ValveTime are reporting that they've discovered screenshots and artwork from the cancelled Half Life 2 episode Return to Ravenholm. The project was being developed by Arkane Studios, makers of Dishonored, back in 2006 but was cancelled because Valve felt that the suburb overrun by zombies and headcrabs had been "pretty much played out".
Images and animation videos below.
Internally at Arkane, Return to Ravenholm was being called Episode 4. Though, responding to an email from Lambda Generation, Valve's Marc Laidlaw said that "it would have to take place sometime before the end of Episode 2 (so as not to advance beyond where Valve had pushed the story)". This was its undoing, placing the spin-off episode between episodes 2 and 3 without altering or progressing the story was too much of a constraint. So that, as well as the feeling that there was little new to do with zombies and headcrabs, left to the project being canned.
ValveTime's findings have been compiled into this handy video:
It's worth noting that ValveTime have not revealed a source for these images. Likely they are from ex-Arkane employees. That is not to say that a wily modder couldn't have posed as an ex-Arkane employee.
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