Key Takeaways
- Valve showed some Half-Life 2: Episode 3 footage for the first time ever.
- The footage from the canceled episodic sequel was shared as part of a recently released documentary commemorating Half-Life 2’s 20th anniversary.
- The film also reveals that Episode 3 was planned to feature an arctic environment, ice gun, and some annoying blob enemies. Gabe Newell called Episode 3’s cancellation his own “personal failure.”
Valve has shared some Half-Life 2: Episode 3 footage for the first time ever. The company did so as part of a new documentary that also revealed some other details about what was planned for Half-Life 2: Episode 3 before its cancellation.
Half-Life 2 has turned 20 today, November 16. Looking to commemorate this occasion, Valve released a 20th-anniversary documentary providing a comprehensive overview of how one of the most influential first-person shooters of all time came to be. The film can be viewed for free on Valve’s official YouTube channel.
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The 10th epilogue chapter of the two-hour video goes over the making of Half-Life 2‘s episodic sequels. While this segment is largely focused on Episodes 2 and 3, it also spends some time on Episode 3, to the point that it even shows some gameplay footage from the long-canceled sequel. This is the most forthcoming Valve has ever been about the ill-fated game, which was effectively abandoned by the early 2010s but took years before it was officially confirmed as canceled.
Valve Reveals Some of Its Scrapped Half-Life 2: Episode 3 Plans
The documentary also reveals some of the plans that Valve’s developers had in store for the shelved game. For instance, it confirms the long-standing rumor that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 was intended to take place in an arctic environment—a theory many fans have speculated about for years, based on some previously leaked concept art. Keeping in line with that theme, Valve initially wanted to have the game feature an ice gun, allowing players to freeze enemies and create blocks of ice. These chunks could be used for various purposes, like creating pathways or raising makeshift defense barriers. The weapon was hence essentially envisioned as Episode 3‘s counterpart to the iconic Gravity Gun that much of Half-Life 2 was designed around.
Half-Life 2: Episode 3 was planned to focus on Alyx, writer Marc Laidlaw revealed during the documentary. Software engineer Brian Jacobson also recalled how he was working on blob-like enemies for the canceled sequel, which would have been capable of changing shapes, passing through grates, and splitting into chunks of smaller blobs, thus potentially being annoying to deal with.
Half-Life 2: Episode 3 Was Canceled Because Gabe Newell Was ‘Stumped’
Reflecting on Half-Life 2: Episode 3‘s cancellation during the documentary, Valve co-founder and President Gabe Newell characterized the decision as his own “personal failure,” admitting he was “stumped” about how Episode 3 could break new ground, which is something that was always important to him when it comes to pursuing new games. Unable to answer that question, the team eventually moved on to other projects, like Left 4 Dead and Portal 2. “I couldn’t figure out why doing Episode 3 was pushing anything forward,” Newell recalled.
Valve’s planned continuation for the story of Half-Life 2 would have come in the form of Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Unfortunately, the game never saw a release and was eventually canceled, which has left Half-Life fans with a tense cliffhanger ending following the release of Half-Life 2: Episode 2.