Valve HLX, the codename fans have tracked in Source 2 files for more than two years, finally came out of a Valve employee’s mouth. Composer and audio artist Mike Morasky named it during a GameSoundCon panel on October 21, right next to Deadlock, while explaining how the company’s audio engine handles HDR sound. Valve hasn’t said anything about it since, and nothing about HLX has been announced.
What Morasky said
The panel was called Valve’s Approach to an Open and Flexible Audio Engine, with Morasky and Valve sound designers David Feise and Carlye Nyte. During the Q&A, someone asked about managing voice counts, which is the cap on how many sounds a game can play at once. Morasky walked through Valve’s Groups system and how it ties into HDR audio, a mixing approach that decides which sounds stay loud and which get pushed down when a scene gets busy. Then came the line: “In fact, I think Deadlock has their own version of HDR, um, you know, HLX has its own version, so on and so forth.” He didn’t say Half-Life, and he didn’t stop to explain what HLX was.
Feise turned to him and said something that sounds like “nice work,” then wrapped up the answer by saying Groups is its own one-hour talk. At the end of the session, while the audience was clapping, Ars Technica and PC Gamer report that Feise leaned over and appeared to tell Morasky, “Good job, you only said HLX once.”
Valve watcher Tyler McVicker posted the clip on X on October 22, calling it the first mention of HLX by a Valve employee, and it spread from there.
Why three letters got this much attention
HLX first turned up as a string in a Counter-Strike 2 update in early 2024. It looks a lot like HLVR, the internal name Valve used for Half-Life: Alyx, which is why most people read it as the next Half-Life project. Since then, dataminers have pulled more HLX references, including internal group names like “hlxaudio” and “hlxartists” per The FPS Review, from updates to Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and Deadlock. Until last week, all of it came from code. Morasky also came close in a 2025 interview, catching himself partway and switching to “Alyx.”
The slip establishes two things. HLX is a name people inside Valve use for a project, and that project has its own HDR audio setup, the same way Deadlock does. It doesn’t confirm the project is called Half-Life 3, that it’s a full game rather than tech, what platforms it targets, or when Valve plans to show it. Morasky didn’t describe it at all.
What’s come out since
The same day as the clip, McVicker released HLX Files #20, a long video built on what he says was about 30 hours of datamining the three big Source 2 updates that shipped this month: Counter-Strike 2’s Rush Hour, Deadlock’s City Never Sleeps, and Dota 2’s Inside the Trove of Terror. According to his video and TechSpot’s summary of it, the new strings point to work on the Combine gunship and other enemies, dynamic rain audio, and new cutscene animation tech. He also points to a jump in Valve’s commit activity, the internal code-change counts that outsiders can see, after those updates.
None of that comes from Valve. It’s one reporter’s reading of engine strings, and McVicker himself cautions that a system showing up in the engine now doesn’t tell you when it was written. He also told viewers he no longer expects HLX to be announced this year, per Ars. That’s a reversal from last year, when he called a 2026 announcement likely.
Ars also notes that journalist Mike Straw said last year that Half-Life 3 would be a Steam Machine launch title. The Steam Machine is out, and there was no Half-Life news with it.
As of October 28, Valve hasn’t commented on Morasky’s remark or HLX. No trailer, no store page, no title.
Where that leaves Half-Life players
The most recent Half-Life game is still Half-Life: Alyx from 2020. It’s VR only and sold on Steam for $59.99, with no GOG version. If you’re getting a Steam Frame, don’t buy it separately: Valve includes a copy with the headset, and it gets a bonus spot in our best Steam Frame games list. Nothing about HLX is a reason to hold off on it.
A codename said out loud is a better signal than a string in a file, and it’s still not an announcement. Until Valve says something on purpose, HLX is an internal project with no public name, no date, and no platforms.