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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.
As mentioned on the thread, the code can be found within the "model_editor.dll" file inside the following directory.
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!
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.%STEAM_HOME%\SteamApps\common\dota 2 beta\dota_ugc\game\bin\win64\tools\model_editor.dll
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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