Images and early character animation reportedly from the cancelled Half-Life 2: Episode 4 — a title that was in development from Dishonored creator Arkane Studio in 2006 and 2007 — are revealed in a new video released by Valve Time.
According to Valve Time, a designer formerly associated with Arkane offered up concept art along with an animation reel from the now-cancelled title. The footage is compiled in the video above, which offers a look a textures and models planned for Episode 4 — known also as Return to Ravenholm. In addition to this footage is the odd inclusion of a particular HUD element called "Absortion."
Last year, Valve's Marc Laidlaw explained the reasoning behind the cancellation of the next episode in the Half-Life series, telling LambdaGeneration that creative constraints were an issue.
"We are big fans of Arkane and wanted to come up with a project we could work on together," he said. "We threw ideas around, they built some cool stuff, but we eventually decided that it didn't make sense to pursue it at the time. As I recall, we felt like a lot of the staples of Ravenholm — headcrabs and zombies! — were pretty much played out, and the fact 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) was a creative constraint that would hamper the project...and Arkane."