half-Life 3, and it is said to feature fairly advanced capabilities. Development on the project has not stopped at all, however. Quite the opposite. While Valve itself is teasing data miners examining its Source 2 engine, there are signs that development has accelerated because of the Steam Machine delay, giving the development team more time to refine the game.

It is currently impossible to know what caused these changes to the presentation and release schedule of HLX, believed to be Half-Life 3, but Tyler McVicker speculates that they may be related to the launch of the Steam Machine. Given Valve’s way of operating, however, the lack of new developments in the TF project, which may have been temporarily shelved, suggests that HLX development has actually accelerated by taking advantage of the shifted timelines.

“Codename TF started appearing in the second half of 2025, around the time when most people assumed HLX development had wrapped up and an announcement could be coming soon. But then the days of the fourth quarter of 2025 passed, and while it felt as though every insider and every member of the community expected something major to happen, nothing happened at all in the end. That suggests internal changes occurred and plans were rescheduled. It appears that only a delay took place, however, and now the team has more time. My speculation is that the people who wanted to work on other new projects actually returned to the HLX team and, now that they have more development time, will see this project through” – said the well-known Valve leaker in a recent video analyzing the absence of updates for the TF project.

Valve developers just added a new variable in Dota 2: “m_bHackWhyAreYouGuysReadingOurVariableNames” pic.twitter.com/VR4Wjt27RY

– ‎Gabe Follower (@gabefollower) June 20, 2026

Because Valve has never acknowledged development of the HLX project, believed to be Half-Life 3, there is no official announcement on the matter. The company nevertheless knows that people dig through Source 2 code every time games running on the engine are updated, and it left a fairly amusing string in the files, as Gabe Follower noted a few days ago. Since Valve has now revealed the price of the Steam Machine, there is a good chance more HLX rumors will emerge soon.

Source: WCCFTech