Half Life: Episode 3 hinted at in leaked codes and Valve haiku
“Episode 3 ships in,” teases Gabe Newell
The first sign of Gordon Freeman's return was spotted by the Team Liquid community in leaked raw code for Valve's Dota 2 beta. Among other random files, members found a folder entitled 'ep3' that contained alleged references to Episode 3 weapon types such as concrete, metal, and liquid. The files included:
/src/game/server/ep3/weapon_icegun.cpp
/src/game/server/ep3/weaponizer_concrete.cpp
/src/game/server/ep3/weaponizer_liquid.cpp
/src/game/server/ep3/weaponizer_metal.cpp
/src/game/server/ep3/weapon_flamethrower.cpp
Half Life rumors were also fed by a cryptic haiku written by Gabe Newell in response to this creative fan email:
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Episode 3? Ship? It's possible Newell is making a sly reference to Aperture Science's Borealis research vessel from Half Life: Episode 2. But wait: combining the first letters of both emails spells “DIE HTE”, which could also mean “[Prepare to] Die [in] Harvester Threat Environments.”
But then, maybe we're over thinking this. Your thoughts?
Sep 22, 2011
Matt Bradford wrote news and features here at GamesRadar+ until 2016. Since then he's gone on to work with the Guinness World Records, acting as writer and researcher for the annual Gamer's Edition series of books, and has worked as an editor, technical writer, and voice actor. Matt is now a freelance journalist and editor, generating copy across a multitude of industries.
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