Half-Life 3 fan game revived after four years, demo coming soon

It has been 20 years since Gordon Freeman led the decisive attack on City 17 and you might think that Half-life 3 will never, ever happen. Episode One and Episode Two were fantastic – as was Half-Life Alyx. But despite all the rumors, hints, and speculation, Half-Life 3 remains one of gaming's most persistent myths. Counter-Strike 2 existed. Deadlock existed. But the return of Valve's biggest FPS game still feels, frankly, as far away as ever. On the contrary, Half-Life 3 – or at least a wannabe version of Half-Life 3 made by fans – is on the way, and shortly. After four years of relative silence, the hugely ambitious Project Borealis is suddenly back, and soon there will be a playable demo.

A quick recap. At the end of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Judith Mossman is on a mission to find the missing container ship Borealis (which, according to an Easter egg, originally came from the Aperture labs of Portal and Portal 2). Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance want to join her, but – not to give too much away – are unexpectedly stopped. At one point, Valve wanted to continue the FPS game series with more episodes. Eventually, the episodic format was abandoned and the wait for Half-Life 3 began. 17 years later, we are (still) here.

But the story has a twist. In 2017, Valve legend Mark Laidlaw published a thinly veiled plot summary of Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Later called “Epistle 3,” it outlined what would have happened to Alyx and Gordon in the sequel. From this, and presumably with inspiration from the outstanding Half-Life remake Black Mesa, Project Borealis was born.

Developed by an 80-person team from the Half-Life community, Project Borealis was a fan-made version of Episode 3. Between 2017 and 2020, Project Borealis released a series of updates – but then it suddenly went quiet. Images and examples of assets sporadically appeared on social media channels until 2022, but then those too stopped. Until today.

Out of the blue, Project Borealis has just released a new teaser trailer. And even better, it announces a first release – called Project Borealis Prologue – this fall.

It may not be the real Half-Life 3, but it looks like a very professionally made, convincing fan interpretation, and is based on the official story outlines from Valve themselves. Combined with some other recent developments surrounding Half-Life 3, there may be reason for hope after all. Time to put the casserole back in the microwave…

Check out some of the other best old games if you miss the halcyon days of the original Half-Life, or maybe get the full story about what happened after 2007 with Half-Life 3.

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