The Daily Populous Monday August 5th, 2024 day edition
Authored by eurogamer.net and submitted by naaz0412

Update 5th August, 2024: Natasha Chandel's website is currently down after it exceeded the bandwidth limit.

Just before the website went down, it had been updated, and all references to Valve's "Project White Sands" had been scrubbed.

Original story: Brace yourself, Half-Life fans – rumours of Half-Life 3 have been resurrected once again, this time originating from the unassuming resume of a voice actor.

There's a chance that by the time you read this, Natasha Chandel's website has already been, uh, revised, but right now, if you scroll down to the "voice over" section, you'll see reference "Project White Sands (video game)".

Chandel did not name the character(s) she provided voice work for, but the project is clearly marked as belonging to Valve.

As noted by the members of the Gaming Leaks and Rumours subreddit, "white sands" is much more likely to pertain to Half-Life 3 than, say, Left 4 Dead 3, not least because "White Sands is a park in New Mexico... State where is (was) Black Mesa".

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"These are the kind of leaks that are always fun, a legitimate first-hand source that isn't filtered through some influencer trying to vaguepost for engagement," said one commenter.

"Just a voice actor who probably has never heard of Steam nonchalantly mentioning they did work on Half Life 3."

Image credit: Natasha Chandel / Reddit / Eurogamer

"F*ck it, I'm putting my clown makeup back on," declared another.

Is this all-out proof? Nope. Sorry. But at the very least, it's proof Valve is possibly developing another game in addition to Deadlock, and if it's not Half-Life-related, that is an extraordinarily cruel codename to use…

Court documents recently revealed detailed employment statistics for Valve, the company behind the ubiquitous PC storefront Steam, the Steam Deck handheld, and - yes, still - a team dedicated to game development.

Altogether, that's just 371 people employed by Valve in 2021, for a company believed to bring in around $6.5bn a year. EA, home to FIFA/FC, which also generates around $6.5bn annually, had 13,700 staff on the payroll this year.

1leggeddog on August 4th, 2024 at 21:31 UTC »

We can only hope...

A return to Black Mesa to end the story?

Could be cool. How many years between the events of 1 and 2?

Arpadiam on August 4th, 2024 at 21:16 UTC »

i still hold a candle for project borealis

thewalkindude on August 4th, 2024 at 21:01 UTC »

Part of me hopes this is Half-Life 4, and references a whole bunch of stuff that happened in a Half-Life 3 we'll never get, but that the game just expects us to know about.