The image you see below is not just another part of the never-finished Half-Life 2: Episode 3 or Half-Life 3. This modified headcrab is the result of the pre-production phase for Project Borealis – a game that a group of Half-Life fans is working on completing the story briefly told by the Half-Life 3 screenwriter, Marc Laidlaw, just the ways he had conceived it while he was still working in Valve and on the game itself.

The team of fans has divided Laidlaw’s synopsis into key parts and decided to expand it with their own ideas. For the time being, they completed half of the scenario and will start reading and correcting upon ending it. Sam Laidlaw will in no way participate in the story’s development, and the team does not plan to go any further than what Laidlaw imagined. As we recall, the ending that he had in mind was not intended as a finale of the series but would have another cliffhanger, just like the previous episodes.

As far as the gameplay is concerned, the goal is to be as true to the feeling of the Half-Life gaming experience as possible, which is not an easy task, but the team has invested a lot of hours in studying the HL game development documentation and studying HL2 speedruns to figure out the principle in which the gameplay of this cult series has been designed. As for the presentation, they also intend to stay true to the original material and have prepared some really nice compositions.

project borealis