Half-Life‘s final entry may end up being a blog post by one of its creators, written as a letter to those who have longed for a conclusion to the franchise which has lain dormant for nearly a decade.
“Dearest Playa,” writes former series writer Marc Laidlaw on his blog under the name “Gertrude Fremont, PhD,” a nod to Half-Life protagonist Gordon Freeman and carefully avoiding any nettlesome copyright claims by substituting names and places from the Half-Life universe with easily-deciphered aliases:
I hope this letter finds you well. I can hear your complaint already, “[Gordon Freeman], we have not heard from you in ages!” Well, if you care to hear excuses, I have plenty, the greatest of them being I’ve been in other dimensions and whatnot, unable to reach you by the usual means. This was the case until eighteen months ago, when I experienced a critical change in my circumstances, and was redeposited on these shores. In the time since, I have been able to think occasionally about how best to describe the intervening years, my years of silence. I do first apologize for the wait, and that done, hasten to finally explain (albeit briefly, quickly, and in very little detail) events following those described in my previous game (referred to herewith as [Episode 2]).
What follows is the recap of what may have been the planned story of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 or Half-Life 3, wrapping up the loose ends dangling at the end of Half-Life 2: Episode 2. A fan also compiled a “translated” version of the post with the proper names of Half-Life characters, aliens, and locations replacing the pseudonyms in Laidlaw’s original blog.
In a tweet, Laidlaw called the “fanfic” a “genderswapped snapshot of a dream I had many years ago.” When someone pointed out that it hardly seemed like a “fanfic” as Laidlaw wrote the story for the previous Half-Life games, the writer, who resigned from Half-Life developer Valve in 2016, reasserted: “At this point I’m operating strictly in a fan capacity.”
Still, this is almost certainly the most closure fans will ever get for the legendary first-person shooter franchise, as Valve shifts its focus to competitive gaming and its megalithic online store. A link to the translated version of the blog was posted on the popular /r/Gaming subreddit and rocketed to the top of Reddit’s front page, with over 10,000 comments at the time of this writing, many of which lamented the thought that Laidlaw revealing the potential plot for an unreleased Half-Life title must be a sure sign the franchise is truly dead.
Frankly, it’s a difficult read. There are still questions left unanswered, and even with this general story closure, it’s difficult not to pine for a proper, playable ending. But Laidlaw has given fans some measure of closure regarding his vision for what is easily the most infuriating cliffhanger in gaming history, and it looks as if that is all we will get for the foreseeable future.
Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.