r/LeaksAndRumors

Now before you guys point out the Gemini logo, Alex Perez and JuanEditz and a few other scoopers have all confirmed that the photo is real. They have had the photos as far back as when the Tombstone images leaked.

Most things in the post were wrong, and the things that happened to be “right” from the post were edited in after episode 4 aired. The mention of Annie meeting her father etc. were all edited in afterwards and were not seen in the original post.

1st picture original, 2nd picture new

Orphan 3 is rumored to follow Esther at an all-girls Catholic school while on the run from a detective after offing her adoptive family.

Stephen Moyer - School Priest

Susanne Wuest - Nun

Simon Man - Detective

3 big twists in total and a newcomer who gives Esther a run for her money.

https://youtu.be/AG81lS6R4HQ?si=errfB31dd2JOMigm

"The sense around the Lakers is that Austin Reaves is actually the one that's further along than Luka Doncic in their respective rehab processes. I am told Austin Reaves has started 1-on-1 on-court work. The next step for him is to continue to go through the progression of 3-on-3, 5-on-5. Remember, early April he had a four-to-six week timetable, so theoretically that puts him on track late in this series, potentially early in the next series."

Take this with a grain of salt

Source: https://x.com/_ZeldaHypeGuy/status/2046684514437509272?s=20

TL;DR: HLX is hl3, it's happening this time and coming soon, announcement likely when they come out with hardware prices and release date, very very likely to pair with or announce and release at the same time as the hardware, it seems like the hardware is going to announce in late spring and early summer so like the end of this years school year and release in mid to late summer.

To get a more in depth understanding you need to read the essay.

This essay/collection contains spoilers for half life alyx's ending, read carefully.

Notes: the dataminers who work with some insiders (Gabefollower, Tyler Mcvicker, speshal_nick, sadly it's bradley, mike straw, ect) have reported alot about half life 3 and we know from there history that they are good sources of information. Tyler mcvicker has been reporting on half life 3 ever since 2011. Tyler Mcvicker knew about the hardware and knew about half life alyx. There's way more things to say about them so…

You can look into them yourself.

https://x.com/gabefollower

https://x.com/Tyler\_McV

https://x.com/MikeStrawMedia

https://x.com/SadlyItsBradley

https://x.com/Shpeshal\_Nick

This is a collection of all the info I've gathered from my reddit posts and me researching. You don't have to read it if you have already seen this. I just want to keep researching because I'm bored and want to spread de word!

Quick thing to mention, while looking around on r/Halflife3 i found this post https://www.reddit.com/r/HalfLife3/s/dJmHnjYWMm that pointed out this website https://valvearchive.com/Games%20%28Unreleased%29/Half-Life%203/ and i looked at it a bit and found a thing in there that said "game hl3" im not sure about how reliable the valve archive is but this is intresting.

the history of the steam machine, video talks about its faliure in the mid 2010s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZiIOcKGijg

Dis dude:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4K544bjCnFw

Valves YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@Valve/videos

you need to read this

Miro board:

https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVINqBTwM=/

News article: https://comicbook.com/gaming/feature/whats-going-on-with-half-life-3-new-leaks-and-rumors-explained/

half life story so far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSMB\_ECfRKo

Oh! And speaking of Bradley.

Important video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ86bKppjHw

Part 1 valve cares

Valve cares about Half-Life 3, and they’ve always cared. They didn’t just abandon us. Here's the final hours of half life alyx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqimxjIRIlw

This video here explains the history of hl3 pretty simply https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9l7ztJaRJk tyler like 10 years ago said why hl3 will release https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdvzwXQcWoY

Remember, fear will not change what valve does. Valve has done a lot of weird stuff with Half-Life 3. At one point, Gordon was gonna have some kind of Aperture‑arm thing, there was the blob, and the whole thing used to be Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Then, in the early 2010s, they cancelled Episode 3 and turned it into Half-Life 3 now. It’s all super messy, and if you want to understand the HLX/HL3 stuff better, should go through Tyler McVicker’s videos.

As the “Entire History of Half-Life 3” video says, the episodic model was supposed to be a way to get content out faster. But, well, we all know how that turned out. Ironic.

Valve has tried to make HL3 like six times, but it kept getting held back by their drive for innovation, the fact that Steam was printing money so they didn’t need to make games, their desks having wheels, and Source 2 taking forever to actually be ready. They actually tried to make left 4 dead 3 (it's super hopeless over there) it was set in Morocco and had super crazy stuff, the freaking moon could change the tides and the sun and moon had cycles and seasons changed accurately to Morocco’s real life weather cycle. Obviously way too ambitious especially for the then less developed source 2. Tyler talked about it.

They didn’t let the Half‑Life 3 domain expire, and they celebrated Half‑Life 1’s 25th anniversary by fixing problems and doing some maintenance, and they even made a documentary about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZ3HzvFEto

They also celebrated Half‑Life 2’s 20th anniversary, fixing bugs and doing updates, and made a documentary for that too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCjNT9qGjh4 They mashed the Episodes and the Lost Coast demo into the base game, so you don’t have to get them separately anymore, and they added Steam Workshop support.

A pretty interesting thing is the fact that they chose to give the most updates to half life 2 plus the episodes which are the most recent games besides half life Alyx.

Oh and half life Alyx, they could have made it a demo or used another game series but no they choose half life showing that they are not afraid of half life. Phil co said. “The ice has been broken, now we’re hoping to smash through the ice completely, we’re not afraid of half-life no more.” As Greg Coomer has said. ”Half-life: alyx is a sign that Valve has more to say about that world.”

Take a look at the images I have here of valve dev quotes from the miro board.

All of those quotes basically mean: Half‑Life: Alyx is a promise that more is coming, the next Half‑Life game is going to move the story forward, it’s hard to know what you’re doing until the end, there’s a ton of room for innovation, and they’re ready to keep going.

The fact that Source 2, the engine Alyx uses, is now in a state where it can actually make a game like Half‑Life: Alyx is a big sign. This all starts to connect.

SPOILER ALERT, SKIP IF YOU DONT WANT HALF LIFE ALYX SPOILERS:

Half‑Life: Alyx changes the Half‑Life 2 Episode 2 ending by reversing Eli’s death, so now in the hangar it’s just Gordon and Eli. There are now two Alyxes being held by the G‑Man in stasis, because Eli says Alyx is missing. One is the 19‑year‑old Alyx from Half‑Life: Alyx, and the other is the 24‑year‑old Alyx from the Half‑Life 2 and Episodes timeline. This is wild. The fact that they not only made a Half‑Life game, but actually fixed the Episode 2 ending, clearly shows they’re starting up the engine and warming it up.

And also they are making 1 new raising the bar book very soon too. The fact that they delayed the book too by the way is a sign. It was meant to come in 2025. it's unnecessary to "valve time" a book. They did say it talks about the episodes and the cancelled episode 3... Not saying hl3 is cancelled, episode 3 evolved into hl3.

Part 2: The dataminers who work with some insiders

The Valve dataminers who work with insiders—Shpeshal_Nick, NateTheHate, Tom Henderson, Mike Straw, GabeFollower, Tyler McVicker, and others—are the ones actually digging into the HLX stuff. The main ones everyone pays attention to are Tyler McVicker, GabeFollower, and Mike Straw to a lesser extent.

Part of the reason it’s taking so long is that AI data centers are driving up the price of computer parts, especially RAM. That’s pushing back the Steam Machine, and Half‑Life 3 is clearly meant to ship with it.

(This is where I go off on a tangent, it's still important though, it shows why the steam machine would benefit from hl3 pairing.)

They need tons of computer parts to train there ai and are causing tons of problems like straining power grids and rising computer part prices. Water use even smaller data centers can use as much water as a small town would use, while larger sites tend to require millions of gallons per day for cooling messing with the surrounding areas https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/land-lines-magazine/articles/land-water-impacts-data-centers/%C2%A0. They also pollute the air too using desiel and fossil fuel for backup generators https://sites.uab.edu/humanrights/2025/10/02/construction-and-consequences-the-human-impacts-of-artificial-intelligence-data-centers/ . They are even using electricity on the scale of entire freaking countries and its said to massively increase demand by 2030 https://www.nwf.org/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2025/Fall/Conservation/AI-Data-Centers .

Clearly, Valves plan is to announce half life 3 once they are able to finalize the steam machine price. Project HLX is obviously a Half‑Life game. Why would Chell have an HEV suit and gravity gun, or Left 4 Dead have the Combine, if HLX isn’t Half‑Life? HLX has been in development since around 2019. Heres’s a video that lays out Valve’s history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHdrosltGJA

And Tyler McVicker literally said on the record that Project HLX is Half‑Life 3 at 14:42 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH71Bn8VUAg

They’ve been working on it for 7 years now, since 2019, and that’s about how long a big AAA Half‑Life game takes. You can track it all on the Miro board if you want to see the whole thing.

Part 3: The new hardware

Valve dropping new hardware is a sign. Here’s the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmKrKTwtukE

Valve historically pairs hardware with software. Alyx came with Index, Deck came with its own showcase stuff, and now they’re announcing a new Steam Machine, so of course HL3 is going to be tied to it. Plus, take into account what I said in the data center tangent. The Steam Machine is gonna be over $500, but if Half‑Life 3 launches with it—either pre‑installed or heavily discounted—it will sell insanely well and it will be much safer for the hardware.

The big clue is the front‑panel photo where it says Fremont on the Steam Machine:

https://www.xda-developers.com/steam-machine-hint-half-life-3/

Fremont is a direct reference to Marc Laidlaw’s Epistle 3, where he gender swapped the main character's and wrote about the borealis. It's basically a rough idea of what episode 3, not half life 3. would have been minus the gender swapping.

In the hardware announcement video the Steam Machine is clearly customizable, and there’s a shot of a panel covered in stickers. There’s a “SOON” sticker and an orange sticker that has a censored sticker partly covering it, but you can see an “H” poking out underneath. There’s also this Reddit post about a “new hidden game” showing up in upcoming Valve releases, even though it turned out to be just gift cards. GABE, WHY!:

https://www.reddit.com/r/HalfLife/comments/1ovdyvo/new\_hidden\_game\_in\_upcoming\_releases\_from\_valve/

And here’s the Steam Year in Review for 2025:

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/528746884222682053

So this is the key point: Project HLX = Half‑Life 3. And since that’s true, HL3 would massively help the Steam Machine and the whole hardware launch. hlx has been in development since 2019. and by now its been in development for 6 years. half life games historicaly have taken that long. hl2 started development in 1999 and released in 2004 dispite a hugely damaging 2003 leak. hl1 started development in late 1996 when valve was founded and released only a year later in 1998. they even wanted to release in 1997. and hl alyx took only 4 years starting development in 2016 and releasing in 2020. Remember the AI‑data‑center tangent: RAM prices are high, parts are expensive, and the Steam Machine is already in a risky position. If Valve doesn’t ship Half‑Life 3 with it, the console becomes way more dangerous to sell. HL3’s release is clearly tied to the hardware releases. It’s very likely that it drops around the same time as the hardware, or even on the exact same day.

This is what will very likely happen. Once the price, release date, and all the finalization happens. Half life 3 will be announced right then or very close to then. And then, it will release when the hardware releases.

I theorize that the finalization for hardware should come in around late spring or early summer, or even tomorrow possibly. I'm NOT saying it will happen tomorrow, I'm saying it could happen any day now. Then the release of the hardware should come in mid to late summer.

Part 4: Valves going to do this.

they finished with the playtesting phase now for HLX, they started in early 2025. and have or at least had heightened amounts of security at their headquarters. And about Mike's tweet. https://x.com/mikeshapiroland/status/1874213952680607922?lang=en Mike Shapiro's tweet is in my opinion irrelevant to half life 3. It's clear that he wanted to tease but unexpected surprises got to valve and hl3 got delayed.

Now, this is unlike anything we've seen before. These aren’t just weak rumors or the typical “my dad works at Valve!” claims, the evidence is solid enough that major dataminers like Tyler McVicker and GabeFollower are confident an announcement is coming soon. Valve has built up a ton of hype around this. They’ve kept the HL3 domain alive, they’ve done updates to HL1 and HL2, they’ve celebrated anniversaries, they fixed the Episode 2 ending with Alyx, they tied HLX to hardware, and they’ve kept talking about having more Half‑Life stuff to say. If they suddenly back out of HL3 now, after all that, it would be literally stupid. (Game awards fallout times 10)

At least we are experts at waiting…

Kinda.

From new trailer. Matches with leaked description?