Life Concept Art Released
Ryan Leston
A treasure trove of Half-Life 2 concept art has been unveiled, showing off a never-before-seen spin-off and confirming a previously-revealed Episode 3 plot.
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IGN
Many Half-Life projects have never come to fruition, from Half-Life 2: Episode 3, to spin-offs that never reached development. Thanks to some new concept art, we at least know what they could have looked like.

2K developer and Half-Life fan David McGreavy (via Kotaku) has released a selection of never-before-seen images from the long-awaited Half-Life 2: Episode 3 – confirming some previously-released plot points – not to mention a game idea that never saw the light of day.

Although McGreavy never worked on Half-Life 2, he has become a an avid collector, and found himself in possession of concept art that give us a glimpse into the chapter of Half-Life 2 that never came to be.

Back in April, McGreavy teased the never-before-seen artwork as he began cataloging his Valve collection, with new additions from a former Valve employee looking to downsize their collection. The most immediately interesting part is the slug-like creature at the top left.

That's 'BreenGrub' – a large, slug-like creature that fans will recognize almost immediately due to its name. Half-Life 2 villain Dr. Wallace Breen appeared throughout Half-Life 2 and was seen falling to his death after Gordon Freeman destroyed the reactor at the top of the Citadel. During Episodes 1 and 2 he only appears in flashbacks. Nevertheless, it looks as though he would have returned in Episode 3 after a video recording in Episode 2 mentions a transfer into a “host body”. It’s just not the kind of host body he might have preferred.

The once-human Dr. Breen was going to have his conscious mind transferred into a slug-like creature at the behest of the Combine – becoming a prisoner who would have been found by Alyx and Gordon during the events of Episode 3. How do we know that? Well, this gorgeous (but pretty gross) concept art confirms a plot revealed by former Half-Life 2 writer Marc Laidlaw before he left the company in 2016.

The plot, as revealed by Laidlaw, would have seen heroes Alyx and Gordon traveling to the Borealis – an Aperture Science vessel in a perpetual state of flux, phasing in and out of existence. The Combine, who set up base around it, have meanwhile transferred Breen’s mind into the aforementioned slug-like creature… and begs Alyx and Gordon to kill him.

Although Laidlaw has asserted that his version of events is “0% official” after he left the company, it’s nevertheless a fascinating glimpse into what might have been.

Additionally, McGreavy released scans of other concept art for Half-Life 2: Episode 3 that include post-apocalyptic vistas and a coastline covered in debris.

However, the two pieces of concept art showing Alyx Vance and robot companion, Dog were not from Episode 3 at all. Instead, McGreavy told Kotaku that these were part of a spin-off attempt that would have been entirely separate from both Half-Life 2: Episode 3 and the never-released Half-Life 3.

We can only guess at what that spin-off might have been for now.

Half-Life 2 was a landmark moment in game development, with IGN’s review saying: “It sets the standard in all areas, especially the use of physics as a gameplay tool instead of merely a visual treat for gamers." It was followed by two extra episodes, with a cliffhanger for a third. However, it took until 2020 for Valve to tell us why Episode Three was never made.

We've since gotten the incredible VR-only game Half-Life: Alyx, but we're still waiting for an official Half-Life 3. Multiple versions of the game have been abandoned, but we may be closer than ever – Valve's developers have said that they want to keep making more games in the series.