Noclip Shows Off One Hour Of Cancelled Arkane Half-Life Game
There are more cancelled Half-Life projects than full releases, whether it's Episode 3, Half-Life 3, Return to Ravenholm, or the many other variations of each that didn't pan out. Getting to Alyx was a long and windy road with a beaten-up jalopy and somewhere along that road, Arkane was brought in to develop Ravenholm, its own spin-off.
It isn't the first time Valve has hired another studio to work on an expansion. After the first game, it brought in Gearbox to develop Blue Shift, Decay, and Opposing Force, but Ravenholm was set to launch after Half-Life 2, developed by Arkane before it had its breakout with Dishonored. Noclip revealed as much in 2020 with never-before-seen footage and new interviews with the team. Jump ahead to 2022, and it has unveiled an hour-long video of the now-defunct game.
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It starts off in Father Gregori's kitchen, the gruff shotgun-wielding monk who ferries us through a zombie-infested refugee town. We see the player bashing away the undead with a new punch mechanic, hurling their ragdoll corpses over railings in the underground facility. Some zombies even grab makeshift weapons like pipes. These zombies are very different from the ones we've previously seen - they don't even have headcrabs.
The opening gives us a new look at Gregori who is wearing a slightly more contemporary outfit. He takes us to a rustbucket windmill, a leftover of Half-Life 2's cut content. But to reach that point, there are a few new electricity-based puzzles to solve, something that's distinct and recurring in Ravenholm.
There are puzzles which have the player pick up electrical conduits (chairs) to connect power points to open doors and
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