Datamining of a recent update to Valve’s The Lab has revealed code for what appears to be a VR version of Half-Life. Speaking on the matter, Tyler McVicker of the Valve News Network stated that he located a large amount of source code within The Lab, which runs on the Unity engine. As Unity is written with C#, it was possible to decompile the code within the .dll (libraries).
Within these .dll files lies the source code for a VR Half-Life game, which leads us to speculate on all manner of potential upcoming releases in the future. The update for The Lab was simply meant to be the “Hands-On” update, also known as 2.0. Although the game is named “Shooter” in the code, there are several Half-Life themed assets to examine.
Many of these files are named after elements of the Half-Life series, which include:
- AmplifyBreenCast
- CombineScanner
- CombineSolidier
- CombineStrider
- GunShip
- AR2 (From Half-Life 2)
- PlayAudio_gmanTest
Fans of the series should be able to immediately recognize a number of these names. Dr. Breen and soldiers form the main antagonists of the Combine Faction from Half-Life 2, and there is an audio reference to G-Man.
McVicker goes on to describe how the code is written so that players can simply point with their fingers while in VR mode to equip a weapon. Players would be teleported to locations around City 17, also from the second game, within what is best described as a holodeck. Wave-based combat seems to be what players would engage in, moving around to different parts of the city with progressively more difficult scenarios.
While some may speculate that this points to a secret game in development within the Half-Life universe, the opposite may be true. McVicker states that the code is most likely left over from an older prototype of The Lab and may simply be what remains of a cancelled minigame.
Since there is a significant amount of code to examine, McVicker is still working his way through everything with the hopes of finding something special. Valve has not issued an update for the game for a few months now, but we are likely to see something as they near the launch of this, their next entry into the world of VR.
As a result, there might not be anything to be excited over, and fans might simply tuck this away with dreams of ever playing Half-Life 3.
Source: Uploadvr.com