Valve is well aware that data miners are thoroughly scrutinizing certain updates to its software. Gabe Newell’s company has responded with a touch of humor.

We have not heard anything in quite some time about HLX, Valve’s project that is rumored to be Half-Life 3 and is said to feature rather advanced capabilities. However, development on the project has not stopped at all. Quite the opposite. While Valve itself is teasing data miners who dig through its Source 2 engine, there are signs that development has accelerated due to the Steam Machine delay, giving the development team more time to refine the game.

The cause of these changes to the presentation and release schedule of Half-Life 3 HLX is currently unclear, but Tyler McVicker speculates that it may be related to the launch of the Steam Machine. However, given Valve’s modus operandi, the lack of new developments in the TF project, which may have been temporarily shelved, suggests that HLX’s development has actually accelerated by taking advantage of the shifted timelines.

“Codename TF started appearing in the latter half of 2025, around the time most people were speculating that HLX was wrapping up production and that an announcement was imminent. But then all of Q4 2025 came and went, and while it seemed as if every insider and community member expected something major to happen, nothing did. This indicates that something internally changed and plans were rescheduled. However, it appears that a delay occurred, and now the team has more time. I speculate that individuals who were looking to work on other new projects have actually returned to the HLX team and will see this project through now that they have extra development time,” said the known Valve leaker in a recent video discussing the lack of TF project updates.

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

– ‎Gabe Follower (@gabefollower) June 20, 2026

Since Valve has never acknowledged the development of the HLX project, believed to be Half-Life 3, there has been no official announcement regarding the matter. However, the company knows that people scour the Source 2 code whenever games running on the engine are updated, and it left a rather amusing string in the file, as Gabe Follower mentioned a few days ago. And since Valve has publicly revealed the price of the Steam Machine, there is a good chance that more rumors about HLX will surface soon.

Source: WCCFTech