What just happened? In 2017, former Half-Life series writer Marc Laidlaw published a thinly veiled draft of what would have been Half-Life 2: Episode 3’s plot. Although Laidlaw’s departure from Valve and the subsequent synopsis doused any chances we had of ever seeing an official release of Episode 3, a group of dedicated fans has worked to realize Laidlaw’s vision ever since.
Half-Life 2 owners can now download a free prologue for an upcoming fan game that aims to conclude the story from 2007’s Half-Life 2: Episode 2. The project is based on a story that former series writer Marc Laidlaw published in 2017.
Valve originally planned to release three short follow-up episodes to the seminal Half-Life 2, but the final installment has yet to emerge after 17 years. Following repeated delays, Laidlaw left the company in 2016, and 18 months later revealed how he’d planned for Episode 3 to unfold. The writer changed the characters’ names and titled the story “Epistle 3” to avoid legal issues with Valve, but a corrected version is available on the Half-Life fan wiki.
Work on Project Borealis, named after a mysterious ship teased in the Half-Life episodes, began shortly after Epistle 3’s release. The prologue, now available on Steam, is set before Laidlaw’s story and takes players to a version of Half-Life 2’s Ravenholm level covered in snow.
Instead of Valve’s Source engine, Project Borealis runs on Unreal Engine 5. Although the graphics appear far more modern and demanding than Valve’s classics from the early 2000s, the developers attempted to remain faithful to Half-Life 2’s mechanics and physics. The Steam page doesn’t list recommended GPUs, but the prologue requires a DirectX 12-compatible card and 6 GB of storage space.
| Minimum requirements | Recommended requirements | |
|---|---|---|
| OS: | Windows 10 | Windows 11 |
| Processor: | Core i5-8500 / Ryzen 5 1600 | Core i5-12600K / Ryzen 7 5700X3D |
| Memory: | 8 GB RAM | 16 GB RAM |
| Graphics: | DirectX 12 Ultimate / Vulkan 1.3 | DirectX 12 Ultimate |
| Storage: | 6 GB available space | 6 GB available space |
With Laidlaw’s departure, the prospect of new Half-Life entries from Valve seemed hopeless, but the company revived the franchise in 2020 with the VR-only Half-Life: Alyx, which takes place before Half-Life 2. Earlier this year, leakers uncovered Valve’s ongoing work on what many believe is Half-Life 3.
Work on Project Borealis will continue regardless of what Valve releases. If Half-Life 3 becomes a reality, its story will likely diverge from Laidlaw’s draft, turning Borealis into a hopefully interesting alternate vision. The fan game’s full release window remains unclear.
