Steam Marc Laidlaw discusses his infamous "epistle 3" Half-Life draft, "I was completely out of touch and had nobody to talk me out of it."

[Krvavi Abadas]

“I was deranged,” says Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw of his decision to publish the plot of Episode 3 as fanfiction. “I was living on an island, totally cut off from my friends and creative community of the last couple decades, I was completely out of touch and had nobody to talk me out of it. It just seemed like a fun thing to do… until I did it.”

Shortly into his retirement, in August of 2017, the writer posted an epistolary short story on his website, in the voice of one Gertrude Fremont, PhD. “Dearest Playa,” it began. “I hope this letter finds you well. I can hear your complaint already, ‘Gertie Fremont, we have not heard from you in ages!’ Well, if you care to hear excuses, I have plenty, the greatest of them being I’ve been in other dimensions and whatnot, unable to reach you by the usual means.”
what followed was very clearly recognisable as an outline for an unreleased Half-Life adventure which would wrap up the dangling story threads of Episode 2. The letter was widely interpreted as an admission that players would never get to see this conclusion in interactive form. Today, Laidlaw regrets ever publishing it.

It would have been best, he thinks, to have kept to himself and dealt with his isolation in ways that didn’t reflect on his former employer. “Eventually my mind would have calmed and I’d have come out the other side a lot less embarrassed,” he says. “I think it caused trouble for my friends, and made their lives harder. It also created the impression that if there had been an Episode 3, it would have been anything like my outline, whereas in fact all the real story development can only happen in the crucible of developing the game. So what people got wasn’t Episode 3 at all.” Instead, it was just a snapshot of where Laidlaw was at that time. “Deranged,” he repeats. “There’s really no other explanation.”

(the short story in question, in case you somehow haven't seen it yet)
i'd highly recommend reading the full interview, as it contains numerous other details relating to the development of the Half-Life series. but this on it's own was worthy of it's own thread.
he was fairly amandent from the beginning that it was merely a possible idea on how the series could continue, and that it could still go on without him.

There are lots of unproduced Alien scripts. The fact they weren't developed did not spell the end of the Alien franchise.

but people didn't believe him at the time. jump forward three years, and....


the other important thing to consider is that he was, in fact. making an unrelated Half-Life VR game shortly before his departure. the "Borealis" project.
which he explains in the interview was canned because “It was too early to be building anything in VR,” so he likely left the company with the expectation they would continue to experiment with bringing the IP over to Virtual Reality headsets.

with the general dismissive backlash towards Valve at the time after it was published, it's not surprising he has went on regret publishing the draft in the first place.

 

[Harpoon]

I really did appreciate getting that closure from his outline at the time, so it's really unfortunate to read this. I wish that Laidlaw would work with Valve again on something, but I don't know how likely that is.

also this made me realize the last TF2 comic came out before Epistle 3 and holy moly that feels crazy to me

 

[Deleted member 887]

I never finished Half-Life 2, but reading this made me deeply sad. The 37th Mandala is an underrated work that should have made him an icon, and Half-Life is, I think, a never topped piece of video game storytelling. It's amazing how many people emulated its tricks - the unbroken first person perspective, the opening sequence - but never actually figured out it's core accomplishment in making the level design tell the story.

 

[Yamanoi]

I like Black Mesa a lot. I hope they do more of the HL games remakes.

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

I played HL 1 and 2 in 2011 after adoring Portal 2. Half-Life 2 immediately became one of my favorite games of all time. I've been lusting for HL3/episode 3 ever since. I've yet to play Alyx... If it comes to PSVR2 I'll immediately pick it up. Still holding out hope that HL3 will see the light of day sometime, even if most the original team and writers aren't there. I haven't read Laidlaw's draft though cause I still believe we're going to get an actual game even though he's not involved, and I'd read it after the fact.

 

[boris_feinbrand]

I can see how he regrets publishing this draft, when gamers always tend to romanticise these kind of unfinished, prototypes or pitches to the point of lunacy. Just look at Retro Studios Raven Blade. Outside of a few animation tests and rough cutscenes there was nothing to go on. Even after the leads said that the project was absolute shit and everyone was happy it got canned, people still can't help themselves constructing some idealised grandiose game out of it (same goes for basically every unreleased Pitch that was leaked)

Personally I read it as closure, as I still don't expect the story to continue. Despite even Alyx actually hinting at it. Valve post HL2E2 broke my heart and it's been hard trusting them with continuing one of my favourite game series of all time.