What simply occurred? In 2017, former Half-Life sequence author Marc Laidlaw revealed a thinly veiled draft of what would have been Half-Life 2: Episode 3’s plot. Though Laidlaw’s departure from Valve and the next synopsis doused any probabilities we had of ever seeing an official launch of Episode 3, a gaggle of devoted followers has labored to comprehend Laidlaw’s imaginative and prescient ever since.
Half-Life 2 homeowners can now obtain a free prologue for an upcoming fan sport that goals to conclude the story from 2007’s Half-Life 2: Episode 2. The challenge is predicated on a narrative that former sequence author Marc Laidlaw revealed in 2017.
Valve initially deliberate to launch three quick follow-up episodes to the seminal Half-Life 2, however the remaining installment has but to emerge after 17 years. Following repeated delays, Laidlaw left the corporate in 2016, and 18 months later revealed how he’d deliberate for Episode 3 to unfold. The author modified the characters’ names and titled the story “Epistle 3” to keep away from authorized points with Valve, however a corrected model is out there on the Half-Life fan wiki.
Work on Mission Borealis, named after a mysterious ship teased within the Half-Life episodes, started shortly after Epistle 3’s launch. The prologue, now out there on Steam, is about earlier than Laidlaw’s story and takes gamers to a model of Half-Life 2’s Ravenholm degree coated in snow.
As a substitute of Valve’s Supply engine, Mission Borealis runs on Unreal Engine 5. Though the graphics seem much more fashionable and demanding than Valve’s classics from the early 2000s, the builders tried to stay trustworthy to Half-Life 2’s mechanics and physics. The Steam web page does not listing beneficial GPUs, however the prologue requires a DirectX 12-compatible card and 6 GB of cupboard space.
| Minimal necessities | Really useful necessities | |
|---|---|---|
| OS: | Home windows 10 | Home windows 11 |
| Processor: | Core i5-8500 / Ryzen 5 1600 | Core i5-12600K / Ryzen 7 5700X3D |
| Reminiscence: | 8 GB RAM | 16 GB RAM |
| Graphics: | DirectX 12 Final / Vulkan 1.3 | DirectX 12 Final |
| Storage: | 6 GB out there house | 6 GB out there house |
With Laidlaw’s departure, the prospect of latest Half-Life entries from Valve appeared hopeless, however the firm revived the franchise in 2020 with the VR-only Half-Life: Alyx, which takes place earlier than Half-Life 2. Earlier this yr, leakers uncovered Valve’s ongoing work on what many consider is Half-Life 3.
Work on Mission Borealis will proceed no matter what Valve releases. If Half-Life 3 turns into a actuality, its story will doubtless diverge from Laidlaw’s draft, turning Borealis right into a hopefully attention-grabbing alternate imaginative and prescient. The fan sport’s full launch window stays unclear.
