Half-Life 3, Valve & Risk of Rain 2 - The Future - HLX Files #2

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Overview

Tyler frames this as the most active and unusual period he has observed at Valve, with Deadlock performing well in invite-only alpha while the company balances Counter-Strike 2, hardware work including the Deckard headset, SteamOS and Proton, residual Team Fortress 2 support, and a dedicated Half-Life 3 team of a few dozen people. The news hook is Valve’s hiring of most of Hopoo Games, whose unannounced project codenamed “Snail” was canceled; Tyler speculates that most of those hires will work on HLX rather than Deadlock. He also corrects the public impression that Half-Life 3 is open world, describing a wide-linear structure with procedural activities and voxel-based destruction. Most HLX specifics are presented without artifacts, so confidence is largely speculative, while the Hopoo hiring and cancellation are treated as reported fact.

Mentioned events

Valve’s simultaneous project load and roughly 300 staff

• Description: Tyler says Valve is working on Deadlock, Counter-Strike 2, a hardware team, SteamOS and Proton, small amounts of Team Fortress 2 support, and a dedicated Half-Life 3 team of “a few dozen people,” against a headcount he puts at “300 plus employees.” He repeats a rumor that Deadlock is taking some development time away from Counter-Strike 2.
• Confidence: Speculation — the headcount and staffing breakdown are Tyler’s characterization; the Counter-Strike 2 resource claim is explicitly labeled a rumor.
• Category: Development state
• Source: Tyler’s analysis of Valve’s public project slate and approximate headcount.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: needs follow-up — Valve headcount, project credits, and reporting on Counter-Strike 2 staffing would confirm or refute the breakdown.

Valve Deckard VR headset in development

• Description: Tyler lists the Valve Deckard as the company’s “next big VR headset,” describing it as a follow-up to the Steam Deck. The transcript conflates the handheld Steam Deck with Valve’s VR line.
• Confidence: Mixed — the Deckard name and VR-headset claim match prior public hardware leaks, but the “follow-up to the Steam Deck” framing is imprecise and uncited.
• Category: Hardware
• Source: Tyler’s summary of Valve hardware leaks and reporting; no artifact is cited.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: needs follow-up — Valve hardware announcements, SteamVR datamines, or shipping records would confirm the product and its relationship to Steam Deck.

Deadlock reaches Steam top 10 while still invite-only

• Description: Tyler says Deadlock is “doing shockingly well” and broke into the Steam top 10 before it was possible to download it without an invite to the closed alpha, exceeding his expectations for its pseudo-public phase.
• Confidence: Mixed — the Steam top-10 position is an observable public metric, but no chart, date, or player count is shown, and the interpretation is Tyler’s.
• Category: Other
• Source: Tyler’s reading of Steam charts during the invite-only period; no specific chart cited.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: needs follow-up — SteamDB or Steam concurrent-player charts for September 2024 plus the invite-only status would confirm the claim.

Deadlock began in 2018 and was rebooted from Neon Prime

• Description: Tyler says Deadlock started development in 2018, almost immediately after Team Fortress 2’s Jungle Inferno update. He says the project was rebooted and shifted from Neon Prime to Deadlock, requiring a significant art and story refresh and more artists.
• Confidence: Mixed — the 2018 timeline and Neon Prime transition recap prior reporting and leaks, while the staffing implications are Tyler’s inference.
• Category: Development state
• Source: Tyler’s recap of prior Deadlock reporting and leaks; no build, document, or datamine is shown.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: needs follow-up — datamined build strings, developer comments, or credits spanning Neon Prime and Deadlock would confirm the timeline and reboot.

Valve’s acqui-hire pattern and high turnover

• Description: Tyler says Valve rarely hires through open applications and instead brings over teams whose working process it likes, without buying the studio outright. He cites the Kerbal Space Program developers, most of whom he says have left Valve, and Campo Santo, the Firewatch and In the Valley of Gods studio, as examples. He characterizes Valve’s turnover among these hires as very high.
• Confidence: Mixed — the hiring pattern and named studios are public history; the turnover characterization and its causes are Tyler’s inference.
• Category: Business/legal
• Source: Tyler’s analysis of Valve’s public hiring history and staff departures.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: needs follow-up — game credits, LinkedIn histories, and departure announcements would confirm how many acquired developers remain at Valve.

In the Valley of Gods is canceled despite its Steam page date

• Description: Tyler states that Campo Santo’s In the Valley of Gods is canceled and will never release, and tells viewers to ignore the Steam page’s 2029 release date. He says nearly every Campo Santo hire has left Valve, while the studio was integral to Half-Life: Alyx in several respects.
• Confidence: Mixed — the 2029 Steam page date is public, but the cancellation and the claim that nearly all Campo Santo staff have departed are Tyler’s assertions without a cited artifact.
• Category: Development state
• Source: Tyler’s assertion, contrasted with the public Steam store page date.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: needs follow-up — an official Valve or Campo Santo statement, or the Steam page’s status, would confirm whether the project is formally canceled.

Majority of Hopoo Games hired by Valve

• Description: Tyler reports that, in the news from the week before the video, the majority of Hopoo Games was hired by Valve, specifically co-founders Paul and Duncan (surnames transcribed as “Norse” and “naoki”) and many other team members.
• Confidence: Fact — presented as reported news from the previous week rather than Tyler’s inference, though the underlying announcement is not quoted.
• Category: Business/legal
• Source: Hopoo Games team announcement as reported the week before the video.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: needs follow-up — Hopoo Games’ public announcement and Valve employee credits would confirm the hires and their roles.

Hopoo’s unannounced project “Snail” canceled

• Description: Tyler says Hopoo’s unannounced project, codenamed “Snail,” is finished and canceled, and credits the team for recognizing that before moving to Valve.
• Confidence: Fact — stated plainly as part of the same reported Hopoo news, with no hedging.
• Category: Development state
• Source: Hopoo Games announcement as reported the week before the video.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: needs follow-up — Hopoo’s announcement and any subsequent statements about Snail’s assets or technology.

Hopoo hires expected to be split, mostly onto HLX

• Description: Tyler expects some Hopoo developers to join Deadlock because of the post-Neon Prime art and story refresh, but says “the majority of the people are working on the half-life project hlx,” the third major Half-Life game. He notes the Deadlock team is a smaller, tight-knit core group and that Valve hired more than artists.
• Confidence: Speculation — Tyler explicitly frames it as a wager (“I’m going to wager a guess”) based on team sizes and project needs.
• Category: Development state
• Source: Tyler’s inference from Deadlock’s team size and HLX staffing needs.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: needs follow-up — Valve credits and employee statements would show which projects the Hopoo hires joined.

Hopoo staff likely at Valve only since early 2024

• Description: Tyler guesses that the Hopoo employees have been at Valve only since the beginning of 2024 at the earliest, citing an unspoken probation period before new hires announce their employment publicly.
• Confidence: Speculation — he calls it speculation based on studying Valve for roughly 15 years.
• Category: Business/legal
• Source: Tyler’s inference from Valve’s observed hiring and announcement pattern.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: needs follow-up — employment start dates on professional profiles or Valve credits.

HLX premise and spherical-gravity off-world segments

• Description: Tyler describes HLX as the third major Half-Life game, with the player as an HEV suit-wearing, crowbar-wielding character fighting “Xen gorillas and feral manhacks” on a “Super Mario Galaxy orb.” He says the off-world segments will use spherical gravity much like Super Mario Galaxy.
• Confidence: Mixed — the HEV suit and crowbar are established franchise elements, while the Xen creatures, orb setting, and spherical gravity are leak-derived claims presented without an artifact; the Mario Galaxy comparison is Tyler’s.
• Category: Gameplay
• Source: Prior HLX leaks and datamines as recapped by Tyler; no artifact is shown.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: needs follow-up — HLX map, entity, or level-script datamines showing spherical gravity and the named creatures.

Half-Life 3 is not open world

• Description: Tyler corrects a public misunderstanding he attributes to Gabe Follower’s claim about open-world elements: Half-Life 3 is not open world or pseudo-open-world. It remains a linear game with levels that open up much wider than earlier entries in the series — “more open area” but still a linear experience — with high replayability.
• Confidence: Mixed — Tyler asserts the correction firmly and names the source of the original claim, but shows no artifact for either the claim or the correction.
• Category: Gameplay
• Source: Tyler’s correction of Gabe Follower’s public open-world claim.
• Earlier mentions: References Gabe Follower’s public claim that Half-Life 3 had open-world elements, not an earlier Tyler video; Tyler reframes it as wide-linear levels rather than open world.
• Verification: needs follow-up — Gabe Follower’s original wording and HLX level or map data would confirm the structure.

Procedural generation inside level activities

• Description: Tyler says the replayability pitch, as currently understood, is procedural generation “inside activities within the levels” rather than a procedurally generated open world. He does not name the activities or how they vary.
• Confidence: Speculation — hedged with “that we understand right now,” with no datamine or document shown.
• Category: Gameplay
• Source: Tyler’s description of HLX design from prior leaks; no artifact is shown.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: needs follow-up — HLX entity, script, or activity-system datamines would confirm what is proceduralized.

Voxel-based destructible environments

• Description: Tyler says the materials in Half-Life 3’s environments are voxel-based, allowing a high degree of destructibility and freedom for the player.
• Confidence: Speculation — stated without a cited artifact or build evidence.
• Category: Engine feature
• Source: Tyler’s description of HLX engine technology from prior leaks; no artifact is shown.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: needs follow-up — Source 2 material, shader, or destruction-system datamines from HLX builds.

Valve’s “revolutionize everything” bar for calling it Half-Life 3

• Description: Tyler says Valve must “revolutionize” everything — spoons, forks, rain, eyes, lips, hair — before it is comfortable releasing the game as Half-Life 3. He jokes that viewers should comment “Valve we want new spoons” as a marker of having watched to that point.
• Confidence: Speculation — this is Tyler’s opinion and rhetorical framing rather than a sourced claim.
• Category: Development state
• Source: Tyler’s opinion.
• Earlier mentions: None identified in this video.
• Verification: unverified — an unfalsifiable expectation that could only be tested by the game’s release and technical comparisons.

New or changed in this video

• Reports the previous week’s news that the majority of Hopoo Games, including co-founders Paul and Duncan, joined Valve, and that Hopoo’s unannounced “Snail” project was canceled.
• Adds Tyler’s estimate that most Hopoo hires went to HLX rather than Deadlock, while allowing that some joined Deadlock for its post-Neon Prime refresh.
• Explicitly corrects the open-world reading of prior Half-Life 3 leaks: the game is wide-linear, not open world.
• Restates or adds HLX specifics: spherical-gravity off-world segments compared to Super Mario Galaxy, Xen gorillas, feral manhacks, procedural activities inside levels, and voxel-based destruction.
• Repeats the 2018 Deadlock start date and its reboot from Neon Prime, without new build numbers, filenames, or maps.
• Much of the Half-Life 3 material is a recap of prior leak discussion; the genuinely new content is the Hopoo hiring and Tyler’s project-assignment inference.

Notable quotes

• “this is definitely the weirdest and most active time I have ever seen coming out of Valve software” — Tyler’s framing of Valve’s current project load.
• “that game is cancelled” — on Campo Santo’s In the Valley of Gods.
• “it is not open world” — correcting the public reading of Half-Life 3’s structure.
• “the majority of the people are working on the half-life project hlx” — Tyler’s estimate for the Hopoo hires.
• “procedural generation inside activities within the levels in order to increase replayability” — the replayability pitch as Tyler understands it.

Open questions

• Which specific Hopoo Games developers joined which Valve project, and how many remain after Valve’s evaluation period.
• How large the dedicated HLX team actually is and how it is composed.
• Whether any Snail technology or assets were carried into Valve projects.
• What the “activities” are that receive procedural generation, and how much variation they introduce.
• Whether voxel-based destruction is still present in current HLX builds.
• Whether Deadlock is materially delaying Counter-Strike 2, and on what reporting that rumor rests.
• Whether In the Valley of Gods has been formally canceled or is simply dormant, given the Steam page’s 2029 date.
• When Valve intends to announce or release HLX.