The Icebreaker Industries fan team has released a free prologue to Project Borealis — a game based on the unused Half-Life 2: Episode 3 scenario.
Seven years after the announcement, the team presented a ten-minute game powered by Unreal Engine 5. The plot is based on the story of Epistle 3 by former Valve writer Mark Laidlaw, where the main character is Gertrude Fremont — a gender-bending version of Gordon Freeman.
After active updates, the project froze in March 2020. The only sign of life was a short video with a crowbar in the snow, published in 2022. In September 2023, the team announced the transition to Unreal Engine 5 and the upcoming release of the prologue.
The action takes place in snowy Ravenholm. «The once-familiar city is now buried under a blanket of snow, hiding past and new dangers beneath its flawless surface», — it says on the game’s Steam page.
«Switching to Unreal Engine 5 instead of the Source engine forced us to recreate the motion mechanics, physics, combat system, and atmosphere of Half-Life 2. We wanted to make sure we were moving in the right direction», — explained director of Postulio Studio, told PC Gamer.
The prologue features updated graphics, recreates classic Half-Life 2 mechanics, and has an original soundtrack. It requires a copy of the original game on Steam to run.
Source: Eurogamer
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