Time, Dr. Freeman? Is it really that time again?
If you grew-up playing Counter-Strike, you almost certainly grew-up knowing Half-Life, aboutalien-fighting physicist Dr. Freeman and the mysterious “G-Man” who haunts him, and one of the greatest games ever made. You almost certainly played Half-Life 2, its worthy successor, and the two episodes that served as its sequels. And you perhaps remember the awful, heartbreaking cliffhanger that Episode 2 ended on in 2007.
And then you waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Valve Software, the developer, is infamously mute about Half-Life 3. It is a uniquely powerful company within the games industry, having created and operated the Steam store for over a decade. And though it’s developed games since Half-Life 2: Episode 2, including sequels to its (arguably superior) game Portal and Left4Dead, there’s been little about the Half-Life games. Some leaked concept art. A piece of code. A little here, a little there.
Things came to a head last year and earlier this year, when Valve writers Erik Wolpaw, Chet Faliszek, Jay Pinkerton, and Marc Laidlaw all left the company.
Laidlaw was an especially noteworthy departure for Half-Life, as he was the novelist-turned-games-writer who penned those games (Faliszek and Wolpaw contributed to Half-Life 2: Episode One and Episode Two).
Well, it seems like Laidlaw’s as tired of waiting for Half-Life 3 as the rest of us.
This morning, Laidlaw’s NDA expired and he released a piece of “fanfiction” which, with a bit of guessing, you can read as the conclusion to the Half-Life games. You can read that here, on his official website, or here, at this Pastebin.
It ends with a bit of meta narrative:
I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to it. Expect no further correspondence from me regarding these matters; this is my final episode.
This is a bittersweet moment for those of us who’ve kept track of the Half-Life games and who would have wanted to continue playing them to the end.
Officially, Half-Life 3 has never been announced—Half-Life 2: Episode 3 was never even officially cancelled.
It is unclear how Valve Software will respond to this.
But thanks for Laidlaw for helping fans find closure on a series that Valve Software had the ability, talent, money, and time to create, but not the will.
These are extraordinary times.
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