HL3.txt File Discovered in DOTA 2 Update

In what is no doubt some evil developers troll tactics, a rather curious file has been discovered in the recent Dota 2 update file. The HL3.txt file was first discovered by the SteamDB Twitter, and the latest Dota 2 update includes a number of curious references within the file.

The humble text file is far from a confirmation that Half-Life 3 exists, I think by this point in history we’ve learnt not to get our hopes up about that one. However, it does mention things such as RPG, ziplines and even procedural spawning.

Check out some of the hl3.txt contents below.

• “Attribute.prop_zipline.max_ride_speed”
• “NPCs that are in the same squad (i.e. have matching squad names) will share information about enemies, and will take turns attacking and covering each other.”
• “A permanent squad member cannot leave the player\’s squad unless killed or explicity removed by entity I/O. Only use this if you\’re sure you want to override the default AI.”
• “If you want your citizens to squad with the player but not obey commands the player gives to move the squad, put a concept here and this citizen will speak the concept instead of obeying the order.”

Were the files accidentally dropped into the update, or is this just another elaborate hoax by the developers at Valve? Perhaps it’s a little of both, we’ll have to wait and see.