Eurogamer: Clearly Episode One is very much about Alyx - why such a big focus on her, and where does the G-Man fit into all of this?

Gabe Newell: A big focus is Alyx, both from a storytelling perspective and from a gameplay perspective. We really liked her as a character, and the fans did too, so we wanted you to be spending a long time with her, and seeing how far we could push this notion of single player co-op. Being in this world with someone who's operating pretty intelligently and acting more as an ally, rather than this dumb collection of polygons that sort of troops around and gets in your way.

The arc of the trio of episodes is also about the G-Man. He appears briefly in Episode One, and we'll get more info on him later. If you think of Half-Life 1 as the G-Man trying to turn you into something that was useful to him - the transformation of the player into hero. And then Half-Life 2 was about how he was using you. Half-Life 3 [a.k.a. Episodes One to Three] is about the relationship with the G-Man and what happens when he loses control of you, when you're not available to him as a tool and how he responds to that, and what are the consequences of that.

Alyx and the relationship with her is a big focus in Episode One and the larger story about your evolving relationship with the G-Man. That's the text of the trio of episodes.