Valve Employee Seemingly Slips Up And Says Rumored Half-Life 3 Codename On Stage

Updated: Oct 22, 2026 6:46pm UTCA Valve developer mistakenly slipped up and made mention of Half-Life 3's long-rumored codename during a recent conference. For years, fans have wondered if we'll ever see Half-Life 3. During the 2010s, hope for the threequel was kept firmly alive by die-hard fans... but it was later revealed that the project had been quietly killed by Valve. However, hope was reignited when Valve released Half-Life: Alyx, which ended with a massive cliffhanger that seemed to directly set up Gordon Freeman's next adventure. Ever since then, there have been rumors of a third game, with various dataminers discovering references to a project known as "HLX" in various Valve-related files. It has been believed for years that HLX is indeed Half-Life 3, as no one has been able to link it to any other existing Valve project. (And, of course, the acronym all but screaming that it's Half-Life related.)Now, Valve has acknowleged the project itself, though not on purpose.

Michael McWhertor is a New York-based journalist and editor with more than 20 years of experience covering games, industry events, technology, movies, and TV. Valve employee reignites Half-Life 3 rumors by dropping 'HLX' codename

Updated: Oct 21, 2026 8:25pm UTCEA has paused development on a mobile multiplayer Sims game in favor of moving forward with a rumored Sims 4 sequel. EA announced a wide variety of changes and projects today, including the closure of BioWare and the cancelation of Mass Effect 5. It also seemed to lean into recent rumors that DICE and Respawn are making a new Star Wars Battlefront game. One other big change is that EA is shelving a mobile-first multiplayer Sims project, formerly known as Project Rene and now known as Project Lotus. The game was once envisioned as the next big Sims title, but plans changed to more of a mobile spin-off once EA saw that people were still hanging on to The Sims 4. With that game being put on the back burner, EA is shifting its focus to a Sims title that it's calling Project Evergreen. Although EA hasn't revealed what the focus of this game will be, rumors have been swirling about this project for a some time now. The game, which was rumored to be under the codename Project X, is expected to be a sequel to The Sims 4. Now, here's where it may get a bit confusing: It's not The Sims 5. It's being viewed more like The Sims 4 2.0.

Michael McWhertor is a New York-based journalist and editor with more than 20 years of experience covering games, industry events, technology, movies, and TV. Disney is reportedly trying to make a new Star Wars Battlefront game happen

Final Fantasy Resonance's Espers give Fina an extra edge in combat, or sometimes they're just convenient decoys to bait the enemy into attacking them and not your party. However you use them, Espers are definitely worth the MP it costs to summon them. You have to put in some extra work to obtain them, though. Espers are tucked away in different spots around Resonance's world, and you have to find and often fight them before Fina can use their powers. Below, we show you where to find Esper locations in Final Fantasy Resonance and explain how to recruit them. [Ed. note: This guide is work in progress, as we're still confirming the conditions for the final Esper. We'll update this guide once we're able to fully confirm this.] Espers look like traditional Final Fantasy summons, but they behave differently. Fina is the only party member in Final Fantasy Resonance who can summon Espers, and there's an MP cost for each summon. They remain on the field until they act three times, but while all your support spells apply to them, you can't control them. The Esper will use a different action from their arsenal each turn and then end their time on the field with their strongest skill.

One year ago this month, Battlefield 6 launched on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Over the last 12 months, EA’s latest entry in the long-running FPS series has received numerous free updates, modes, maps, and more. Not all of it has been good. Some of it has been great. And through it all, fans have been very vocal, talking (and sometimes yelling) about it all online as DICE and the other studios working on BF6 continue to expand and improve on 2025’s best-selling game. Even before Battlefield 6 launched, the game’s beta had people claiming the franchise was back after a few less-than-stellar previous releases. At one point, the Battlefield 6 open beta reached over 500,000 concurrent players on Steam alone. A lot of people, myself included, loved how much BF6 played and looked like BF4, one of the best games in the series. Its grounded combat, snappy gunplay, impressive destruction, and focus on performance really won a lot of people over, even some fans who had fallen out of love with Battlefield. However, there was some controversy during the beta, with a big complaint from fans being that the game’s maps were too small.