Footage of unreleased HALF-LIFE game emerges

Superb video game documentary makers Noclip have released a full hour of footage from an unreleased Half-Life game. Return to Ravenholm was a planned self-contained expansion to Half-Life 2 set in the titular town, where the protagonist has to fight off headcrabs and zombies with a range of new tools.

Return to Ravenholm, sometimes referred to as Half-Life 2: Episode Four, began development in 2007 at Junction Point Studios, with Warren Spector in charge. The original plan was for a prequel to Half-Life 2, showing the deterioration of Ravenholm from a pleasant town to the nightmare-infested location it appears as in Half-Life 2 itself. The main character would have been Father Grigori, who appears in Half-Life 2, or possibly a new protagonist. Development of the project was only at an early stage when Junction Point was awarded a contract to make Epic Mickey instead, which became their main focus.

Valve gave the concept to Arkane Studios, who had already used Valve's Source Engine to make Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. They recast the game as a sequel to Half-Life 2, with it being revealed that Father Grigori had survived his last stand in Ravenholm. The game would have used Adrian Shepard, the long-missing protagonist of Half-Life: Opposing Force, as its main character. Shepard would have been charged with eliminating the alien presence in Ravenholm, using both traditional weapons and new physics-based weapons, including being able to push or throw enemies into traps, as in Dark Messiah, and creating new traps yourself.

The game was startlingly close to being finished, with a new soundtrack recorded and voice-over dialogue largely completed, when it was cancelled. The main issue leading to the cancellation was the perception that fighting zombies and headcrabs were played out over the course of Half-Life 2 and its first two episodes.

Noclip first uncovered information about the expansion in a long 2020 documentary on Arkane Studios, including coverage of their other games like Prey and the Dishonored series.

The Half-Life series began in 1998 with a revolutionary first-person shooter. It was followed by two expansions, Opposing Force (1999) and Blue Shift (2000). Half-Life 2 was released in 2004 and was a massive hit. It was followed by Episode One (2006) and Episode Two (2007), the latter released in a special "Orange Box" alongside Portal and Team Fortress 2. The Half-Life franchise went on indefinite hold, despite Episode Two ending on a major cliffhanger. The non-appearance of the promised Episode Three or Half-Life 3 led to more than a decade of memes and jokes. The VR game Half-Life: Alyx (2021) revisited the franchise and set up a new cliffhanger, leading to speculation that Valve are finally willing to make the next "proper" Half-Life game.

Creative Assembly hint at WITCHER and MIDDLE-EARTH TOTAL WAR games

Video game documentary makers Noclip have released another big project, this time delving in the history of British company The Creative Assembly, who for twenty years have been producing the Total War series of historical wargames, as well as branching out with survival horror title Alien: Isolation. The documentary is worth watching, but it also hints at a possible future direction for the series that extends to other franchises.

In the documentary, CA confirm that before securing the Warhammer licence from Games Workshop, they were actively pursuing and discussing a Lord of the Rings licence. This is interesting because two of the biggest fan mods for Medieval II: Total War (the last Total War game which allowed total conversion mods, effectively creating brand-new games out of older ones) were Call of Warhammer and The Third Age: Total War, mods for those two respective worlds. I suspect that the Warhammer mod was significantly cheaper to acquire.

With Lord of the Rings back in the zeitgeist, courtesy of the new Second Age-set TV show from Amazon Prime, it seems a good time to revisit the concept and with more money and the success of two (soon to be three) Warhammer games behind them, Creative Assembly can make a good case for acquiring the licence. The only fly in the ointment might be that the licence is currently held with Warner Brothers' gaming division (who produced Shadows of Mordor and Shadows of War) and it is unclear if they would be willing to sub-licence the property to another studio.

CA also note that they have been in discussions with Netflix over a new project. Since they've already effectively made The Last Kingdom: Total War with Thrones of Britannia and we can rule out Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Total War, the most logical property to pursue would be The Witcher, which has all the ingredients for a good Total War game: numerous factions with notable troop types and general characters fighting over a fantasy landscape. CD Projekt Red, rather obviously, has a Witcher video game licence already, so the viability of this idea depends a lot on what is permitted under that licence, whether CA would work with CDPR or whether a separate licence based on the TV show (rather than the novels, which CDPR's licence covers) is possible.

Since CA note they have been in discussions with Amazon Prime, that is likely related to the Lord of the Rings idea, but it's also possible they have been considering a Wheel of Time game. The Wheel of Time world has numerous countries, empires and factions with notable characters who could serve as generals. A Wheel of Time fan mod for Rome: Total War was unfortunately aborted in the mid-2000s over the inability to get flying creatures to work in that engine, but with modern tech, that shouldn't be a problem (and flying units play a major role in the Warhammer games).

A final possibility, which is unmentioned in the documentary but has almost certainly been discussed at CA, would be for a Game of Thrones game. There is already a popular Westeros: Total War mod based on Medieval II: Total War and the success of the TV show makes a game a bit of a home run. Given the Total War franchise is all about changing history, the game would also provide the possibility for different outcomes to the TV show's storyline, which I'm sure many fans would appreciate. If you always wanted to see Robb Stark triumph and win independence for the North, or Stannis Baratheon to win at the Battle of the Blackwater, you could in such a game.

Any announcement of a new fantasy project is likely a way off. Total War Saga: Troy launches in August, whilst the company is continuing to release new material and expansions for Total War: Three Kingdoms. Total War: Warhammer III is also due in the near future, so it might be a year or two before we hear about any post-Warhammer fantasy projects.