A lucky 2K employee was allowed to buy some old concept art from Valve. Some of the artwork had been for a Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Let's take a look at what the concept art reveals.
Right, there's one bit of confusion we need to deal with straight away. The name David McGreavy will come up a lot in this story, and whenever we use it, we're referring to a 2K employee who's a massive Valve fanboy. We aren't talking about the infamous criminal, who's coincidentally also called David McGreavy. The David we're referring to is a perfectly law-abiding citizen and a massive Valve nerd (So there's no doubt he's already pre-ordered these new Valve games).
Our David McGreavy has one of the largest collections of Valve memorabilia in the world (over 1500 pieces to be exact). Among the collection is some early concept art for Half Life 2: Episode 3. Thankfully, David is beginning to upload this art to Twitter, and it's revealing a lot about where Half-Life 2: Episode 3 was going. Let's check it out.
The Half-Life 2: Episode 3 Concept Art
Among David McGreavy's massive collection of Valve memorabilia is some concept art for Half-Life 2: Episode 3, which was cancelled over 15 years ago. Half-Life had a massive cultural impact, and when they cancelled development on the franchise, it led to a cult-following. So, there are tens of thousands of people out there who would pay good money for a piece of this history, and there are millions of fans who just want to know where the Half-Life franchise could have gone. This concept art is the best answer that many of those fans will ever get.
Here is some concept art, courtesy of David:
Spending my Sunday scanning and archiving my collection of #Valve concept art.Not a bad way to spend a day. and then I've gotta restart cataloging all the OTHER stuff lol pic.twitter.com/jjkFwD08Om
— David McGreavy CRX (@DominusNoctis) April 25, 2022
It looks nice, a lot nicer even than some very recent games, but what does it tell us about where Half-Life was going?
- In one picture we can see Alyx besides a Combine dropship in the snowy wilderness, so we know that Alyx would have gone to a kind of arctic environment.
- In another we see Dr Breen as a Grub, so we know Breen was coming back after not appearing in Half-Life 2: Episode 2.
It's not much, we know, but the return of Dr Breen would have been fantastic. He was an incredible villain, and even if we have to wait another decade for Half-Life 3, I hope he will return for that at least.
What do you think? Have you given up hope for a Half-Life 3? Or do you think they'll surprise us with some news and challenge the current Game of the Year favorite?
Speaking of games that seem to take forever...