Half-Life 2: Episode Three

Episode Three was planned to feature gameplay similar to the previous two episodes, as well as Half-Life 2 itself.

In 2016, Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw left Valve.[1] The following year, he posted a short story, "Epistle 3", on his website.[2] The story, characterized as a gender swapped "fanfic", features characters with names similar to Half-Life characters, such as "Gertie Fremont" for Gordon Freeman.[3] Substituting the characters with their Half-Life counterparts, the story sees Freeman and his allies travel to the Arctic to board the Borealis, a ship that travels erratically through time and space, where they "confront myriad versions" of themselves. They rig the ship to travel to the heart of the Combine empire and self-destruct, but the explosion is not sufficient to destroy the Combine's Dyson Sphere. Alyx is taken by the G-Man and Gordon is rescued by the Vortigaunts, with most of the Resistance dead and the success of their uprising uncertain.[3]

Laidlaw described the story as a "snapshot of a dream I had many years ago".[2] Journalists interpreted it as a summary of what could have been the plot for Episode Three; alternatively, it may have been intended for Borealis.[4] Designer Robin 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.[5]

Laidlaw said he had intended Episode Three to end the Half-Life 2 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 player character Gordon Freeman left in "an indeterminate space, on hold ... So one cliffhanger after another ... I expected every installment would end without resolution, forever and ever."[6]

Valve president Gabe Newell in 2018

In May 2006, Valve announced a trilogy of episodic games that would continue the story of Half-Life 2 (2004).[7] Valve president Gabe Newell said the approach would allow Valve to release products more quickly after the six-year Half-Life 2 development, and that he considered the trilogy the equivalent of Half-Life 3.[8] Episode One was released on June 1, 2006, followed by Episode Two on October 10, 2007.[9][10]

Episode Three was initially planned for Christmas 2007.[11] Concept art surfaced in 2008,[12][13][14] and reports surfaced that Valve was working with sign language and on a deaf character.[15][16][17] Valve released little information about Episode Three in the following years; though Valve still discussed Half-Life, there was no clarity on whether further games were coming.[18] In March 2010, Newell spoke of "broadening the emotional palette" of the series, and said the next Half-Life game may return to "genuinely scaring the player".[19] 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."[20] That year, Wired described Episode Three as vaporware.[21]

Valve eventually abandoned episodic development, as they wanted to create more ambitious games. According to level designer Dario Casali, "We found ourselves creeping ever forward towards, ‘Well, let's just keeping 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."[22] Walker said Valve used Half-Life games to "solve some interesting collision of technology and art that had reared itself"; when working on Episode Three, they failed to find a unifying idea that provided a sense of "wonderment, or opening, or expansion".[23] 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.[22]

Before his departure from Valve in 2016, Laidlaw led a virtual reality project on the Source 2 engine named Borealis, set on the eponymous ship. The game would skip between the time of the Seven Hour War, the period in which the Combine conquered Earth before Half-Life 2, and a time set shortly after the events of Episode Two. A minigame in which players would fish off the bow of the ship was also proposed. However, the project only lasted for a single year, 2015, before being cancelled.[24]

The publishing of Epistle 3 led to fan backlash towards Valve, with some players review bombing Dota 2 on Steam, believing that they had forgone the Half-Life series.[25]

Phil Iwaunik of PCGamesN stated that Episode 3's cancellation may have done more for the legacy of Half-Life 2 then if it was released as a "perfectly enjoyable final chapter", citing the lack of cultural impact of Half-Life: Alyx, a 2020 Half-Life 2 prequel and the "mystery, speculation and melancholy" of an unfinished sequel.[26]

Following the revelation of Epistle 3, Project Borealis, an attempt to create a fanmade version of the episode in the Source engine that would be based on and expand on the short story, was announced.[27][28][29] The team later decided to switch to Unreal Engine in order to modernize the game, due to the lack of updates to Source.[30] Another team, Keep Away from Fire, began development of their own Episode Three project, Boreal Alyph, which did not follow Epistle 3 as closely, and was initially set in Northern Russia before following Gordon Freeman across the globe. They stated their commitment to using the Source engine, albeit describing it as a "constant fight" to modernize the graphics due to the engine's lack of user-friendliness or documentation.[30]

Half-Life: Alyx contains a teaser for a possible next Half-Life game, leading critics to speculate that it may be Episode Three or Half-Life 3.[31]