Half-Life 2: Episode Three is a canceled first-person shooter game developed by Valve. It was planned as the last in a trilogy of episodic games continuing the story of Half-Life 2 (2004). Valve announced Episode Three in May 2006, with a release planned for 2007. Following the cliffhanger ending of Episode Two (2007), it was widely anticipated.
Episode Three was to be set in the Arctic and introduce elements such as an ice gun and a blob-like enemy. Marc Laidlaw, the writer for the Half-Life series, said he intended it to end the Half-Life 2story arc. Valve released little information over the following years, and in 2011 Wired described it as vaporware. Valve eventually canceled it, citing the limitations of the episodic format and a lack of direction. They delayed development of a new Half-Life until their new game engine, Source 2, was complete.
Laidlaw left Valve in 2016. In 2017, he released a short story that journalists speculated was a summary of the Episode Three plot. After Laidlaw posted the story, fans launched several projects attempting to recreate Episode Three. After canceling several further Half-Life games, Valve released a virtual reality game, Half-Life: Alyx, in 2020.
Episode Three would be set in the Arctic and focus on the missing Borealis ship mentioned in Episode Two and another Valve game, Portal 2.[5] The team experimented with a weapon that created barriers and ramps from ice, and a blob-like enemy that could divide itself, consume other enemies and pass through grates.[6][7] In 2009, reports surfaced that Valve was working with sign language and on a deaf character. Newell said that Gordon's companion, Alyx Vance, had programmed her pet robot, Dog, to use sign language, inspired by a deaf person she had a crush on.[8] In 2010, Newell spoke of "broadening the emotional palette" of the Half-Life series, and said the next game may return to "genuinely scaring the player".[9]
According to Newell, whereas the original Half-Life (1998) saw the mysterious G-Man transform the protagonist, Gordon Freeman, into his tool, and Half-Life 2 saw Freeman being used by G-Man, the episodes would see G-Man lose control.[4]Marc Laidlaw, the writer for the Half-Life series, later said he had intended Episode Three to end the Half-Life 2story arc, at which point he would "step away from it and leave it to the next generation". He planned an ending similar to previous games, with Freeman left in "an indeterminate space, on hold ... So one cliffhanger after another ... I expected every installment would end without resolution, for ever and ever."[10]
Valve announced Episode Three in May 2006, planning to release it by Christmas 2007.[1] Concept art surfaced in 2008.[11][12][13] Valve released little information in the following years, with no clarity on whether further Half-Life games were coming.[14] In 2011, Wired described Episode Three as vaporware.[15] In 2017, Business Insider described it as "the world's most anticipated game", but that it had become a "farce".[16]
Valve eventually abandoned episodic development, as they wanted to create more ambitious games. According to the level designer Dario Casali, "We found ourselves creeping ever forward towards, 'Well, let's just keep putting more and more, and more, and more stuff in this game because we want to make it as good as we can,' and then we realized these episodes are turning more into sequels."[17]
The team became fatigued with Half-Life and struggled to discover new gameplay mechanics. The designer Robin Walker said Valve used Half-Life games to "solve some interesting collision of technology and art that had reared itself". Working on Episode Three, they failed to find a unifying idea that provided a sense of "wonderment, or opening, or expansion".[18] Additionally, Valve had started developing a new game engine, Source 2. As developing Half-Life 2 and the original Source engine simultaneously had created problems, Valve delayed development of a new Half-Life until Source 2 was complete.[17]
After completing other projects, such as the multiplayer game Left 4 Dead (2008), the team felt the opportunity to create Episode Three had passed. The engineer David Speyrer said later: "That just seems in hindsight so wrong. We could've definitely gone back and spent two years to make Episode Three."[19] Newell felt completing Episode Three just to continue the story would have been a "copout", and said: "The failure, my personal failure, was being stumped. I couldn't figure out why doing Episode Three was pushing anything forward."[19]
Short story by Laidlaw
Marc Laidlaw, the writer of the Half-Life games until 2016
Laidlaw left Valve in 2016. He said later that he had tired of the first-person shooter genre and had become "less interested in trying to solve the story problems inherent in a Half-Life style of narrative".[20] In 2017, Laidlaw posted a short story titled "Epistle 3" on his website, describing it as "a snapshot of a dream I had many years ago".[16] It features characters with names similar to Half-Life characters, such as Gertie Fremont for Gordon Freeman.[21] Journalists interpreted the story as a synopsis of what could have been the plot for Episode Three, or for Borealis, another canceled project led by Laidlaw.[22]
Substituting the characters and locations with their Half-Life counterparts, "Epistle 3" has Freeman and the Lambda Resistance travel to the Arctic to board the Borealis, a ship that travels erratically through time and space, where they confront alternative versions of themselves.[21] The group seizes control of the Borealis and sets it on a collision course with the heart of the Combine empire. They rig it to self-destruct upon impact, annihilating the Combine's home planet and crippling their forces, but the explosion is not sufficient to destroy the Combine or their Dyson Sphere. Alyx is abducted by the G-Man. Just before the Borealis explodes, Gordon is rescued by the Vortigaunts and transported into the far future, with most of the Resistance dead and the success of their uprising left uncertain.[23][21]
Walker denied that the story had been Valve's plan for Episode Three, and said that it was likely just one of many ideas by Laidlaw.[24] In a 2023 interview, Laidlaw said it was not representative of Episode Three, as "all the real story development can only happen in the crucible of developing the game". He said he regretted publishing it, as it had created problems for his former colleagues at Valve, and that he had been "deranged" and "completely out of touch" at the time.[25]
Legacy
Laidlaw's "Epistle 3" story triggered a backlash from fans who took it as evidence that Valve had abandoned the Half-Life series. Some review bombed Valve's game Dota 2 on Valve's distribution service, Steam.[26]Project Borealis, a fangame based on "Epistle 3", was announced in November 2018.[27][28][29] The team decided to switch to Unreal Engine due to the lack of updates to Source.[30] Another team began development of Boreal Alyph, which did not follow "Epistle 3" as closely. They stated their commitment to using the Source engine, describing it as a "constant fight" to modernize the graphics due to the engine's lack of user-friendliness or documentation.[30]
After canceling several further Half-Life games, Valve released a VR game, Half-Life: Alyx, in 2020.[31] Walker said the team saw VR as a way to return to the series.[32] Phil Iwaunik of PCGamesN wrote in 2021 that the cancelation of Episode Three may have benefited the legacy of Half-Life 2, citing the lack of cultural impact of Alyx and the "mystery, speculation and melancholy" of an unfinished sequel.[33] In 2024, Valve released footage and concept art of Episode Three as part of a documentary about the making of Half-Life 2.[19]
^Ted Backman; Jeremy Bennett; Tristan Reidford (9 July 2008). "Advisor". Into the Pixel. Archived from the original on 2 October 2012. Retrieved 14 July 2008.
^Laidlaw, Marc (28 August 2017). "Epistle 3". marclaidlaw.com. Archived from the original on 28 August 2017. Retrieved 25 September 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
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