Half-Life 2: Episode Three

Canceled video game

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. Marc Laidlaw, the writer for the Half Life series, said he intended Episode Three to end the Half Life 2 story arc. Valve released little information on Episode Three over the following years, and in 2011 Wired described it as vaporware. Valve eventually canceled it, citing a lack of direction and the limitations of the episodic format. 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 interpreted as a summary for what could have been the plot of Episode Three. It followed the protagonist, Gordon Freeman, as he journeyed to the Arctic and boarded the Borealis, an experimental vessel created by Aperture Science. 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 was to be the last in a trilogy of episodic games that would continue the story of the 2004 first person shooter game Half Life 2. Episode One was released in 2006, followed by Episode Two in 2007. Valve's president, Gabe Newell, said he considered the trilogy the equivalent of Half Life 3. According to Newell, whereas the original Half Life (1998) saw the 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.

Valve announced Episode Three in May 2006, planning to release it by Christmas 2007. Valve released little information in the following years; though Valve still discussed Half Life, there was no clarity on whether further games were coming. 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. In March 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". In 2011, he said: "We went through the episodes phase, and now we're going towards shorter and even shorter cycles For me, 'entertainment as a service' is a clear distillation of the episodic content model." That year, Wired described Episode Three as vaporware. 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." 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". 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. In 2017, Laidlaw posted a short story titled "Epistle 3" on his website. The story features characters with names similar to Half Life characters, such as "Gertie Fremont" for Gordon Freeman. Laidlaw described the story as a "snapshot of a dream I had many years ago". 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. In a 2023 interview, Laidlaw said the story 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 he felt it had created problems for his former colleagues at Valve. He said he had been "deranged" and "completely out of touch" at the time.

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 Steam. Project Borealis, a fangame based on "Epistle 3", was announced in November 2018. The team decided to switch to Unreal Engine due to the lack of updates to Source. 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. Walker said the team saw VR as a way to return to the series. 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.