Бамп

Бамп 2

Бамп 2: Эпизод 1

Бамп 2: Эпизод 2

Да ,пилят.

/тред

Бля, дальше считать не умею

>>160884752
А кто? Студия какая?

>>160884834
Ты че? Энтузиасты для первого ХЛ Зен допилить не могут, а ты про третью часть.

>>160884834
Активижн выкупили права у вольво и приступили к разработке

>>160885000
Типун те на язык

>>160885000
Можно пруф?

>>160885077
Щяс не за компом, извини

>>160885077
Незя

>>160885077
Пиздит он.

>>160884834
Фанаты пилят. Они даже конкрус запустили кто лучше сделает , но нужно саблюлать слитый сценарий

>>160884599 (OP)
Неделю назад к Габену делигация выдвинулась. Хотят минетом вымолить у него права на серию. В твиттере недавно отписывались. Габену первый заход понравился. Просит повторить. На третьей обещал точно подумать.

нассал на опа, слит сюжет третьего эпизода

>>160885132
Бля, тред загибается. Без пруфа вообще не оч. Неужели всем рили так похуй на HL3?

>>160885154
В эпизод два.

>>160885171
В итоге будет как с монолитом и исходниками BLOOD. Соснут все.

Если и выпустят, то будет какой-то кооп шутан с элементами. Так что нахуй нужно.

>>160885178

>>160885232
Если соснёт и губэн, то это ещё ничего

>>160885276
Тогда будет на бордэрлэндс похоже. А вентилям до сих пор от геарбокса пичёт. После HL OF.

Представьте HL3 от EA!
Сизон пас. Ящики со скинами. РПГ элементы(+5% урона от гранат). Кооп на 4х человек! Миссионная структура. Тру Ендинг ДЛЦ. IGN 9/10

>>160885713
Софт рибут.
"Мы решили что новым игрокам будет тяжело понять все повороты сюжета, поэтому мы решили добавить новых, хайповых персонажей."

>>160886020
>хайповых персонажей
Голубых, трансгендеров, хипстеров и вейперов, колонизирующий атомный реактор.

Блять модеры за 10 лет то уже могли запилить сюжетный охуенный мод с графеном (а не то уебище в гарис мод)

>>160885713
Эксклюзивный контент для купивших за 2 месяца до релиза
Эксклюзивный контент для купивших за месяц до релиза

>>160886143
Колонизирующих биореактор, ты хотел сказать. Это тоже важная часть хайпа уже.

Люблю HL, но не представляю как Габен мог бы выпустить третью часть так, чтобы она оправдала хайп и была "современной". Регенерация и перекаты? Ко-оп? Нарочисто оставить все как в 2000-х?
Ведь если сейчас выпустить шутан без мушки на правой кнопке и гранаты и мили на спец кнопках, миллениалы скажут что сильно тяжело или скучно.

>>160886581
А кого ебёт че они скажут? Игра-то культовая, олдфаги купят в коллекцию, у них деньги водятся как раз в отличие от пиздюганов.

>>160885713
Я уже это представлял в других подобных тредах.

58 ВАШИХ ДРУЗЕЙ ПРОБЕЖАЛИ КОРИДОР НА 3 СЕКУНДЫ БЫСТРЕЕ
@
ОЦЕНИТЕ ЭПИЗОД
@
ДОСТУПНО НОВОЕ ОБНОВЛЕНИЕ ОНЛАЙН ВРЕМЕННО НЕДОСТУПЕН
@
ЭКСКЛЮЗИВНАЯ ЗОЛОТАЯ БРОНЯ В ФОРМЕ ТОЙОТА СУПРА
@
ВЫ ДОСТИГЛИ УРОВНЯ 6 ОТКРЫТ КОЛИМАТОРНЫЙ ПРИЦЕЛ ДЛЯ ХЕДКРАБА
@
95_6OP3blN_HOX4O_95 ВТОРГАЕТСЯ В ВАШУ ИГРУ ОСТАНОВИТЕ ЕГО ПОКА НЕ ПОЗДНО
@
НОВАЯ ЛЫЧКА НОВЫЙ ЖЕТОН ХУЙ ПИЗДА ЖОПА
@
НЕДОСТАТОЧНО ПАМЯТИ
@
ВИДЕО ДРАЙВЕР НЕ ОТВЕЧАЕТ
@
BSOD

>>160884599 (OP)
Ну, во-первых слили сюжет третьего эпизода, а не третьей Халфы, которая должна была стать его продолжением. Во-вторых, главный сценарист ушел уже несколько лет назад. Фанаты какой-то конкурс на создание модов по сценарию организовали, но, думаю, там будут просто васянские поделки.

На выход третьего эпизода или же третье Халфы можно не рассчитывать, так как Вольво теперь нацелены на зарабатывание денег, и будут в основном допиливать каэсик и дотан. Ах да, у них еще есть карточная игра по доте, во-о-от... а еще несколько ВР-проектов, о которых они говорили несколько лет назад, но так пока и не анонсировали.

>>160886581
>миллениалы
Как же вы заебали со своими "миллениалами". Самым молодым из миллениалов уже за двадцать, блядь.

>>160885194
Мне уже похуй на игори. Я просто хочу упарывать кистолу и совать язык в пизду своей тни. Больше от жизни ничего не надо. Чувствую, что стал сверхчеловеком.

>>160884599 (OP)
Уже слепили самодельный третий эпизод, вроде качественно слепили. Гугли.

>>160886581
> Нарочисто оставить все как в 2000-х?
А хуле бы и нет? Вон в Чужом всё просто МАКСИМУМ олдскульно. Начиная с интерфейса и заканчивая блять теми же самыми аптечками и не регенерирующими ХП. Даже блять радар не в интерфейс вынесен, а пришит костылём как в старые добрые времена и чтобы его посмотреть нужно нажать кнопочку. ОХ ЕБАТЬ! КОДЫ К ДВЕРЯМ НУЖНО ВВОДИТЬ РУКАМИ! И тем не менее речь идёт о продолжении. Наверняка к выходу бломкамповского Чужого 5 допилят и игру.

>>160886581
Халва была инновационной игрой. Вторая, во всяком случае. Ну или её подавали как инновационную - интерактивное окружение, вся хуйня.
Трешку могли бы выпустить уже под полностью доведенный до ума ВиАр и игровые девайсы, позволяющие манипулировать в пространстве, удобные для использования без визуального контакта.

>>160888022
>Наверняка к выходу бломкамповского Чужого 5 допилят и игру.
То есть никогда, так как фильм завернули.

>>160888216
Не завернули.

>>160888216
Кто тебе такую глупость сказал? С таким-то режиссёро, который втрое дешевле умеет снимать на уровне каких-нибудь блядских Мстителей, вообще в принципе противопоказано что-либо сворачивать.

>>160888587
>который втрое дешевле умеет снимать на уровне каких-нибудь блядских Мстителей
Не ворует?

>>160888614
А, точно, не в России же дело: не нанимает друзей и знакомых за лютый оверпрайс?

>>160888659
Актеры не дорогие.

>>160888436
>>160888587
Пруфы, что не завернули?
https://www.mirf.ru/news/ridli-skott-schitaet-chto-chuzhoj-5-ot-nila-blomkampa-vryad-li-uvidit-svet

Юбисофт будет издавать новый Халфлайф каждый год. С опенворлдом, вышками и с микротранзакциями.

>>160888723
Забудем про актеров, речь про периферию: спецэффекты, художники, постановщики - все это отдается на откуп студиям друзей семьи.

>>160889088
Вот это класс будет. С захватом вышек, паркуром и открытым миром. Если ещё добавят элементы из Watch Dogs 2 то вообще топчик.

>>160888055
Не будет никакого Виар. Вся эта тема загнется через пару лет. Да и по сути это не игры даже нихуя, а так, аттракцион под пивко.

>>160888957
Хз вин или фейл. С одной стороны Блкамп только про угнетенных и может снимать, с другой стороны Ковентат был довольно хероват.

>>160888957
Об этом то и дело набрасывают с 2015 года. Интерес подогревают. Особенно после недавнего высера это необходимо как никогда. Сейчас поглядят за реакцией общественности и снова анонсируют.

>>160889088
Халва - дженерик шутан с "галаваломками" и сюжетом, сейчас половина игр таких.
Чтоб какое-нибудь старье выстрелило - оно должно отличаться от современных игр. Последний DOOM выстрелил именно за счет того, что он сохранил дохуя от оригинала: монстрам тупо сделали пластику ебальников, оружию дали охуенные альтернативные режимы стрельбы, дали возможность хиляться аптечками, таскать с собой сразу все стволы (супер) и поломный БФГ, которым реально осмысленно пользоваться, а не который лежит в загашнике на черный день - который никогда не наступает.
С халвой так не получится, потому что уже был Лизашок с историей и сильной вовлеченностью напарника, был Портал, в котором все эти изъебства с интерактивным окружением куда круче. Им просто нечем давить на ностальгию.

>>160889282
>Вся эта тема загнется через пару лет.
Ну, про кино и телевидение тоже так говорили.
Хуй знает, короче. Я в ВР не верю тоже, но потому что мне кажется сомнительным, что средний геймер всерьез будет мотать головой и трясти жопой, чтоб болванчик в игре делал то же самое, пример Кинекта со мной согласеню

>>160889341
Спасибо за пруф.
>>160889283
Если фильм не выйдет мы не узнаем вин или фэйл.

>>160889484
>таскать с собой сразу все стволы (супер)
В каком думе такого не было?

>>160889635
>оно должно отличаться от современных игр
>от современных игр
Да и в трешку я не играл, про нее ничего не скажу.

>>160889589
> Спасибо за пруф.
Ну ты и занудная шкура. Переебал бы тебе в щи с вертушки. Игре в любом случае быть независимо от того будет Чужой 5 или не будет. Игре отмена кинца только на руку. А теперь следуй прямой наводкой на хуй.

>>160887923
Ты стал сверхписдолисом

>>160889803
>Переебал бы тебе в щи с вертушки.
Пиздабол.
>Игре в любом случае быть независимо от того будет Чужой 5 или не будет
Ну и слава Богу.
>>160889824
Круто.

>>160889572
Я бы тряс головой, бегал, приседал и перекатывался.
Но проблема вр в том, что оно не предназначено для этого, оно предназначено для игры в одной позиции - а это нахуй никому не надо.

Как вариант - создавать огромные прорезиненные павильоны - аналоги игровых карт, и чтобы там человеки развлекались с вр хуитой на голвое - это было бы круто, но опять же это будет дорогой и пиздатый аттракцион, а не домашний революционный девайс, типо мышки или джойстика

>>160890715
найс слился)))

>>160889572
>будет мотать головой и трясти жопо
Ну ВР сфере же не остановиться на этом а будет развиваться а там уже и полное погружение в виртуальную реальность завезут лет так через 30

>>160891122
Киноиндустрии чуть больше сотни лет. За это время виртуозно поставленные живые сцены с каскадёрами, погонями, взрывами и прочими ништяками заменили на зелёный фон и дешёвую компьютерную графику. По сути симуляцию живого исполнения. То же самое и с актёрами. Они уже на треть состоят из компьютерной симуляции. Чуешь к чему я клоню? Деградация и упрощение.
> полное погружение в виртуальную реальность завезут
Симуляцию полного погружения. А за обозначенные тобой 30 лет, маркетологи внушат тебе, что это хорошо. Что это и есть будущее - верь в будущее.
Готов поспорить, что пиком эволюции этой твоей ВР будет трёхмерная голограмма в тёмной комнате, в которой ты будешь стоять на месте под дикий гул вентиляторов твоей загибающейся 3080ti и пулять в низкополигональных чёртиков из пальца, озвучивая каждый выстрел своим ртом, лол, чтобы кудахтер понимал когда ты стреляешь.

>>160889484
Да ты шо?
А вульфенштейн из-за чего выстрелил?

>>160884599 (OP)
>сюжет был слит
В студию, быстро, решительно

>>160890819
Наслаждайся, питуч.

>>160893588
Dearest Playa,

I hope this letter finds you well. I can hear your complaint already, “Gertie Fremont, we have not heard from you in ages!” Well, if you care to hear excuses, I have plenty, the greatest of them being I’ve been in other dimensions and whatnot, unable to reach you by the usual means. This was the case until eighteen months ago, when I experienced a critical change in my circumstances, and was redeposited on these shores. In the time since, I have been able to think occasionally about how best to describe the intervening years, my years of silence. I do first apologize for the wait, and that done, hasten to finally explain (albeit briefly, quickly, and in very little detail) events following those described in my previous letter (referred to herewith as Epistle 2).

To begin with, as you may recall from the closing paragraphs of my previous missive, the death of Elly Vaunt shook us all. The Research & Rebellion team was traumatized, unable to be sure how much of our plan might be compromised, and whether it made any sense to go on at all as we had intended. And yet, once Elly had been buried, we found the strength and courage to regroup. It was the strong belief of her brave son, the feisty Alex Vaunt, that we should continue on as his mother had wished. We had the Antarctic coordinates, transmitted by Elly’s long-time assistant, Dr. Jerry Maas, which we believed to mark the location of the lost luxury liner Hyperborea. Elly had felt strongly that the Hyperborea should be destroyed rather than allow it to fall into the hands of the Disparate. Others on our team disagreed, believing that the Hyperborea might hold the secret to the revolution’s success. Either way, the arguments were moot until we found the vessel. Therefore, immediately after the service for Dr. Vaunt, Alex and I boarded a seaplane and set off for the Antarctic; a much larger support team, mainly militia, was to follow by separate transport.

It is still unclear to me exactly what brought down our little aircraft. The following hours spent traversing the frigid waste in a blizzard are also a jumbled blur, ill-remembered and poorly defined. The next thing I clearly recall is our final approach to the coordinates Dr. Maas has provided, and where we expected to find the Hyperborea. What we found instead was a complex fortified installation, showing all the hallmarks of sinister Disparate technology. It surrounded a large open field of ice. Of the Hypnos itself there was no sign…or not at first. But as we stealthily infiltrated the Disparate installation, we noticed a recurent, strangely coherent auroral effect–as of a vast hologram fading in and out of view. This bizarre phenomenon initially seemed an effect caused by an immense Disparate lensing system, Alex and I soon realized that what we were actually seeing was the luxury liner Hyperborea itself, phasing in and out of existence at the focus of the Disparate devices. The aliens had erected their compound to study and seize the ship whenever it materialized. What Dr. Maas had provided were not coordinates for where the sub was located, but instead for where it was predicted to arrive. The liner was oscillating in and out of our reality, its pulses were gradually steadying, but there was no guarantee it would settle into place for long–or at all. We determined that we must put ourselves into position to board it at the instant it became completely physical.

At this point we were briefly detained–not captured by the Disparate, as we feared at first, but by minions of our former nemesis, the conniving and duplicitous Wanda Bree. Dr. Bree was not as we had last seen her–which is to say, she was not dead. At some point, the Disparate had saved out an earlier version of her consciousness, and upon her physical demise, they had imprinted the back-up personality into a biological blank resembling an enormous slug. The Bree-Slug, despite occupying a position of relative power in the Disparate hierarchy, seemed nervous and frightened of me in particular. Wanda did not know how her previous incarnation, the original Dr. Bree, had died. She knew only that I was responsible. Therefore the slug treated us with great caution. Still, she soon confessed (never able to keep quiet for long) that she was herself a prisoner of the Disparate. She took no pleasure from her current grotesque existence, and pleaded with us to end her life. Alex believed that a quick death was more than Wanda Bree deserved, but for my part, I felt a modicum of pity and compassion. Out of Alex’s sight, I might have done something to hasten the slug’s demise before we proceeded.

Not far from where we had been detained by Dr. Bree, we found Jerry Maas being held in a Disparate interrogation cell. Things were tense between Jerry and Alex, as might be imagined. Alex blamed Jerry for his mother’s death…news of which, Jerry was devastated to hear for the first time. Jerry tried to convince Alex that he had been a double agent serving the resistance all along, doing only what Elly had asked of him, even though he knew it meant he risked being seen by his peers–by all of us–as a traitor. I was convinced; Alex less so. But from a pragmatic point of view, we depended on Dr. Maas; for along with the Hyperborea coordinates, he possessed resonance keys which would be necessary to bring the liner fully into our plane of existence.

We skirmished with Disparate soldiers protecting a Dispar research post, then Dr. Maas attuned the Hyperborea to precisely the frequencies needed to bring it into (brief) coherence. In the short time available to us, we scrambled aboard the ship, with an unknown number of Disparate agents close behind. The ship cohered for only a short time, and then its oscillations resume. It was too late for our own military support, which arrived and joined the Disparate forces in battle just as we rebounded between universes, once again unmoored.

What happened next is even harder to explain. Alex Vaunt, Dr. Maas and myself sought control of the ship–its power source, its control room, its navigation center. The liner’s history proved nonlinear. Years before, during the Disparate invasion, various members of an earlier science team, working in the hull of a dry-docked liner situated at the Tocsin Island Research Base in Lake Huron, had assembled what they called the Bootstrap Device. If it worked as intended, it would emit a field large enough to surround the ship. This field would then itself travel instantaneously to any chosen destination without having to cover the intervening space. There was no need for entry or exit portals, or any other devices; it was entirely self-contained. Unfortunately, the device had never been tested. As the Disparate pushed Earth into the Nine Hour Armageddon, the aliens seized control of our most important research facilities. The staff of the Hyperborea, with no other wish than to keep the ship out of Disparate hands, acted in desperation. The switched on the field and flung the Hyperborea toward the most distant destination they could target: Antarctica. What they did not realize was that the Bootstrap Device travelled in time as well as space. Nor was it limited to one time or one location. The Hyperborea, and the moment of its activation, were stretched across space and time, between the nearly forgotten Lake Huron of the Nine Hour Armageddon and the present day Antarctic; it was pulled taut as an elastic band, vibrating, except where at certain points along its length one could find still points, like the harmonic spots along a vibrating guitar string. One of these harmonics was where we boarded, but the string ran forward and back, in both time and space, and we were soon pulled in every direction ourselves.

Time grew confused. Looking from the bridge, we could see the drydocks of Tocsin Island at the moment of teleportation, just as the Disparate forces closed in from land, sea and air. At the same time, we could see the Antarctic wastelands, where our friends were fighting to make their way to the protean Hyperborea; and in addition, glimpses of other worlds, somewhere in the future perhaps, or even in the past. Alex grew convinced we were seeing one of the Disparate’s central staging areas for invading other worlds–such as our own. We meanwhile fought a running battle throughout the ship, pursued by Disparate forces. We struggled to understand our stiuation, and to agree on our course of action. Could we alter the course of the Hyperborea? Should we run it aground in the Antarctic, giving our peers the chance to study it? Should we destroy it with all hands aboard, our own included? It was impossible to hold a coherent thought, given the baffling and paradoxical timeloops, which passed through the ship like bubbles. I felt I was going mad, that we all were, confronting myriad versions of ourselves, in that ship that was half ghost-ship, half nightmare funhouse.

What it came down to, at last, was a choice. Jerry Maas argued, reasonably, that we should save the Hyperborea and deliver it to the resistance, that our intelligent peers might study and harness its power. But Alex reminded me had sworn he would honor his mother’s demand that we destroy the ship. He hatched a plan to set the Hyperborea to self-destruct, while riding it into the heart of the Disparate’s invasion nexus. Jerry and Alex argued. Jerry overpowered Alex and brought the Hyperborea area, preparing to shut off the Bootstrap Device and settle the ship on the ice. Then I heard a shot, and Jerry fell. Alex had decided for all of us, or his weapon had. With Dr. Maas dead, we were committed to the suicide plunge. Grimly, Alex and I armed the Hyperborea, creating a time-travelling missile, and steered it for the heart of the Disparate’s command center.

At this point, as you will no doubt be unsurprised to hear, a Certain Sinister Figure appeared, in the form of that sneering trickster, Mrs. X. For once she appeared not to me, but to Alex Vaunt. Alex had not seen the cryptical schoolmarm since childhood, but he recognized her instantly. “Come along with me now, we’ve places to do and things to be,” said Mrs. X, and Alex acquiesced. He followed the strange grey lady out of the Hyperborea, out of our reality. For me, there was no convenient door held open; only a snicker and a sideways glance. I was left alone, riding the weaponized luxury liner into the heart of a Disparate world. An immense light blazed. I caught a cosmic view of a brilliantly glittering Dyson sphere. The vastness of the Disparate’s power, the futility of our struggle, blossomed briefly in my awareness. I saw everything. Mainly I saw how the Hyperborea, our most powerful weapon, would register as less than a fizzling matchhead as it blew itself apart. And what remained of me would be even less than that.

Just then, as you have surely already foreseen, the Ghastlyhaunts parted their own checkered curtains of reality, reached in as they have on prior occasions, plucked me out, and set me aside. I barely got to see the fireworks begin.

And here we are. I spoke of my return to this shore. It has been a circuitous path to lands I once knew, and surprising to see how much the terrain has changed. Enough time has passed that few remember me, or what I was saying when last I spoke, or what precisely we hoped to accomplish. At this point, the resistance will have failed or succeeded, no thanks to me. Old friends have been silenced, or fallen by the wayside. I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to it. Expect no further correspondence from me regarding these matters; this is my final epistle.

Yours in infinite finality,

Gertrude Fremont, Ph.D.

>>160895715
I hope this letter finds you well. I can hear your complaint already, “Gordon Freeman, we have not heard from you in ages!” Well, if you care to hear excuses, I have plenty, the greatest of them being I’ve been in other dimensions and whatnot, unable to reach you by the usual means. This was the case until eighteen months ago, when I experienced a critical change in my circumstances, and was redeposited on these shores. In the time since, I have been able to think occasionally about how best to describe the intervening years, my years of silence. I do first apologize for the wait, and that done, hasten to finally explain (albeit briefly, quickly, and in very little detail) events following those described in my previous game (referred to herewith as Episode 2).

To begin with, as you may recall from the closing paragraphs of my previous missive, the death of Eli Vance shook us all. The Resistance team was traumatized, unable to be sure how much of our plan might be compromised, and whether it made any sense to go on at all as we had intended. And yet, once Eli had been buried, we found the strength and courage to regroup. It was the strong belief of his brave daughter, the feisty Alyx Vance, that we should continue on as her father had wished. We had the Antarctic coordinates, transmitted by Eli's long-time assistant, Dr. Judith Mossman, which we believed to mark the location of the lost luxury liner Borealis. Eli had felt strongly that the Borealis should be destroyed rather than allow it to fall into the hands of the Combine. Others on our team disagreed, believing that the Borealis might hold the secret to the revolution’s success. Either way, the arguments were moot until we found the vessel. Therefore, immediately after the service for Dr. Vance, Alyx and I boarded a seaplane and set off for the Antarctic; a much larger support team, mainly militia, was to follow by separate transport.

It is still unclear to me exactly what brought down our little aircraft. The following hours spent traversing the frigid waste in a blizzard are also a jumbled blur, ill-remembered and poorly defined. The next thing I clearly recall is our final approach to the coordinates Dr. Mossman has provided, and where we expected to find the Borealis. What we found instead was a complex fortified installation, showing all the hallmarks of sinister Combine technology. It surrounded a large open field of ice. Of the Borealis itself there was no sign…or not at first. But as we stealthily infiltrated the Combine installation, we noticed a recurent, strangely coherent auroral effect–as of a vast hologram fading in and out of view. This bizarre phenomenon initially seemed an effect caused by an immense Combine lensing system, Alyx and I soon realized that what we were actually seeing was the luxury liner Borealis itself, phasing in and out of existence at the focus of the Combine devices. The aliens had erected their compound to study and seize the ship whenever it materialized. What Dr. Mossman had provided were not coordinates for where the sub was located, but instead for where it was predicted to arrive. The liner was oscillating in and out of our reality, its pulses were gradually steadying, but there was no guarantee it would settle into place for long–or at all. We determined that we must put ourselves into position to board it at the instant it became completely physical.

At this point we were briefly detained–not captured by the Combine, as we feared at first, but by minions of our former nemesis, the conniving and duplicitous Wallace Breen. Dr. Breen was not as we had last seen him–which is to say, he was not dead. At some point, the Combine had saved out an earlier version of his consciousness, and upon his physical demise, they had imprinted the back-up personality into a biological blank resembling an enormous grub. The Breen-grub, despite occupying a position of relative power in the Combine hierarchy, seemed nervous and frightened of me in particular. Wallace did not know how his previous incarnation, the original Dr. Breen, had died. He knew only that I was responsible. Therefore the grub treated us with great caution. Still, he soon confessed (never able to keep quiet for long) that he was herself a prisoner of the Combine. He took no pleasure from her current grotesque existence, and pleaded with us to end his life. Alyx believed that a quick death was more than Wallace Breen deserved, but for my part, I felt a modicum of pity and compassion. Out of Alyx ’s sight, I might have done something to hasten the grub’s demise before we proceeded.

Not far from where we had been detained by Dr. Breen, we found Judith Mossman being held in a Combine interrogation cell. Things were tense between Judith and Alyx, as might be imagined. Alyx blamed Judith for her father’s death…news of which, Judith was devastated to hear for the first time. Judith tried to convince Alyx that she had been a double agent serving the resistance all along, doing only what Eli had asked of her, even though she knew it meant he risked being seen by her peers–by all of us–as a traitor. I was convinced; Alyx less so. But from a pragmatic point of view, we depended on Dr. Mossman; for along with the Borealis coordinates, she possessed resonance keys which would be necessary to bring the liner fully into our plane of existence.

We skirmished with Combine soldiers protecting a Combine research post, then Dr. Mossman attuned the Borealis to precisely the frequencies needed to bring it into (brief) coherence. In the short time available to us, we scrambled aboard the ship, with an unknown number of Combine agents close behind. The ship cohered for only a short time, and then its oscillations resume. It was too late for our own military support, which arrived and joined the Combine forces in battle just as we rebounded between universes, once again unmoored.

What happened next is even harder to explain. Alyx Vance, Dr. Mossman and myself sought control of the ship–its power source, its control room, its navigation center. The liner’s history proved nonlinear. Years before, during the Combine invasion, various members of an earlier science team, working in the hull of a dry-docked liner situated at the Aperture Science Enrichment Center in Lake Huron, had assembled what they called the Bootstrap Device. If it worked as intended, it would emit a field large enough to surround the ship. This field would then itself travel instantaneously to any chosen destination without having to cover the intervening space. There was no need for entry or exit portals, or any other devices; it was entirely self-contained. Unfortunately, the device had never been tested. As the Combine pushed Earth into the Seven Hour War, the aliens seized control of our most important research facilities. The staff of the Borealis , with no other wish than to keep the ship out of Combine hands, acted in desperation. The switched on the field and flung the Borealis toward the most distant destination they could target: Antarctica. What they did not realize was that the Bootstrap Device travelled in time as well as space. Nor was it limited to one time or one location. The Borealis, and the moment of its activation, were stretched across space and time, between the nearly forgotten Lake Michigan of the Seven Hour War and the present day Antarctic; it was pulled taut as an elastic band, vibrating, except where at certain points along its length one could find still points, like the harmonic spots along a vibrating guitar string. One of these harmonics was where we boarded, but the string ran forward and back, in both time and space, and we were soon pulled in every direction ourselves.

Time grew confused. Looking from the bridge, we could see the drydocks of Aperture Science at the moment of teleportation, just as the Combine forces closed in from land, sea and air. At the same time, we could see the Antarctic wastelands, where our friends were fighting to make their way to the protean Borealis; and in addition, glimpses of other worlds, somewhere in the future perhaps, or even in the past. Alyx grew convinced we were seeing one of the Combine’s central staging areas for invading other worlds–such as our own. We meanwhile fought a running battle throughout the ship, pursued by Combine forces. We struggled to understand our stiuation, and to agree on our course of action. Could we alter the course of the Borealis? Should we run it aground in the Antarctic, giving our peers the chance to study it? Should we destroy it with all hands aboard, our own included? It was impossible to hold a coherent thought, given the baffling and paradoxical timeloops, which passed through the ship like bubbles. I felt I was going mad, that we all were, confronting myriad versions of ourselves, in that ship that was half ghost-ship, half nightmare funhouse.

What it came down to, at last, was a choice. Judith Mossman argued, reasonably, that we should save the Borealis and deliver it to the Resistance, that our intelligent peers might study and harness its power. But Alyx reminded me she had sworn she would honor her father’s demand that we destroy the ship. She hatched a plan to set the Borealis to self-destruct, while riding it into the heart of the Combine’s invasion nexus. Judith and Alyx argued. Judith overpowered Alyx and brought the Borealis area, preparing to shut off the Bootstrap Device and settle the ship on the ice. Then I heard a shot, and Judith fell. Alyx had decided for all of us, or her weapon had. With Dr. Mossman dead, we were committed to the suicide plunge. Grimly, Alyx and I armed the Borealis, creating a time-travelling missile, and steered it for the heart of the Combine’s command center.

At this point, as you will no doubt be unsurprised to hear, a Certain Sinister Figure appeared, in the form of that sneering trickster, the G-Man. For once he appeared not to me, but to Alyx Vance. Alyx had not seen the cryptical schoolmarm (no male equivalent) since childhood, but she recognized him instantly. “Come along with me now, we’ve places to do and things to be,” said the G-Man, and Alyx acquiesced. She followed the strange grey man out of the Borealis, out of our reality. For me, there was no convenient door held open; only a snicker and a sideways glance. I was left alone, riding the weaponized luxury liner into the heart of a Combine world. An immense light blazed. I caught a cosmic view of a brilliantly glittering Dyson sphere. The vastness of the Combine’s power, the futility of our struggle, blossomed briefly in my awareness. I saw everything. Mainly I saw how the Borealis, our most powerful weapon, would register as less than a fizzling matchhead as it blew itself apart. And what remained of me would be even less than that.

Just then, as you have surely already foreseen, the Vortigaunts parted their own checkered curtains of reality, reached in as they have on prior occasions, plucked me out, and set me aside. I barely got to see the fireworks begin.

And here we are. I spoke of my return to this shore. It has been a circuitous path to lands I once knew, and surprising to see how much the terrain has changed. Enough time has passed that few remember me, or what I was saying when last I spoke, or what precisely we hoped to accomplish. At this point, the resistance will have failed or succeeded, no thanks to me. Old friends have been silenced, or fallen by the wayside. I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to it. Except no further correspondence from me regarding these matters; this is my final episode.

Yours in infinite finality,

Gordon Freeman, Ph.D.