You know, I kind of forgot that Half-Life 3 (or Episode 3, for that matter) was one of gaming's longest-standing memes. There was a time when Valve CEO Gabe Newell couldn't so much as cough without people believing it was a reference to Gordon Freeman's newest adventures. However, that old flame has once again reignited, as Valve is reportedly bringing people in to playtest an early build of Half-Life 3.

Half-Life 3 is reportedly being tested with Valve's friends and family

As spotted by our amazing sister site TheGamer, a renowned Valve leaker with the ominous name "Gabe Follower" claims that Valve is currently in the prototyping phase of a project called "HLX," which is believed to be Half-Life 3.

There's a chance that it may be something else—after all, when rumors spiraled around Valve working on a title named "HLVR," it ended up becoming Half-Life: Alyx instead of a third entry. However, during the Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Documentary, Gabe Newell did equate new Half-Life titles with technological advancements:

I think that Half-Life represents a tool we have, and promises made to customers to capitalize on innovation, and opportunities to build game experiences that haven't been involved previously. And I think that there are no shortage of those opportunities facing us as an industry right now.

If you want to give the game a spin, you'll need to be in Valve's good graces; it's currently open to friends and family only. Besides that, it makes sense for Valve to jump to the third entry of the series instead of working on Half-Life 2's unreleased Episode 3, given how Valve stated it wouldn't return to episodic content back in 2011.

Usually, these rumors end with me saying, "We likely won't see any further developments for a few years," but Gabe Follower seems to think we won't have to wait that long. As he states in his video, the game being in a friends and family playtest phase means that an official announcement is closer than you may think:

It's quite an important stage for the project. If it survives the New Year holiday and there are no serious problems during the playtests then the development will continue at the right pace, and the announcement in 2025 might turn out to be quite possible.

If you want to upgrade your PC to handle whatever Half-Life 3 will throw at it, make sure you don't make one of the worst purchase decisions to avoid when building a gaming PC.