Half-Life 3 / HL2 Episode three is an upcoming game from Valve software.
Half-Life 2: Episode Three is the third and final instalment in a series of episodes following Half-Life 2. It is currently in development and Valve have said we may see something from it at the end of this year. The project has been labelled 'highly ambitious' by Doug Lombardi, and release is still a while off. We are most likely to see something from Valve at next years E3 conference.
What we know, and what to expect?
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We know the episode is going to be set in the northern reaches of the world of Half-Life (?), these will be cold places filled with ice and snow, oh and a Borealis.
The Borealis is that great ship that disappeared during some experimentation by the same sort of scientists that caused the Resonance Cascade from the original Half-Life. From what we have seen from Portal and the previous Episodes the Borealis is a scientific ship that was involved in teleportation tests at the Aperture Science labs. Something went wrong which led to the ship disappearing completely from its original location. It is only during the events of Episode 2 that we find out that it has returned, this time in the coldest reaches of the world.
Speculation
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The question that will be answered (we hope) in Episode 3 is what happened to the ship, did it appear instantly after the experiment in the north? If that is so then why havent we heard about it until now? Is it simply down to the fact that the resistance couldnt detect it?
We also know the scientists on the Borealis performed their experiments and the ship got sent somewhere, maybe Xen? Or maybe it just disappeared out of the time loop? We know that during the course of Half-Life 2 Gordon takes seven days to travel from Nova Prospekt back to City 17, a 'slow teleport' according to Dr Kleiner.
The Borealis contains something that Eli wishes Gordon to destroy for fear of a repeat of the events at Black Mesa, Dr Kleiner feels it is destined to be a useful asset in the future. The differing views between these two eminent scientists is intriguing. Is caution the best bet, or should Gordon use whatever he can find on the ship to aid in the destruction of the Combine once and for all?
Flora, Fauna and Everything Else
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Enough of this speculation, Episode 3 will be set in an area of snow and ice, this is going to pose some new gameplay challenges and maybe even some new aliens. Who knows whether Ant-lions can survive in the cold? Headcrabs and Zombies are a given, but many other creatures may be different.
How will the death of such a key character as Eli impact on the story, and more importantly for some, on the relationship between Gordon and Alyx. What role is the G-Man going to play, he seems to be getting a bit impatient with things not progressing as he wants them to. His message he gives to Alyx, the same message he gave to Eli back in Black Mesa may be a sign that he foresees grave peril in the future, or maybe he is just toying with Alyx.
How things are likely to develop...
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When we find out about the Borealis in Episode 2 this is from the transmission Alyx intercepted from the Combine. Therefore we know the Combine have located the vessel. They were extremely aggressive and put a lot of resources into attempting to prevent this transmission getting back to the resistance and have hunted Alyx desperately since the interception. We can assume the combine want to use the Borealis and Aperture Science's possible developments in teleportation / portal technology to bring extra troops to Earth to recapture it or evacuate. The latter...seems unlikely!
We have already seen some early concept art for the game. The image from the Into The Pixel exhibition shows Gordon challenging a Combine Advisor in a heavily industrialised environment and earlier concept art from PC Gamer US shows further Advisors around the Borealis. So expect a hugely exciting episode 3 with the same fantastic Half-life formula with a mighty cold twist.
Timeline:
-May 9th, 2011: "We went through the episodes phase, and now were going towards shorter and even shorter cycles," Newell said in an interview published in Develop magazine. "For me, entertainment as a service is a clear distillation of the episodic content model," he added. Here's the entire interview.
-March, 2011: Video with Doug Lombardi
-October 21st, 2010: Gabe Newell says in an IGN interview that it's always hard to predict where Valve's direction of development will go next. He said, "As I'm reminded of on an almost daily basis, we seemed to be really excited about that episodic thing with [Half-Life 2] Episode One and Episode Two, and then we've gone completely radio silent subsequently. Sometimes it's even dangerous for us to predict what we'll do next." Read more at the bottom of this page.
-August 5th, 2010: "We hate to make you wait. But we have no announcements regarding Mr. Freeman or his ongoing adventures at this time", said Doug Lombardi. Noted in this CVG feature.
-August 12th, 2009: Gabe Newell explains in a SteamCast podcast interview that he has nothing to discuss of Ep3 for the time being. He says right now the company is in an experimental stage (of release rhythms) of game development. Still no ETA for Episode 3.
Thanks tofruxodaily
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