Confirmed

You’re looking a bit worse for wear Mr Freeman

A lot can happen in a week. My absence due to illness was a refreshing time as it allowed me to focus and get my head back in the writing game. I had a few ideas as to what I might write about when I came back, and then Half Life 3 was confirmed.

Well I say that a bit obtusely, it wasn’t really confirmed in the correct sense, rather it was confirmed what the original story was going to be. Marc Laidlaw, Valve’s original storymaster and the man generally considered the ‘George Lucas’ to the Half Life franchise released a fan-fic on his personal website. This piece of fiction however seemed to be a coded story which of course when translated and the names swapped around seemed to give us the missing piece, the full original story concept for the third installment of the Half Life franchise. I won’t recount it as it’s too long to even begin dissecting here however I will leave a link to the ‘translated’ version at the end of this post.

It’s funny, this wasn’t met with the fanfare that you would expect it would. The timing, and especially who it came from, seemed to give us the information we all dreaded, it isn’t happening. Marc left Valve over 18 months ago, suppossedly due to creative differences. Valve have shown no interest in the series or continuing it, neither have they expressed any want to continue making any other games. Rather they will stick with Steam and the amount of business it creates for them. That’s alright for them as they are more than welcome to make the decisions they believe will make the most money for them, however for what the scope and magnitude this series had and what this last installment seemingly had planned for us, it’s sad that it never happened and never will happen. We are left with a hollow story, an un-ended conclusion, Eli is dead with Alyx crying over her father’d body and Mr Freeman is as mute as ever to the situation. This coded fever dream of a frustrated and sad writer is the closest we will ever get to seeing the end of this saga, and that is the saddest story of them all. I suppose this is goodnight Mr Freeman, thanks for the ride, while it lasted.

That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.

https://github.com/Jackathan/MarcLaidlaw-Epistle3/blob/master/Epistle3_Corrected.md

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