If you want more visuals from gaming’s very own Loch Ness Monster, that of course being the followup to Half-Life 2: Episode Two, I have some good news for you. Following DidYouKnowGaming’s recent video on cancelled Valve games, the YouTuber has released a huge collection of high-resolution concept art that was collected by Valve super-fan David McGreavy. The collection is currently available for download on Archive.net.
We definitely saw a few of these images last year when McGreavy started sharing his extensive collection, but never in this quality, and this expanded selection offers more looks at Half-Life 2: Episode Three as well as cancelled games Alyx & Dog and Stars of Blood. I’ve picked out some of the more interesting ones to highlight.
Half-Life 2: Episode Three Cave
Not a whole lot is known about Half-Life 2’s legendarily cancelled third expansion. In 2017 ex-Valve writer Marc Laidlaw released a piece of writing on his website titled Epistle 3 that many interpreted as a mildly disguised story synopsis for the canned expansion. (More recently Laidlaw expressed regret over making the post.) In any case, Epistle 3 suggested Half Life 2: Episode Three might’ve been set in a frozen biome, at least partially, and here we see some concept art of an underground cave filled with ominous-looking machinery.
Stars of Blood Characters
No, this isn’t a weirdo Sony PlayStation ad, they’re apparently an example of what characters from Valve’s cancelled exploration-shooter Stars of Blood might’ve looked like. According to DidYouKnowGaming, Stars of Blood might’ve been set in the Half-Life universe but would’ve involved space pirates of some kind.
Alyx and Dog
The road to big-time virtual reality hit Half-Life: Alyx was paved with another, cancelled VR project that would have focused on Alyx and Dog, two popular characters introduced in Half-Life 2. There’s not a whole lot of concept art for this one, but this piece definitely speaks to what might’ve been a more exploratory vibe in the original concept.
Stars of Blood Combine ships
Stars of Blood might’ve continued Valve’s efforts to create more games in the Half-Life universe had it ever materialised, just as Portal takes place in the labs of Black Mesa’s rival Aperture Science. And here we can see a bit of that intention at play with Combine ships flying off into the distance on this desolate planet.
Hall of loudspeakers (Half-Life 2: Episode Three)
I wouldn’t want to be in here without some decent earplugs. On first glance, I thought this was a server room of some kind, but you can clearly see speaker cones and tweeters lining the hallway. Given how 3D Valve games often like to play with physics, I can only wonder what the idea might’ve been here.
DOTA Underlords concept art
Here’s something from this art collection that actually came out. DOTA Underlords shipped on mobile and PC back in 2020. As a free-to-play auto battler, there isn’t a whole lot of environmental art in the game, so it’s nice to see a little more from its universe.
Stars of Blood traveller and alien world
As DidYouKnowGaming’s video discusses, though it would’ve been a first-person shooter, Stars of Blood, allegedly, wasn’t supposed to be fast-paced, run ‘n’ gun action, but would’ve focused more on “exploration and finding stuff”. Here we see a little more in the way of strange worlds for the player to visit.
Half-Life 2: Episode Three wreckage
Half-Life 2: Episode Three might’ve involved a ship from Aperture Science called the Borealis,and some of the concept art in this collection shows off a few wrecked ships. Hard to say if these were intended to be that very ship, but it does follow the trend of the concept art seeming to stick closely to the contents of Laidlaw’s Epistle 3.
Stars of Blood: another alien world
Here’s another piece of concept art that makes me more than a little sad this game never came to fruition. Granted, maybe I’ll get my fix of wandering strange worlds with Starfield, but something tells me that Valve’s sense of weirdness would’ve worked really well in an exploration-based game.
Half-Life 2: Episode Three: distant Citadel and helicopters
A lot of the concept art from Half-Life 2: Episode Three has some of the same stuff in common: desolate environments, lots of wreckage, and ominous artifacts looming in the distance. Those are certainly suitable vibes for a Half-Life. Oh, what could’ve been.
If you want to check out the whole 50-image collection for yourself, you can download a big zip from the Internet Archive here, or browse individual pieces here. Also, DidYouKnowGaming’s video on cancelled Valve games includes quite a few others you maybe didn’t know about, so check it out:
Leave a Reply