Seven years after being announced, Project Borealis, a fan-developed game based on an unused story for Half-Life 2: Episode 3, has a ten-minute playable prologue on Steam.
Project Borealis was formally introduced by developer Icebreaker Industries in 2017, as an attempt to make former Valve writer Marc Laidlaw's Epistle 3 a reality. Epistile 3, for the uninitiated, was a synopsis of a gender-swapped story chronicling the adventures of Gertrude Fremont and which many believed detailed the events originally planned for Half-Life 2: Episode 3.
September brought the news that Project Borealis had been reborn in Unreal Engine 5 and that Icebreaker would soon release a ten-minute prologue, set before the events of the full game. And now that Prologue is here, it takes players to a version of Ravenholm “transformed by time and the elements.” According to its Steam page, “The once-familiar city now lies buried under a blanket of snow, hiding the past and new present dangers beneath its pristine surface. As you navigate this hauntingly beautiful landscape, you'll encounter some classic enemies reimagined .and completely new secrets hidden within.”
Icebreaker calls Prologue a “condensed, standalone gaming experience that showcases a first look at the upcoming full Project Borealis game.” It promises “completely updated visuals,” a “faithful recreation of Half-Life 2's iconic movement and gameplay,” and original music. And as for why Icebreaker decided to release this small part of its larger project, studio head Postulio recently told PC Gamer that the decision to use Unreal Engine 5 instead of Valve's Source engine had required recreating the motion, Half-Life 2's physics and combat and environment, and that the team wanted to “make sure we were on the right path.”
“This also gave us an excuse to refine our own internal processes as a community studio,” Postulio added, “until we were left with a pipeline that could produce a 'finished' product.” A little more details about the project and where it's going can be found in the recently released Update 6 developer video, and the Prologue itself is available to download for free on Steam, but requires a copy of Half- Life 2 to play. .
So it's a bit of an intriguing time for the legendary first-person shooter series. Not only is Icebreaker exploring a possible future for Gordon Freeman, but Valve is widely rumored to be returning to the series itself, with it reported in August that a “full Half-Life game without VR” was in the works. But don't expect it to have a '3' in the title.