Fable is a complete reboot of the franchise, with no connection to the previous games.

Half-Life 3 Remains "Alive and Kicking" – Dataminer Reveals Key Game Mechanics

Dataminer Maxim "Gabe Follower" Poletaev believes that Half-Life 3 is a new Valve game hiding under the codename HLX. The enthusiast analyzed updates in the games of Gabe Newell's corporation and came to several conclusions.

Acolytes of Half-Life 3's existence, rejoice – the current iteration of the game remains "alive and kicking." Gabe Follower believes that 2026 will be a "promising" year. A hint of this could be, for example, the silent "postponement" of the release date for the reissue of the book Raising the Bar. The updated version was promised for 2025 with information about the third episode of Half-Life 2, but it never happened. The dataminer suggests it's all due to Valve's unwillingness to "spoil" anything before the announcement or release of Half-Life 3.

At the same time, Gabe Follower doesn't think that Half-Life 3 hasn't been shown yet because of the announcement of new Valve "hardware".

And if we return to specific findings, most of them relate to updates to the Source 2 engine – it is receiving features that are not used in Valve's existing games.

Findings in Valve's game files indicate that Half-Life 3 will focus on sophisticated dynamic physics. Many objects will have properties for interacting with fire, electricity, and other phenomena.

A high level of detail is also expected for limb and armor damage – the system will divide an NPC's body into independent objects. Their damage will affect the creature's behavior – similar systems can be seen in Dead Space or ARC Raiders.

Gabe Follower concluded his analysis by comparing 2025 to the period shortly before the announcement of Half-Life: Alyx (2020) – updates to Valve's main games became less frequent. Now, the new Half-Life part may have moved to a stage where the team doesn't need a large number of hands for polishing the game, which freed up resources. Some of these resources have been allocated, among other things, to an unannounced game, which Gabe Follower will talk about later.