Marc Laidlaw reveals Half-Life 2 Episode 3's story synopsis

I think we all realised it was over. I just don't think any of us ever thought we'd find out what it was meant to be. Thats the reaction we're having. It's not that it's over, it's that we now know what it could have been.

The could have is in a way worse than ever knowing in the first place. That is the truly depressing end to one of the greatest more impactful and influential gaming series in history.
 
dr_rus said:
Already did, around Portal 2 release time. Actually, it's more of them letting go of my interest forever with what they produce these days.
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I am on the same boat. Not been interested in what they have been doing since Portal 2. But this was the final piece left, and I can finally close this chapter.
 
Unknown Soldier said:
It's kind of crazy to realize we live in a world where Duke Nukem Forever, Daikatana, The Last Guardian, Final Fantasy XV (Versus XIII), and even the 22-years ago cancelled Star Fox 2 saw the light of day.

But Half-Life 3 will never happen.

Is this truly the darkest timeline?
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HL3 faded in and out of existence between an office lot in Seattle and a dark universe full of crates and cards.
Alyx chose to steer it into the center of the MOBA sphere on a suicide course but they realized right before collision that its impact would fizzle out like a matchhead against the combined storms of market reality.
 
Regarding the plot of Ep3, I must say I'm very pleased. Even though many of us expected that the Borealis had to do with some sort of teleportation tech (as it's Aperture Science) I was still surprised what this "bootstrap device" actually was, how it worked and how it explains the Borealis ending up in Antarctica.

Reading that Alyx unknowingly became a sleeper agent to G-man with the task of getting rid of the Borealis (so that humanity can't use it against the combine) with her dad's last wish as a cover kinda blew my mind. That G-man took her away and left Gordon to die on the Borealis, only for Gordon (you) to realize that the suicide mission won't make a dent on the Combine as they are all to powerful is pretty damn dark and fitting for HL, it also makes Dr. Breen comments in HL2 that struggle is essentially futile ring more true.

Still undecided if HL3 would be from Gordon or Alyx perspective, it kinda makes sense it being Alyx with her being taken by the G-man and all, but Gordon being saved by the vortigaunts before the explosion makes me believe that you'd continue to play as Gordon in the sequel. I also have a hard time seeing Alyx becoming a silent playable character.
 
Dragon1893 said:
It's closure for a chapter, not the story, that's what I'm saying. Of course it's a lot better than where we were before.

My thanks to Marc Laidlaw for posting this.
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Yes sure you are right, but I think lots of us weren't expecting a conclusive ending anyway. Look at it like literary sagas like Dune or Ender's game. The first book of their sagas is not the end of the series but both could have ended perfectly there even when they leave them open ended in some regards.
 
At least we got this. But my God, Fuck off Gabe.
He's become George Lucas. Held a beloved franchise hostage and let us all down. Just in a different way.
They both became passionless rich guys concerned with nothing else.
 
dripdripsplash said:
Jesus

It really just is this we're going to get.

So sad.

How about the G-Man never understood his role. Is he against the combine or what ?
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Him "tasking" Alyx to destroy the Borealis and it's technology that could help out the rebellion and leaving Gordon Freeman to die on it makes me think he's at least actively working against the rebellion/humanity.
 
Would have been great. It would be pretty interesting to get full insight on why a HL3 never happened. Whatever the reason, it was a wrong decision.
 
So Earth never really stood a chance.

The Combine are just way too powerful.


prmomlo9buhz.jpg
 
Somebody has to write a book on this game lol. I'm not angry with Valve and Gabe, they don't "owe" me anything. And I get why financially this game didn't happen.

But still, I love Half Life so much. Wish i got more of them.
 
Well, that's some kind of closure.
Looking forward to the post-mortem sometime in the future when people are allowed to talk.
 
I think all the old hl people should try and buy the ip from valve and then launch their own studio, Freeman Studios, and then make Hl3 or whatever.
 
Drencrom said:
Him "tasking" Alyx to destroy the Borealis and it's technology that could help out the rebellion and leaving Gordon Freeman to die on it makes me definitely think he's at least actively working against the rebellion/humanity.
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He's either an impartial third party of a larger empire that is at war with the Combine, or at the very least in a cold war and is setting up captured species to start uprisings around the empire.

In this viewing, whoever he works for could easily view the Borealis as a major threat and the potential for humanity, if they are able to starve off the Combine, as the next major empire once they are able to fully understand the technology. Thus destroying it would be the best course of action.

Or a double agent for the combine.
 
dripdripsplash said:
Jesus

It really just is this we're going to get.

So sad.

How about the G-Man never understood his role. Is he against the combine or what ?
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The g man operates on his own. the combines survival serves his plot in some way or another. how deep this goes is unknown.
 
That part on the borealis with the time distortion sounds like it would have been really fucking cool

Damn shame. Don't give a shit about valve anymore. Even the steam sales suck too now tbh
 
dripdripsplash said:
How about the G-Man never understood his role. Is he against the combine or what ?
Click to expand...
From what I gather he represent a third party. If I were to guess, he is sent there by some "time lords" to put an end to the reasons cascade that happened at Black Mesa. Destroying Borealis was a major piece to that, as all time/dimension devices were to stop exist.
 
Zaru said:
Someone at Valve to figure out how to make Half life into a multiplayer game with loot boxes
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They actually said something close enough openly when Portal 2 released. Something along the lines "this may be our last game founded on a traditional singleplayer campaign". The thing is, everyone at the time who took it seriously thought this would mean their future would-be singleplayer games would work like Left 4 Dead (i.e. you could play them in co-op), not that Valve would basically shatter everything on their game development side but F2P/P&P and VR. And F2P/P&P staff seems to be mostly content with taking over workshop content and bug fixing. I wouldn't be surprised if it's Steam itself which started to get out of control, workforce wise, though obviously with market experiments contributing.
 
Drencrom said:
Regarding the plot of Ep3, I must say I'm very pleased. Even though many of us expected that the Borealis had to do with some sort of teleportation tech (as it's Aperture Science) I was still surprised what this "bootstrap device" actually was, how it worked and how it explains the Borealis ending up in Antarctica.

Reading that Alyx unknowingly became a sleeper agent to G-man with the task of getting rid of the Borealis (so that humanity can't use it against the combine) with her dad's last wish as a cover kinda blew my mind. That G-man took her away and left Gordon to die on the Borealis, only for Gordon (you) to realize that the suicide mission won't make a dent on the Combine as they are all to powerful is pretty damn dark and fitting for HL, it also makes Dr. Breen comments in HL2 that struggle is essentially futile ring more true.

Still undecided if HL3 would be from Gordon or Alyx perspective, it kinda makes sense it being Alyx with her being taken by the G-man and all, but Gordon being saved by the vortigaunts before the explosion makes me believe that you'd continue to play as Gordon in the sequel. I also have a hard time seeing Alyx becoming a silent playable character.
Click to expand...

I doubt Alyx would've been a silent protagonist, they definitely would've dropped that.
Having Freeman dying for nothing would've sucked, I think it's better this way, people would be asking why the vortigaunts didn't save him, even the text itself acknowledges that this was predictable.
 
Fans make a game based off this story but only change one thing.

Gordon doesn't get saved by the Vortigaunts and dies on the Borealis, closing out Half Life forever.
 
That G-Man moment would have been awesome. It's a shame the game won't come to be, but I feel better for knowing how things could have turned out.
 
I will never get why episode 3 didn't come out. The tech excuse doesn't hold up because neither ep1 nor 2 feature new tech.

How did they waste so much time they had to turn ep3 into HL3 in first place?

Now for a proper HL3 the tech thing could hold some water, but again, once too much time passed why not saying "fuck it" and forgo any major tech innovation, especially since they had fans clamoring for it?

They got invested in Steam and online games, sure, but not releasing HL3 got them only a lot of ill will, while finally giving closure to fans and publishing a certainly at least good game would have surely boosted their public perception, portfolio and it wouldn't have cost them much in comparison to the ridiculous amount of money they clearly make through Steam.

They drove away talent and let down fans for years for no good reason.
 
Looking back, it's interesting that the current craze of loot boxes that now everyone and their mother uses, wasn't popularized by the Evil EA, or Activision or Ubisoft, but Valve.
 
I'm just really glad we got some closure thanks to Laidlaw.

For years all I wanted Valve to do was put out a comic, a Twine game or just a fucking text dump that would provide a sense of an ending to the fans who have stuck with the studio since 1998.

I understand Valve does not seem interested in making games/services they can't monetize out the ass with roulette wheels and other casino-like systems but at least they could have had the balls to admit they've no interest in paying off all they set up in Ep 2.
 
TheLostBigBoss said:
He's either an impartial third party of a larger empire that is at war with the Combine, or at the very least in a cold war and is setting up captured species to start uprisings around the empire.

In this viewing, whoever he works for could easily view the Borealis as a major threat and the potential for humanity, if they are able to starve off the Combine, as the next major empire once they are able to fully understand the technology. Thus destroying it would be the best course of action.

Or a double agent for the combine.
Click to expand...

Yes, now that I re-think HL1,HL2 and all the episodes (including this new plot) it really paints G-man as a third-party, which was already obvious (I blame it on my poor memory, was a long time ago since I played the HL games now). I mean, he helped out Gordon take out the Combine's citadel in HL2 and here (Ep3) he lets the Borealis get destroyed with the boostrap device which could've helped the rebellion.

tci said:
From what I gather he represent a third party. If I were to guess, he is sent there by some "time lords" to put an end to the reasons cascade that happened at Black Mesa. Destroying Borealis was a major piece to that, as all time/dimension devices were to stop exist.
Click to expand...

That makes a lot of sense. Problem is, isn't G-man essentially responsible for the resonance cascade at Black Mesa in HL1? I'm pretty sure he had a hand in it with Dr. Breen.

TheVampire said:
So Earth never really stood a chance.

The Combine are just way too powerful.


prmomlo9buhz.jpg
Click to expand...

Nah, the fight would've been continued in HL3.
 
I do wish they had more closure planned (especially more about Mrs. X and the powers behind her), but this sort of open-ended ending that doesn't really explain or change much in the overall scheme of things does feel very Valve-y. Seems like something they'd do.
 
The takeaway from this:

  • The series is really over.
  • Valve as we know it no longer exists.
  • Today's Valve is all about working on projects that will never see the light of day + multiplayer.
  • The series is really over.
Oh, and someone surely will be able to release a mod around this script, but I wouldn't expect to see one before 2027.
 
I love Dota. I love TF2. I love L4D.

...but FUCK Valve. This franchise had everything- critical acclaim, financial success, a massive fanbase, and an incredibly well off developer with tons of talent. How in the hell does this happen? Has there ever been another instance of a franchise that was successful in pretty much every way just failing to conclude- not just in games, but TV, comics, movies, ANYWHERE? This is absurd and HL deserved so much more than this.
 
Drencrom said:
Yes, now that I re-think HL1,HL2 and all the episodes (including this new plot) it really paints G-man as a third-party, which was already obvious. I mean, he helped out Gordon take out the citadel in HL2 and here (Ep3) he lets the Borealis get destroyed with the boostrap device which could've helped the rebellion.



That makes a lot of sense. Problem is, isn't G-man essentially responsible for the resonance cascade at Black Mesa in HL1? I'm pretty sure he had a hand in it with Dr. Breen.
Click to expand...

He is the only reason humanity figured out portal tech, he gave Black Mesa the Xen material, which led to humanities discovery of local teleportation after the invasion. (Our teleportation uses the Xen world as a slingshot)

So, whoever he works for set us up to "ping" the combine with the eventual resonance cascade.
 
The sooner people think of Valve as an R&D company with a team passionate about data analytics the better.

Everything they do currently seems to be some kind of experiment where they tweak certain attributes, analyse the results and make further changes. You can see it in how employees talk during interviews and even the job positions that pop up occasionally.

I've long given up on getting a Half-life 3. Besides, if it plays like something I've experienced before why would I even be bothered? It's not the same team that made HL/HL2 that would make it and farming it out to another developer just to get a game called Half-Life 3 would be the same as someone else writing Return of the King if Tolkien never wrote it. Yeah it's got the title, but that's all.
 
Half Life 3, if made today, wouldn't be Half Life. I'd expect it would more than likely take the shape of a Destiny/Anthem type game. Valve have clearly stated that they make the games that they and/or the market is interested in. And the linear shooter is over. Massively.

Be careful what you wish for, as the Half Life you'd get may not be the one that you want.
 
Alpha Phoenix said:
The takeaway from this:

  • The series is really over.
  • Valve as we know it no longer exists.
  • Today's Valve is all about working on projects that will never see the light of day + multiplayer.
  • The series is really over.
Oh, and someone surely will be able to release a mod around this script, but I wouldn't expect to see one before 2027.
Click to expand...

This is what I hope for
 
I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, this is more or less exactly what I wanted back in 2007, after finishing Episode 2. The foreshadowing in that game indicated that episode 3 was already in development, and the Easter Egg in Portal 2 had me sure it was going to release soon.

It's disappointing to read it like this, 10 years later, but it's nice to get some closure on Gordon's story. The cliffhanger ending of Episode 2 has bothered me for a long time. I guess I didn't want Half-Life to end on such a downer note.

I'm sad it's over, but it was great while it lasted, and we'll always have our memories of Black Mesa.
 
Widge said:
Half Life 3, if made today, wouldn't be Half Life. I'd expect it would more than likely take the shape of a Destiny/Anthem type game. Valve have clearly stated that they make the games that they and/or the market is interested in. And the linear shooter is over. Massively.

Be careful what you wish for, as the Half Life you'd get may not be the one that you want.
Click to expand...

funny cus wolfienstein tno, doom 2016 and titanfall 2 are some of my favourite games ever

at least two of them didn't flop either considering they're getting sequels
 
tci said:
From what I gather he represent a third party. If I were to guess, he is sent there by some "time lords" to put an end to the reasons cascade that happened at Black Mesa. Destroying Borealis was a major piece to that, as all time/dimension devices were to stop exist.
Click to expand...

It doesn't make sense.

1) In the first Half Life is heavily hinted that the G-Man was the person that provided the pure sample that started the resonance cascade.

2) At the end of Half Life 2 the G-Man says that "I've received some interesting offers for your services". If they are at the service of "time lords", this phrase doesn't make sense.
 
Drencrom said:
That makes a lot of sense. Problem is, isn't G-man essentially responsible for the resonance cascade at Black Mesa in HL1? I'm pretty sure he had a hand in it with Dr. Breen.
Click to expand...
I think G-man wanted it to happen yes, but more to stop Black Mesa to continue their research. Having the accident cover the entire thing. G-man probably got the task after Black Mesa's continued dimension jumping to Xen or other places (assume they must have done something before that). Then when Nihilant was killed at the end of HL1, The Combine was warned, and thereby starting the "war". Now there still are time/dimension jumping devices in play here, so G-man hides in the shadows and plans to do as much damage as possible with as little interference needed. And with that ending the technology with no evidence and witnesses left.

It has been a long time since I dwelled into the story and details, so I might be off on some of it. But this would be my guess to it all. Lots of other details left out too of course.

panzone said:
2) At the end of Half Life 2 the G-Man says that "I've received some interesting offers for your services". If they are at the service of "time lords", this phrase doesn't make sense.
Click to expand...
G-man works for the 3rd party. Freeman is G-man's tool to do things with little interference. As he knows Freeman will do the right thing.
 
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