Half Life Episode 3: Ex-writer reveals what could have happened

Fans of the sci-fi adventure video game series Half Life have been waiting for over a decade for a third instalment, but a blog post by the original game's writer could provide hints to what might happen in the long-rumoured Episode 3.

Marc Laidlaw, who wrote the story for the first two games and their expansion packs, posted a story called "Epistle 3" on his blog that bears strong similarities to the Half Life universe he created.

TechRadar reports that Half Life's protagonist Gordon Freeman is referred to as "Gertrude Fremont" in Laidlaw's blogpost, while Freeman's co-star Alyx Vance is called "Alex Vaunt" and her father Eli Vance is given the name "Elly Vaunt".

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Despite the renaming of core characters, TrustedReviews http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/half-life-writer-reveals-story-details-episode-3-3270454 says "hardcore fans should have no problem figuring out the plot" and they will "finally get some closure on one of gaming’s greatest cliffhangers".

"Whether or not that means the world will never see Half-Life 3 remains to be seen," says ArsTechnica, although the game's developer Valve has focused more on e-sports and its Steam gaming platform than story-driven titles in recent years.

Valve's last single-player experience was the sci-fi puzzle game Portal 2, the website says, which released on PC and home consoles in 2011.

While there's no official word on when, or if, another Half Life will ever be made, the game still proves to be popular a decade after the last title was released.

After his website crashed due to an influx of readers, Laidlaw said: "I guess fanfic is popular, even [as] a gender-swapped snapshot of a dream I had many years ago."