Half-Life 3: Former Valve Writer Regrets His Story

In 2017, a blog publication by Marc Laidlaw caused a stir in the gaming world: the story author responsible for Half-Life and Half-Life 2, who had already left Valve at the time, published an article called “Epistle Three”. This read like what gamers would have long awaited for Episode 3 of Half-Life 2, albeit with a mangled name and labeled “fanfiction.”

Well, Laidlaw has been in an interview with Rockpapershotgun.com commented on the matter again and regretted its publication. At that time he lived alone on an island, completely cut off from friends and the “creative community of recent decades”. He stood beside himself and had no one who could have talked him out of publication. “It just seemed like a fun thing…until I did it,” Laidlaw said.

Half-Life 3 would have looked different

In his opinion, the publication also harmed friends at Valve, while his draft would probably not have become Episode 3 in the form of the story in the course of development: “I think it caused problems for my friends and them made life difficult. Also, it gave the impression that if there had been an episode 3, it would have been something like my draft, while the real development of the story can only happen in the crucible of game development. What people got , so it wasn’t episode 3 at all.”

So while Half-Life 3 still seems a long way off, the last release of the series was known to be in 2020 with the VR title Half-Life: Alyx, which takes place between the first two parts. The last major sign of life for “Half-Life 3” was a rumor at the end of 2021 that the project is not under development, although of course something like this can still happen behind closed doors at Valve and there should also be interest. Meanwhile, fans of the game series are exploring what a new part with Unreal Engine 5, for example, could look like.

Source: via Golem.de