Valve Revealed Footage of Half-Life 2: Episode 3

Half-Life 2 turned 20 years old on November 16. To celebrate the anniversary, Valve released a documentary in which developers of the Half-Life 2 team talked about the game's development. In the documentary, Valve has revealed the previously canceled Half-Life 2: Episode 3 for the first time.

The developers didn't have a timeline of the episode's narrative. There was only a collection of playable levels in no particular order and a collection of story concepts. The story was set in the Arctic, around Borealis. One of the features of the episode was building ice walls with an Ice Gun that could protect a player from enemies. Another mode, which was called Silver Surfer, enabled a player to extrude ice and use it to cross gaps by running along it.

There was also an enemy that came in the form of blobs. It could change its shape, split into little hoppy blobs, pass through grates, and absorb things and creatures.

After six months of development of the Episode 3, the developers put it down to create Left 4 Dead. They shared that it took long enough, and by the time they considered going back to the Half-Life episode, they thought that the moment was gone and abandoned the idea. They shared with regret that now seems "so wrong."

The further development of Half-Life" Episode 3 could have taken two more years. Gabe Newell shared: "We could have shipped it. It wouldn't have been that hard. My personal failure was being stumped. I couldn't figure out why Episode 3 was pushing anything forward."

In the documentary, Valve shared other insights concerning the development of Half-Life 2, for instance, how a single Korean-speaking intern undergoing a summer practice helped Valve and literally saved the entire PC gaming industry.

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