Valve Composer Mike Morasky Mentions Rumored Half-Life Project HLX at GameSoundCon
He brought up HLX while discussing Valve's audio systems, and sound designer David Feise appeared to respond with a quiet aside.
Valve composer Mike Morasky brought up HLX during a GameSoundCon discussion of Valve’s audio engine, giving a long-running Half-Life rumor a fresh spoken reference.
At GameSoundCon 2026 in Burbank, Morasky took a question about voice count during a session on Valve’s open and flexible audio engine. He discussed the Groups system and its connection to HDR, then said, “In fact, Deadlock has its own version of HDR, HLX has its own version, and so on and so forth.”
Valve employee Mike Morasky accidentally slips up Valves upcoming game codenamed HLX which is believed to be the next Half life game during a Conference
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HLX had already appeared in datamined files from other Valve games. Morasky’s comment is the first known spoken reference to the codename by a Valve developer, but it does not confirm that HLX is Half-Life 3 or reveal a release plan.
Separate insider claims have described Half-Life 3 as far along in development. In a 2025 YouTube discussion, Tyler McVicker claimed the game was playable from start to finish, that work had reached a polishing phase, and that it would not be a VR title. Those claims do not establish that HLX is the same project.
Morasky was joined by sound designers David Feise and Carlye Nyte. Feise appeared to murmur a quick response before suggesting the Groups system could fill an hour-long discussion of its own.
Does HLX’s appearance change how you read the earlier Half-Life 3 claims, or is there still too little to connect the codename to the game? Follow the trail around HLX and Valve’s audio work on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.
