Half Life 3 Plot Outline Revealed By Marc Laidlaw, Series Writer

Here it is, the final nail in Half Life 3’s coffin. Marc Laidlaw, the writer behind the insanely popular series, has published the outline of what should’ve been the plot of Half Life 2: Episode 3 on his website. If you weren’t convinced the series was dead when Laidlaw left Valve a year and a half ago, there’s little doubt about it now.

The site is obviously being swamped by hungry fans at the moment, but you can check out the archived version here. The names have been changed, possibly for copyright reasons, but you should be able to recognize the characters behind them without much effort.

It starts off as you’d expect – Alyx and Gordon (Alex and Gertrude) head for the Borealis. What they find there is a bit more unexpected, but I won’t spoil it – if you’ve any interest in the series, you should really read it yourself. It would’ve been the perfect ending to HL2, as well as a perfect setup for further installments.

Laidlaw has always been a beloved figure in the community, and this only reaffirms the general image. The question that remains is: why wait until now? He mentions in the post that he thought long and hard about how best to do this since he left Valve. There are also rumors that the Half Life 2 NDA has expired recently, since it’s been 10 years since the last release, so that also might have something to do with it.

In any case, Gordon’s story got as much closure as we could’ve hoped for at this point. It’s been obvious for many years now that Valve are not going to continue the series, and this is as close to official confirmation we’re ever going to get.

I hope we can agree to give the tired Half Life 3 memes a rest now. Please?