New Valve Concept Art Is A Treasure Trove Of Canceled Games

Not a whole lot is known about Half-Life 2’s legendarily canceled third expansion. In 2017 ex-Valve writer Marc Laidlaw released a piece of writing on his website titled Epistle 3 that many interpreted as a mildly disguised story synopsis for the canned expansion. (More recently Laidlaw expressed regret over making the post.) In any case, Epistle 3 suggested Half Life 2: Episode Three might’ve been set in a frozen biome, at least partially, and here we see some concept art of an underground cave filled with ominous-looking machinery.

No, this isn’t a weirdo Sony PlayStation ad, they’re apparently an example of what characters from Valve’s canceled exploration-shooter Stars of Blood might’ve looked like. According to DidYouKnowGaming, Stars of Blood might’ve been set in the Half-Life universe but would’ve involved space pirates of some kind.

The road to big-time virtual reality hit Half-Life: Alyx was paved with another, canceled VR project that would have focused on Alyx and Dog, two popular characters introduced in Half-Life 2. There’s not a whole lot of concept art for this one, but this piece definitely speaks to what might’ve been a more exploratory vibe in the original concept.

Stars of Blood might’ve continued Valve’s efforts to create more games in the Half-Life universe had it ever materialized, just as Portal takes place in the labs of Black Mesa’s rival Aperture Science. And here we can see a bit of that intention at play with Combine ships flying off into the distance on this desolate planet.

I wouldn’t want to be in here without some decent earplugs. On first glance, I thought this was a server room of some kind, but you can clearly see speaker cones and tweeters lining the hallway. Given how 3D Valve games often like to play with physics, I can only wonder what the idea might’ve been here.

Here’s something from this art collection that actually came out. DOTA Underlords shipped on mobile and PC back in 2020. As a free-to-play auto battler, there isn’t a whole lot of environmental art in the game, so it’s nice to see a little more from its universe.

As DidYouKnowGaming’s video discusses, though it would’ve been a first-person shooter, Stars of Blood, allegedly, wasn’t supposed to be fast-paced, run ‘n’ gun action, but would’ve focused more on “exploration and finding stuff”. Here we see a little more in the way of strange worlds for the player to visit.

Half-Life 2: Episode Three might’ve involved a ship from Aperture Science called the Borealis,and some of the concept art in this collection shows off a few wrecked ships. Hard to say if these were intended to be that very ship, but it does follow the trend of the concept art seeming to stick closely to the contents of Laidlaw’s Epistle 3.

Here’s another piece of concept art that makes me more than a little sad this game never came to fruition. Granted, maybe I’ll get my fix of wandering strange worlds with Starfield, but something tells me that Valve’s sense of weirdness would’ve worked really well in an exploration-based game.

A lot of the concept art from Half-Life 2: Episode Three has some of the same stuff in common: desolate environments, lots of wreckage, and ominous artifacts looming in the distance. Those are certainly suitable vibes for a Half-Life. Oh, what could’ve been.

If you want to check out the whole 50-image collection for yourself, you can download a big zip from the Internet Archive here, or browse individual pieces here. Also, DidYouKnowGaming’s video on canceled Valve games includes quite a few others you maybe didn’t know about, so check it out: