Yes, I know, I know. All of you started laughing when you read that title.
But believe it or not, an Episode Four featuring a stand-alone plot was in development at some point. Not at Valve, but at an undisclosed third-party studio. PC Gamer mentioned this way back in May 2006, but in late 2006 Gabe said that this Episode Four was still in development. When talking to Eurogamer in May of 2007, asked about Episode Three’s setting, Doug Lombardi said: “I don’t think you’ll head back to City 17, for sure. Not in Episode Three, anyway.”
Strangely enough, as late as December of 2007, Stuff We Like, after speaking to Doug Lombardi, mentioned the possibility of a series of episodic Half-Life games disconnected from the main story arc. But, some time later, the project was cancelled. We don’t know when or why, and we don’t even know who might have been making it. Except now we might know!
Randy Humphries is a concept artist and 3D modeler. He’s been working at EA since 2004. He has just posted up 6 pieces of concept art for some sort of Half-Life project developed by EA on his Coroflot profile. He gives no details about the project, and it isn’t in his resume. The only information he gave is: “cancelled project”, which leads us to believe that this is Episode Four, and it was in fact in development at EA.
The concept art includes two drawings of an Eastern European city resembling City 17 (this one and this one), a drawing of some sort of abandoned town named “Haven”, a drawing of the interior of an apartment block, again, resembling what we’ve seen in HL2 and the Episodes, a shot of what seems to be a very different Civil Protection officer with a City 17 arm band, and a drawing featuring some sort of Overwatch Soldier, who looks almost nothing like the Overwatch Soldiers we know and love from HL2 and the Episodes.
The concept art as a whole is quite good, but the character designs are nowhere near as well-done as Valve’s work. Still, we’d have to see more before really talking about what this could and could not have been.
http://www.coroflot.com/rand1211
18 Responses to “Concept Art Leaked For Cancelled Half-Life-EA Games Project?”
I hope EA doesn’t touch the game at all, I like EA but they’ve really ruined some great things lately (such as the late Pandemic Studios) I just feel they really wouldn’t do this amazing franchise justice
I don’t think EA will be touching the Half-Life series.
All of the links in the article are broken.
I noticed. Nothing I can do about it.
All of the links are broken.
You could at least put up your source… neogaf.com
Except that’s not my source.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=425012
I guess it’s just a coincidence huh. You found that just after him, now that’s what I call lucky.
Oh and he did not “just posted up 6 concept images”.
Last Login: 15 Feb 2011
But hey, your “source” just happen to notice this just after this neogaf post. Lucky.
NeoGAF spread it. That hardly means they’re my source. They’re the ones who initially found it, but they are not the ones I got it from. As such, they are not my source.
“hmm”, you owe Vic an apology. Man up.
Heh, thank you Freiherr, but I don’t really deserve any apology.
Could be just fan-art. And don’t come saying that an EA concept artist can’t be a fan of Valve.
When did I say that?
Posted by someone who is a game designer?
That’s some really neat stuff! Would be interesting if Valve integrated some of those concepts into their own cannon.
I hope not. That’s some of the blandest concept at I’ve ever seen. Those character designs lazy & wouldn’t fit in with any of the other combine designs.
Totally agree Dias. But even more striking in terms of this being concepts for hl2 episodes, is that they truly add NOTHING new whatsoever. Same kind of city environment, and the same old combine with new skins. That’s not exactly “concept” art. It’s just more of the exact same.
Even Episode One felt a bit repetitive due to being located only in the city, an environment you’ve already thoroughly explored in the original HL2. Ep2 on the other hand tried to freshen it up a bit with nature environments, new enemies and so on. The idea that these drawings are concepts for post-Ep2 episodes is simply ridiculous.