Minor Half-Life 3 Reference Found Within Dota 2 Workshop Tools

Omnomnick

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It's certainly been a while since we last reported on evidence regarding the on-going development of Half-Life 3, the long-awaited sequel to Half-Life 2: Episode Two released back in 2007. Well, it's that time again. Earlier today, a user by the name of ekim posted this thread to NeoGAF, highlighting an extremely minor, solitary reference to "hl3" within one of the many Dota 2's Workshop Tools files, which are known to run on a basic version of the Source 2 engine. The code string appears to be related to some kind of "physics_testbed" executable, as shown below.

hl3.PNG
As mentioned on the thread, the code can be found within the "model_editor.dll" file inside the following directory.
%STEAM_HOME%\SteamApps\common\dota 2 beta\dota_ugc\game\bin\win64\tools\model_editor.dll
It's not known when this particular piece of code was added, but the file would appear to have last been updated on January 21st 2015. Given there's no indication of how old the code is, nobody is really able to identify just how relevant this reference is to the current state of Half-Life 3 or its continued development. However, it is likely the "physics_testbed.exe" program specified in the same line of code is related to "Rubikon", the new in-house physics engine Valve are known to have been developing and refining as a replacement for Havok within Source 2.

Even though the code means next to nothing by itself, we decided its very existence is worth noting here on the front page given it's been almost a year since any piece of publicly available code directly referenced Half-Life 3. If the code is as new as January 21st, it is safe to assume development on the latest Half-Life title is still very much underway within Valve's halls and cabals. Other users on the NeoGAF thread are reporting references to Half-Life 3 periodically pop up before being quickly removed, but we currently have no evidence to confirm or deny these claims. Regardless, there's definitely still hope for the world's Half-Life fans!
 
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I really think there should be some kind of community made documentary about Half-Life's fanbase. Just being able to record the reactions of people when they it's released would be cool enough, and showing how dedicated we are to finding these types of things too
 
Holy damn, didn't know they were droping Havok physics, that's really interesting...

I'm still getting more excited about Half-Life 3 everyday....
 
I quick google search will give you a presentation done by Sergiy Migdalskiy and Dirk Gregorius at GDC last year. The presentation has an image of the Physics Testbed:
OEGhJ70.png


Edit:
Funny quote from the presentation:
We had physics running in an isolated tool with buttons, sliders and 3D window with shadows, the one you've just seen, which was pretty cool. And it restarted in seconds. We call it the Physics Testbed, or the Physics Debugger. Not to be confused with Visual Studio debugger.
 
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Every time I see something new about HL3, my heart skips a beat. C'mon, Gaben, give us the damn game.
 
I quick google search will give you a presentation done by Sergiy Migdalskiy and Dirk Gregorius at GDC last year. The presentation has an image of the Physics Testbed:
OEGhJ70.png
Correct! That's exactly how we know about it. Just a little disappointing the presentation doesn't give any really worthwhile information.
 
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I personally think if their focusing their new physics engine on HL3, it will be Valves next release.

Holy shit, you guys, Half-Life 3 will be an actual thing one day.
 
Guys, remember that in 2010 at the GDC, GabeN said that a good idea to announce a new game was to plant clues into an old game by a new update:
"We'll start off by bringing an update to a 3 year old game and plant clues throughout it so they can figure out that something's going on..."
 
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