It's been more than 20 years since Gordon Freeman led the climactic assault on City 17 – the main setting of Half-Life 2 that many fans still remember.
Despite the addition of Half-Life Alyx, it seems that Half-Life 3 is still the name that gamers are extremely looking forward to from Valve. However, the developer itself seems to have forgotten the game series that brought them to the fame today. New blockbusters are released one after another, notably Counter-Strike 2 or most recently Deadlock. And Half-Life 3 is still missing.
But at least Half-Life has always maintained a large and enthusiastic fan base.
If Valve doesn't develop it, fans of the game are ready to create their own Half-Life 3. Built by a group of 80 people from the Half-Life community, Project Borealis is a fan-made version of Half-Life 3 that continues the story of Part 2, from the moment Judith Mossman is on a mission to find the missing cargo ship Borealis and both Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance intend to join her but get lost.
From 2017 to 2020, Project Borealis posted a few updates – but then it quickly went silent. There were still some scattered images until 2022, and just when everyone thought the project was gone, out of nowhere, Project Borealis shared a new trailer. It even confirmed that it would release a demo version this fall – very good news for gamers.
Project Borealis may not be the real Half-Life 3, but it looks like it's a very professionally made version based on the official story outlines from Valve itself. Of course, that's more than enough to give gamers reason to hope.
