Remember when you first finished Half-Life 2: Episode 2? The excitement? The shock? You were ready to set out with Alyx at your side, ready to show those alien bastards who’s boss. The trilogy, and with it, the Combine’s rule over Earth, would end soon.
Except it didn’t. At the time of this writing, almost five years have passed since the supposed release date of the final instalment in Gordon Freeman’s saga. Half-Life 2: Episode Three was slated to arrive Christmas 2007. It didn’t. As the weeks and months went by, confused fans tried to glean whatever information they could from Valve, but, by and large, they were unsuccessful. The company remained silent.
In this Kotaku Timeline, we follow the fans’ process of dealing with Valve’s silence, cataloguing their forays into leaked code, and their communications with the developers. We detail the ways the gaming press interacted with Valve over the years, and list what little has been revealed. In addition, we will keep watch over the game, and take note of any events, good or bad, in the months and years to come.
There were no mentions of the final episode — called Half-Life 3 by some — between 1999, when Valve registered the domain halflife3.com, and 2006. But then, announcements were made, and names were dropped. And so this is where our timeline begins…
In the May issue of the print version of PC Gamer, Valve Software co-founder Gabe Newell talks about Half-Life 2 and its episodes (including Episode 3!), and why he thinks episodic gaming is the way to go. A full transcript is available through the link below.
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The first pieces of concept art for Episode 3 are released. Take a long, good look at them, folks, ’cause you won’t be seeing anything like these for a while.
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Steamcast: Alright, first question: this is one of the most commonly asked questions that we had received and we’ve tried to format it into something you might be able to answer: you’d kept Episode 3 under incredibly heavy wraps thus far; we’d like to know why have you chosen to adapt such a reclusive approach this time around, as opposed to previous releases. Was it based on the reception you’d received about letting out too much info prior to Episode 2, or just something completely different?
Gabe Newell: I think that what’s going on, you know, we’re sort of always experimenting, we’re always trying out different kinds of things, and that has positive as well as negative consequences for ourselves and for the community — so if you look at our different products, we’re trying out these different rhythms. (Ed.: Here Gabe talks about how Valve handles updates for Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead.) Right now, the Half-Life 2 episodes themselves are on a third sort of rhythm, and, you know, we think it makes sense for the product and for what we’re trying to do there. The reason that we’re not talking about anything is mainly that we don’t have anything to say; it’s not like we decided we released too much information, it’s just that if we had information that we were in a position to deliver to people, we would — and right now we don’t have anything to say about it. It really is a consequence of these different rhythms to release schedules we’re trying out. (…) So, Ep 3 is sort of victim to our willingness to experiment, and as soon as we have stuff that we’re ready to say about Ep 3, we will.
Steamcast: Alright, fair enough.
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Steam forum denizen StickZer0 (his image to the left) happens upon several Episode 3-related files while poking around in the Alien Swarm SDK.
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A pair of young Canadian gamers show up on the lawn of Valve Software HQ, wielding cardboard signs, demanding that Valve release some Episode 3 info.
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A redditor posts an email exchange he’s had with Gabe.
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Reader Naroon sends in an Episode 3-related easter egg from Saints Row 3.
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An Uber Entertainment employee sees someone wearing a very peculiar shirt at a game developer event in Seattle.
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A new site displaying a huge Half-Life 3 logo appears. While a troll, it’s still somewhat clever. At least we get a sweet wallpaper out of it.
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Garry Newman, the man behind the vastly popular Garry’s Mod, tweets a picture of a Half-Life 3 shirt supposedly sent to him by Valve. Later, he says it was only a joke. This of course kicks the LambdaGeneration rumour mill into overdrive.
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A resourceful Steam forum user uploads all the Half-Life references he could find in CS:GO’s files. Unsurprisingly, nothing of real value is found.
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A redditor tries to start a hoax involving a supposed pre-order ad for Episode 3 at Best Buy. It doesn’t work out.
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Valvetime posts a bunch of concept art that they’ve received from an anonymous source. However, the images are at least four years old.
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Mad Catz releases an ad for their new keyboard that shows a Half-Life 3 icon. Wild speculation and nerdrage follow.
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valve corporation
publisher:
valve corporation
platform:
pc
release date:
tba
genre:
first-person shooter
modes:
singleplayer
rating:
tba
combine overwiki — the unofficial half-life wiki»
LambdaGeneration — valve community content and news»
episode two SteamPowered forums»
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