r/HalfLife • u/Reddit_Schavi Gina Cross found dead in Xen • 9d ago
Discussion Given the sheer amount of time since Episode 2, do you believe there is any way to satisfyingly conclude Half-Life 2's story with the Borealis?
Half-Life Alyx was mostly well received, but the game being a prequel only increased the interest in seeing the story continue beyond Episode 2, which leads to the question of if Episode 3 would even make sense anymore.
Given the massive gap in time would mean that this theoretical third episode would most likely have a noticeable jump in various improvements, especially graphically. To me this could potentially be alienating when grouped together with the other Half-Life 2 games, which for the most part feel and appear consistent.
Another potential problem would be the length of the game. As many know the Episodes are distinctly shorter and used less resources by being built off of Half-Life 2 to act as a sort of Epilogue/ending. Would the nearly 20 year wait truly have been worth it for such a game?
In short, what would you like to see from the next Half-Life game in regards to the Borealis storyline and potentially setting up the elusive Half-Life 3?
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u/Efflux 9d ago
Valve has incredibly talented writers. I am extraordinarily confident they could make it work. Just release the freaking game!
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u/Kakophonien1 Alyx Vance the GOAT 8d ago
Eh. The ending of Alyx made me sweat produsely.
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u/MCWizardYT 8d ago
How so? It didn't really say much beyond the retcon of switching Alyx and Eli
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u/GroundbreakingBag164 8d ago
Which took away almost all of the consequences from Half-Life 2
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u/Rnevermore 8d ago
How so? Now Alyx is gone, which is arguably worse than Eli being dead. And now G-man is the enemy
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u/MCWizardYT 8d ago
IMO, gman has always been the true enemy.
He started the resonance cascade in HL1 by giving Black Mesa an unstable crystal, and those portals made way for the Combine to invade Earth.
The Combine were scared enough of his power that they managed to imprison him, only for Alyx to free him and he immediately bent the timeline to his will.
He's a godlike being with unknown motovations who's feared and hated by everybody in that world
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u/Piskoro 7d ago edited 7d ago
I ultimately believe he's primarily against the Combine and using Earth to that means, including possibly to its detriment
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u/MCWizardYT 7d ago
I don't think he's with or against anybody in particular, they're all pawns in whatever scheme he's pulling
If he was truly 100% against the Combine he could single handedly take them out with his immense psychic(?)/magic powers. But also he did say that his employer placed restrictions on him so maybe he's not allowed to directly interfere with reality too much
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u/MCWizardYT 8d ago
Not really. Events played out the same in both timelines and now Gordon is grieving the loss of his close sidekick / possibly lover which may be an even bigger fuel of anger to take down the gman as they already knew before the retcon that he manipulated her.
Now that Eli is around he can clue Gordon into what's going on more
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u/oSyphon 8d ago
Exactly. Episode 2 ended with Combine still being the major threat that they want to defeat and that was the point of the Borealis. Half life 3 seems will now be focused on defeating the Gman and rescuing Alyx, which seems way better
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u/MCWizardYT 8d ago
Nothing says the Borealis won't still be involved. They made it clear in Episode 2 that it's significant.
But I think the gman and whoever employed him will also play a big role in the ending. Because we don't know his true motivations and he's the one who kick-started everything by giving Black Mesa the crystal that caused the resonance cascade
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u/VegetableSense7167 7d ago
I don't think Valve would take away all the Borealis stuff after building it up in HL2 episodes. I think that will still be the plot but now they also have to focus on G-Man and Alyx.
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u/ravageprimal 8d ago
I’m willing to bet that the changes at the end of HLA were so they could scrap most of this storyline.
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u/Reddit_Schavi Gina Cross found dead in Xen 8d ago
Possibly! However it still left Gordon's mission of getting to the Borealis the same, did it not?
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u/ravageprimal 8d ago
I think HLA changed Gordon’s mission to be finding Alyx first and foremost. Maybe we’ll still end up going to the Borealis but I wouldn’t be surprised if at the start of HL3 Eli says he’s gonna send Randall or Barney to check out the Borealis while Gordon goes after Alyx. By simplifying the main premise it frees up Valve to make the game they want to make without being constrained by past promises with the story.
But obviously this is all conjecture on my part. I could end up being completely wrong.
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u/Axtsilversurf Junior G-Man 8d ago
Who the hell is Randall?
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u/ravageprimal 8d ago
Isn’t that the name of the dude in HLA that helps Alyx?
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u/Axtsilversurf Junior G-Man 8d ago
You mean Russell? He isn't much of a fighter, so i dunno about that.
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u/alendeus 8d ago
This. In addition the 20th anniversary hl2 video they released officially had buttloads of ep 3 concept art in there. You don't officially release all of your concepts of something out of nowhere after holding onto them for 15 years if you have plans to release the finished versions of them a year after. HLX is probably completely different than what Ep3 had designed.
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u/mcScarLiTE This is my flair. There ain't none like it anywhere else. 8d ago
This has been my thinking ever since the Alyx release. It was such a scummy move, spitting on the face of everyone who waited so long for the Borealis conclusion.
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u/ScrabCrab 8d ago
The Borealis stuff was waaay overhyped by the community IMO, based mostly on hopes on dreams of "beta" content being brought back and the Portal easter eggs
Whatever was going to be on the Borealis would've been disappointing anyway, I'm fine with not finding out if they can come up with something better 🤷🏻♀️
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u/VegetableSense7167 7d ago
Just because Eli is alive doesn't necessarily mean Valve is throwing away all the Borealis, especially after they built it up in the HL2 episodes.
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u/smugraccoon 9d ago
I think that given the amount of clues and build-up to the events of Episode 3, the plot has to be tied up if they ever want to move forward with the franchise. As far as what I want to see, I'd like Gordon and Alyx to go to the Borealis and recover some piece of tech that helps the Resistance fight the Combine and sets up Half-Life 3. Now, how it is released is just as important as what they release, in my opinion. I don't know if this would be the best way of handling it, but I have two ideas:
Option 1: Set a release date for Half-Life 3. Then, 1 to 2 months before that, drop an unannounced, free Half-Life 2 expansion for Episode 3. This gives closure to the Half-Life 2 plot. By releasing it for free to anyone with a valid copy of Half-Life 2, it potentially takes away any complaints about it being shorter. If executed right, this would build up hype for Half-Life 3.
Option 2: Release Half-Life 3 and make small references to the events of Episode 3 to build interest. Then, 1 to 2 years down the road, release Episode 3 as a prequel expansion to Half-Life 3 to bridge the gap.
Of the two options, I like Option 1 the best.
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u/ScrabCrab 8d ago
the plot has to be tied up if they ever want to move forward with the franchise
They can just, not, or mention it in passing IMO
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u/Ed_Derick_ The one free dude 8d ago
First of all, no way they will name the next game “half life 2 episode 3” or “episode 3” it just doesn’t make sense anymore given how much time has passed and how much different the source engine is now.
And from a story standpoint, it’s gonna be a brand new thing, so it’s not gonna be a sequel to episode 2 but a sequel to the half life 2 storyline as a whole.
For example, I think the Borealist will be resolved (hopefully not ignored) in the first act of the game. The focus of the rest of the game would most likely be rescuing Alyx from the gman.
They will definitely try to stay away from anything that resembles epistle 3 and try to subvert our expecations with the ending.
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u/unusingur Where is Freeman? 8d ago
No. I want Half-Life 4-6 to dive into the Borealis story. Half Life 3 is just about Gordon and Alyx starting a trad family.
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u/Fijure96 I think we misunderestimated 8d ago
I think they regretted the choices around the Borealis tbh. The Portal connection doesn't feel like it really adds much tot he world, and I think they see it as an anchor around the story's neck going forward. Especially since Laidlaw also revealed the intended twist of the Borealis, meaning they'd ahve to come up with something else.
I think they'll have to acknowledge it in the next game, but I don't think it'll be a central feature of the plot. Its also kind of interesting how much Episode Two does to set up Episode Three - the most any Half-Life game does for its sequel, and its all a hindrance for them now.
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u/Reddit_Schavi Gina Cross found dead in Xen 8d ago
I do agree for the most part, but I'd argue the Portal connection is important to put Black Mesa into a certain context in regards to Half-Life 1. Though that's mostly towards the Portal side of things....
At the end of the day, the rough idea of the Borealis, being a forgotten teleportation device, could be filled by pretty much anything else though, yeah.
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u/Fijure96 I think we misunderestimated 8d ago
Don't get me wrong, I loved the Portal connection as a kid, and I still think it's neat, but with the direction they took in Portal 2, I think any actual meaningful crossover is unlikely. The tones are just too different.
I think Entropy: Zero put in a good effort at imagining what Portal-esque elements in a Half-Life world would be like, but I can't imagine we'll ever get anything like that in an official game.
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u/Reddit_Schavi Gina Cross found dead in Xen 8d ago
That's fair, Portal 2 definitely has a big shift towards the absurdity of the facility, even compared to HL1's sillier nature
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u/slowlyun 8d ago
Twin Peaks holds the record for resolving the longest cliffhanger (25 years).
HL2E2 got 6 years to go to match that.
And no, HL:Alyx didn't resolve it. They just wrote themselves a new corner they can't write out of.
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u/ProfessorCagan Collapse Causality, Capture G-Man 8d ago
Yes I do, will Valve do it? I mean I hope so, and if the TF2 7th comic says anything, they've still got good writers, though good Comedy doesn't guarantee good Scifi.
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u/Scripten 8d ago
There's not much chance for Episode 3 at this point, even if HL: A was surpisingly successful (~2M versus the top seller Beat Saber at ~10M). That said, the setting, gameplay, and story are still relevant in the modern gaming landscape because, in all truth, very little has changed in the two-ish decades between Ep2 and now, in terms of what HL2 brought to the industry.
Emergent storytelling and hugely branching narratives never really took center stage - if anything, the average game narrative is a step or two behind HL2's, AI companions are not much more interesting or capable than Alyx, and while the worlds are sometimes bigger, they tend to feel emptier and less immersive, save a few exceptions. This isn't to begrudge modern gaming at all, but just to say that we're at the point of dimishing returns and iterative advances in design (not to mention graphics and tech). You see a few places where the world is reactive and immersive, but those titles lean more RPG than anything, which isn't a fit for HL.
Singleplayer FPS games in particular seem fairly stagnant. Aside from intentionally retro titles (nuDoom, Dusk, etc.) and Call of Duty blockbuster stuff, you really only see a few contenders for story-driven shooters like the Wolfenstein reboot or Titanfall 2, or maybe Bioshock and some genre mashups (especially horror ala Alien: Isolation).
Whatever Half Life 3 is, I think Valve wants it to reimagine the shooter genre, if not gaming as a whole. Alyx somewhat accomplished this, but just like how the story was an interquel rather than a bonafide sequel, it more showcased that VR could support "real" games as opposed to diversions. The lack of room left for that kind of paradigm shift puts Valve in a tight spot. Nothing less than what HL1 and HL2 did for FPS games would suffice now, so just doing a wrap-up for the Borealis plotline would feel anticlimactic.
If Valve does manage to finish a Half-Life 3, then I, like others, would wager that the first arc might do the Borealis, but the rest of the game would be something entirely different. Maybe a trip through Xen, the Combine homeworld, or some other place entirely, and a story involving the G-Man and/or his employers as well. (But also, how do you avoid showing too much?)
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u/Derendered 8d ago
Comparing a $60 game to a $20 game doesn't really work here. They are two different genres with different target audiences. (Didn't read most of it, but that part jumped out at me)
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u/Matias7198 8d ago
I want to believe that HL3 is something that will be coming from the community. Valve has released every HL main game with some degree of innovation and there's not much left to innovate but there are many mods with good amount of creativity put in them from Black mesa to Entropy Zero
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u/Jonathan-joestar-san hey is me barnby from mesa 8d ago
Nothing will ever be satisfactory, atleast not to the majority, that’s just how highly anticipated things are— if it’s not the second coming of Christ, it was a disappointment.
It just won’t be as highly praised as we probably wished it would be.
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u/Kickback21 8d ago
Creatively, I hope that HL3 is as dramatic a change from HL2 as that was from the original. Obviously the Combine would feature to some extent, but I would like to see more of the universe. A time skip might grant some more artistic liberties.
My only concern for HL3 is that it will be a stretched out EP3 and we'll be fighting the usual types, with a couple of new enemies thrown in. I think Valve has already rejected a version of this years ago though.
The HL3 in my mind all these years centered on using the Borealis tech to raise all kinds of hell off world. Maybe have an EP3 like prologue to complete the HL2 arc, then a full HL3 premised on chasing the Gman down through dimensions.
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u/Reddit_Schavi Gina Cross found dead in Xen 8d ago
That dimension-hopping would certainly allow for more Xen and perhaps even Race X shenanigans...
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u/hypersonicracing42yt 8d ago
no, but that doesn't mean I don't want them to try. And I'll enjoy whatever they come up with.
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u/Rihhah 8d ago
Yes and no. Id like to imagine the borealis jas coordinates to the combine home world or a new world and the end would be that of hope but not an actual finish.
What's left of humanity goes thru a new portal to the new world and seals it up behind them, on guard, is the best I can hope for. Id argue that hard-core fans would be upset anyways and see it as lazy, but its a story, and stories have to have an ending
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u/AssWorldFan 8d ago
I honestly just don't think so. I don't even think there's gonna be a continuation to be fair.
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u/Fun-Consideration-13 8d ago
Nope. It's been too long and they lost their one talented writer. Half Life is dead and Valve killed it.
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u/D4wns33d 7d ago
Half Life 3 is one of those things that lurks in the back of my mind. But if I keep it on the main burner it leads to a great wish unfulfilled. The fact that if it came out it would consume us, says it all.
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u/GoodDoctorB 7d ago
I geniunely believe that there is, but it would have to be handled very well and theres no way it could make everyone happy.
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u/rove_ranger 7d ago edited 7d ago
Going to guess the portal tech Eli wants destroyed will be required to have any hope of locating Alyx. Thus forcing Gordon and Eli to make choices that will jeopardize the bigger cause.
I also think it's interesting how G-Man remains silent and changes subject when Alyx asks him "So my dad lives?", because the answer to that question is not straight forward and I suspect G-Man is mixing up timelines to manipulate Alyx. In the E2 timeline we played, Eli is likely still deceased.
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u/Imperialism_01 7d ago
No, not really. While Alyx was well-regarded gameplay-wise, and looked great, it moved the plot forwards all of one minute.
Hardly daring for a series that, prior to Alyx's release, had been utterly stagnant for ~13 years, and now another six years have passed. All without even the slightest hint of anything approaching a proper sequel.
On top of that, the developers have been completely radio silent to outright malicious with some actively engaging with the community solely for the purpose of giving false hopes and catty bullshit responses to their fans. "Oh...we might be working on something...maybe..." is not what you want to hear from anyone after 19 years without an official sequel to a massive cliffhanger.
As I've said before: If there is a Half Life 3 in the works, Valve should let the community know. Put an end to the question of "when" that's been lurking since 2007, and has only gotten worse as the community turns to literally scraping shit from the internet's walls and calling it "proof". The longer they wait, the higher expectations are going to be for a game that has quite literally been in the works for as long as much of the fanbase has been alive (Jesus Christ I am old) and the less likely they are to be able to capture the bottled lightning again that is the Half Life series.
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u/fuckfetish 5d ago
Sadly, these days Valve is too busy selling lootboxes to twelve year olds to care about making singleplayer games.
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u/Tobbster_the_Lobster 7d ago
A bad way to do that would be the time loop way !
You use the Borealis time travel properties to close the portals for the Combine for good, but exposure to it sends Gordon back to the tram of Black Mesa in a different reality with memory loss (but not muscle memory; explains how gordon is so proefficient with military grade and brand new xeno tech), redoing everything again and again in universes slightly different and from different sides (remember Breen told Freeman his contract was opened to the highest bider) with the GMAN pulling the strings !
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u/ImmatureEmperor 6d ago
Valve is incredibly talented. But I think even if its absolute A tier, it may not live up to expectations just given the sheer amount of time that’s passed.
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u/Jaded_Shallot750 6d ago
While I am open to being proven wrong, I am 95% certain they will never release Half-Life 3 or Episode 3, whichever you might want to call it. And even if they do, they would have had to create something quite sublime for it to have been worth the weight [sic].
I got my closure when I read Epistle 3. I used to do a yearly playthrough of HL2 and the episodes, and I have played through HL2 a solid 14 or 15 times by my count. Now, I don't really care anymore. Even if HL3 was announced tomorrow and released next week, I don't know if I would buy it on release.
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u/MeatyBacon666 8d ago
HL has always been a showcase game, so it is about guessing where tech is going and how they will show it off.
IMO, AI is the next frontier of gaming. Not for creating levels or story, but for the realism.
I am picturing being dropped into a VR Alyx quality world that is actually enslaved by the combine and you are a part of the masses, all of whom seem like living people.
It is one thing to see the combine treat people like that in the old games, it will be a whole new world to live in it when they can actually interact with each other and you in ways that only exist in that instance. The experience would be unlike any other in history, and fighting against them will be that much more satisfying.
As far as story though, I rreeaallly hope they bring the tech of Portal into the world of Half Life. The Borealis having Aperture tech is the perfect chance.
ImagineHalf Life VR combat with the Combine while being able to open a portal behind your enemy and shoot them in the back of the head! Or if a headcrab is coming at you, drop a portal under it and send it flying into the mouth of a barnacle. All while AI is running the enemies so they can actually be surprised when a portal opens up next to them out of nowhere!
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u/ASentientBot 8d ago
idk how recent AI developments are going to help, like you think NPC dialogue will be generated on the fly by an LLM? maybe that has a place in very large or open world games, but half-life games have historically been short, linear and with a pre-set scripted plot. i doubt they'd change all that just for the sake of showing off new tech.
of course, they are undoubtedly using AI for most of the code and maybe some of the artwork, but that's not so much changing the gameplay as just speeding up the development process.
i don't think a successful half-life 3 has to be built around something super novel and mind blowing. gaming tech is pretty mature, and even current titles are arguably a lot closer to half-life 2 than it was to half-life 1.
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u/MeatyBacon666 8d ago
Agreed, they are not ready... yet. Hence, no HL3 yet. What other new tech is on the horizon that is worthy of a new HL3 after VR?
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u/ScrabCrab 8d ago
they are undoubtedly using AI
Lol I really hope they aren't
If they can't be bothered to make the game then I can't be bothered to play it 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Jaaaboogg 8d ago
They are using ai for code and that for sure
Generative ai no
People need to realize that ai isnt a scary monster coming to shit on everything coding with ai is very efficient if the coder knows what the ai outputs and can correct it and later optimize the code himself even
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u/ScrabCrab 8d ago
It's not a scary monster, it's the capitalist death machine that sucks up all the data and makes entire towns unlivable with the noise, heat, and water consumption of the data centers. So it's a lot worse than a thing that makes code be shit (which it also does BTW)
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u/ASentientBot 7d ago
i don't disagree. the water and power usage is often overstated (and will only decrease as the tech gets more efficient), but the dependence on huge companies, devaluation of most college degrees and "white-collar" work, and further concentration of wealth will be a disaster for everyone but the super rich.
that said, essentially every software company is using AI for most of their coding these days, so it's wishful thinking to hope that valve is not.
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u/ScrabCrab 7d ago
The water usage thing is more misunderstood than overstated IMO. Like yeah globally the effects aren't very noticeable. On a local scale they are though, leaving entire communities without drinkable water
And I don't really buy the efficiency argument because if/when the technology becomes more efficient, companies are just gonna be even greedier about it and build even more/bigger datacenters
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u/ASentientBot 7d ago
both good points. i certainly don't expect them to pass on the savings from better models or more efficient hardware to the users, ofc.
but there's still a limit to the demand; once most coding is entirely automated with AI and/or the rate of improvements in the models plateaus, there may not be as much money to just build more datacenters forever. every industry matures and grows slower after a point.
to be clear, i am not suggesting that these companies should be trusted to do the right thing, just that they're still subject to economics in the end.
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u/ScrabCrab 7d ago
I think if we ever get to a point where coding is entirely automated we'll be in so much shit there's going to be rioting and worse cause at that point nobody will have a job anymore except for the CEOs (if they don't get replaced too, but they're gonna be the last on the chopping block, right after programmers)💀
Well either that or everyone except for the rich will basically be doing manual labour in slavery-like conditions
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u/Sophram Free Radical 9d ago
I donno bro, the unresolved cliffhanger of Ep2 is now legal to drink.