Point Insertion

WARREN SPECTOR gives new details about Junction Point’s Half-Life 2 Episode.

- Rick Lane

Junction Point Studios is best known for developing the Wii-exclusive action adventure Epic Mickey. But this wasn’t the first project for the studio founded by Warren Spector after his departure from Ion Storm Austin. Somewhere between the end of 2005 and mid-2007, Junction Point studios worked on an additional Episode for Half-Life 2 that was ultimately cancelled by Valve.

In the interceding years, only a handful of details about the Episode have emerged. The Episode would have introduced a new weapon called the ‘magnet gun’, although it was never explained how the gun worked. In addition, earlier this year, purported images of the project leaked online, depicting what appeared to be the zombie-infested town of Ravenholm carpeted in snow. But whether these environments formed part of Junction Point’s final vision for the project, or to what extent Ravenholm would have appeared in the Episode, was never determined.

Now, though, PC Gamer can confirm that not only was Ravenholm to feature in Junction Point’s Episode, but it was to be the focus of the entire game. “We wanted to tell the story of how Ravenholm became what it was in the Half-Life universe. That seemed like an underdeveloped story that fans would really enjoy,” says Warren Spector. “In addition to fleshing out the story of Ravenholm, we wanted to see more of Father Grigori and see how he came to be the character he later became in Half-Life 2.”