We present a summary of the current state of DARPA's HPCS language project. We describe the challenges facing any new language for scalable parallel computing, including the strong competition presented by MPI and the existing Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS) Languages. We identify some of the major features of the proposed languages, using MPI and the PGAS languages for comparison, and describe the opportunities for higher productivity along with the implementation challenges. Finally, we present the conclusions of a recent workshop in which a concrete plan for the next few years was proposed.