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When speaking to RockPaperShotgun, Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw revealed that there was a canceled VR game that was known as Borealis (likely just a codename) and presumably, would’ve explored some of those connections. Laidlaw wasn’t super thrilled with the idea of connecting Portal and Half-Life, noting that Portal needed art and Valve ended up drawing upon something that was “Combine-y”. However, Laidlaw still did his best to try and create a story that would strengthen those ties.
“All we could do is then try to incorporate them somehow,” said Laidlaw. “I felt like doing this made both universes smaller, but from a franchise branding perspective, that’s a good thing. I eventually did come up with a scenario in which we could connect Aperture and Black Mesa, and we had Borealis lying around from the earliest days of Half-Life 2, so I thought maybe we’d end up with some cool lore and backstory in the long run.”
Half-Life is a franchise that has all kinds of loose ends and Laidlaw famously “leaked” the story of Half-Life 3 many years ago after it became clear it would never see the light of day. He now regrets it, but others are glad to have a taste of what could’ve been. Whether Valve ever properly concludes any of these stories remains to be seen, but it’s certainly not out of the question after Half-Life: Alyx.
What do you think of Half-Life’s connections to Portal? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
