It’s easy to forget, given that Half-Life 2 Episode 3 never actually surfaced and probably never will, but Valve had plans that actually went beyond it. Half-Life 2 Episode 4 was on the cards for a while, under multiple studios. The first was Junction Point, which was founded by the father of immersive sims, Warren Spector, in 2004. Like so many Half-Life projects, unfortunately, it never saw the light of day.
“My guess is that they expected faster progress than we delivered,” he told Jeremy Peel, who spoke with Spector for an upcoming article on immersive sims that you’ll be able to point your eyes at next month. The episode was centred around Ravenholm, one of Half-Life 2’s most iconic locations, and it wouldn’t be the last time a cancelled episode would focus on the haunted neighbourhood.
Playing with another studio’s toys can be challenging, though, and Junction Point had to get used to Valve’s tools—something it managed right before it got some bad news.
“It was a little frustrating, if you want to know the truth,” said Spector. “We just figured out how their tools worked, what we could do with them, and what we wanted to do with them when they shut the project down.”
The unnamed episode was cancelled, and the two companies went their separate ways, with Junction Point eventually being acquired by Disney, after which it developed Epic Mickey—which just had a remake—and its sequel, before it was shut down in 2013.
Spector isn’t harbouring a grudge, though. “I’ll be forever grateful to Valve for keeping us alive in a very difficult time for the studio,” he said. “We wouldn’t have made it without them.”
The year after Junction Point’s attempt, Valve started working with Arkane on Episode 4, again set in Ravenholm. Valve then cancelled that project as well, in 2007. In 2020, documentary channel Noclip produced an episode on Arkane’s Ravenholm, and two years later released an hour of footage showing off the cancelled project. That’s as close as we’ll ever get to play it.
Valve’s choice of studios remains pretty interesting, and there’s a strong connection between Arkane and Junction Point. Arkane’s first game, Arx Fatalis, was inspired by Ultima Underworld, where Spector served as producer. Arkane designer Harvey Smith also worked with Spector at Ion Storm as the lead designer of Deux Ex and Invisible War. Clearly Valve was looking for some immersive sim expertise—it just didn’t pan out.