One year after Marc Laidlaw left Valve in 2016, he released the written story Epistle Three. Described as "fanfic", this blog post follows Alex Vaunt and Gertrude Fremont in the wake of Elly Vaunt's death. They're clearly placeholders for much more recognisable characters, as in reality, this story is a loose idea for what Half-Life 2: Episode 3 could have been if Valve hadn't scrapped several iterations of the game.
Naturally, fans made it their mission to bring this vision to life, using Laidlaw's outline as a foundation. If Valve won't give us Episode 3, fine, we'll do it ourselves.
Cue Project Borealis, which formed way back in 2017 shortly after Epistle 3 was released. They quickly showed off a library of concept art, music, and even early model designs, with over 80 people joining as excitement grew. But we haven't heard from them in four years — where originally we had frequent large-scale updates showing off progress, the team has remained quiet since 2020.
Project Borealis is being developed in Unreal Engine to give it "the updated look that Half-Life has deserved", rather than Source.
However, that all changes today. Project Borealis has come back with a...
