Over the last decade or so, Arkane Studios has made quite the name for itself. Since releasing Dishonored in 2012, Arkane has continued to produce high-quality experiences that blend stealth-sim mechanics with fast-paced combat and otherworldly abilities, eventually resulting in Deathloop, a 2021 Game of the Year contender. But before the developer found its recent stride, it released a handful of experimental games in the 2000s, which in turn led to more opportunities. Unfortunately, most of these projects would end up being shelved, and Arkane's Return to Ravenholm, or Half-Life 2: Episode 4, was one of them.
All the way back in 2011, a security breach at Eidos led to a few CVs being leaked, some of which mentioned a previously unknown Half-Life game. Since then, a few key details about this canceled Half-Life project have come to light, most of which confirm that the game was known as Half-Life 2: Episode 4, Return to Ravenholm, or just Ravenholm. And thanks to a 2020 and 2022 YouTube documentary by Noclip, even more details about this mysterious project have been uncovered.
Return to Ravenholm's Plot
Return to Ravenholm would put the player back in the military boots of marine Adrian Shepard, the protagonist of the original Half-Life's Opposing Force expansion. At the end of Opposing Force, Shepard is put into indefinite stasis by the G-Man, and the beginning of Return to Ravenholm sees him waking up in an abandoned asylum. He was dragged there by Father Grigori, first seen in Half-Life 2, during its horror-centric Ravenholm sequence.
As Shepard wakes up, Grigori takes him to a makeshift kitchen in the asylum, where he has prepared some Headcrab stew. Grigori then proceeds to inject himself with Headcrab blood, which he believes will lower his chances of getting infected. The asylum is then stormed by a horde of zombies, which overwhelm the two.
Grigori and Shepard make a narrow escape, and hatch a plan to leave the asylum, travel through the abandoned city, and return to Ravenholm. Arkane and Valve have never explained why the two would want to get back to Ravenholm, as it was overrun by zombies in Half-Life 2, but it could be the case that the swarm there has been wiped out since Half-Life 2's ending.
Arkane has revealed that over the course of the game, Grigori would inject himself repeatedly with Headcrab blood until he started to mutate, eventually culminating in him becoming a fully mutated monster that the player would seemingly have to take down. The rest of Return to Ravenholm's plot remains a mystery.
Return to Ravenholm's New Gameplay Additions
Return to Ravenholm was also set to bring in a range of new gameplay mechanics and features, building upon the groundwork of Half-Life 2. Quite a few new weapons were going to be added, ranging from a nail gun and grenade to a charge gun.
Most of these new weapons would be used both in combat and during environmental puzzles, where most of the solutions revolved around carrying an electric charge through some wires. The nail gun's projectiles would be capable of carrying a current, while the charge gun would store energy from other sources and fire a ball of electricity at foes and appliances. Players could also use these weapons more creatively to power up electric traps.
While Return to Ravenholm brought back iconic enemies like the Headcrab, Fast Headcrab, and zombies, it was also going to add a new type of monster, the zombie monkey. These zombie monkeys would be able to throw objects at the player but would flee when light was shone on them.
Why Return to Ravenholm Was Canceled
In 2007, around a year or so into full development, Arkane's Return to Ravenholm was canceled by Valve, taking the developer somewhat by surprise. By this time, Arkane had created around 10 levels which, while unfinished, were fully playable. But with Valve viewing Return to Ravenholm as more of an episodic title than a spinoff, it made the decision to cut its losses, with some members of Arkane believing that the developer was becoming too costly for Valve to maintain.
The reason Valve cited for Return to Ravenholm's cancelation was that the zombie genre was already fairly oversaturated at the time, and that Ravenholm might get lost in the sea of other zombie titles. Now, Return to Ravenholm only lives on in Arkane's internal servers.