12 Things You Didn't Know About Half-Life 2
7. The Other Episode Four
Upon taking up development of Episode 4, Arkane Studios continued Warren Spector's idea of a standalone episode based around Ravenholm and gained a new working title, “Return to Ravenholm”, though actual development was completely restarted.
Due to take place canonically before the end of Episode 2, its existence was revealed back in 2012 by series writer Marc Laidlaw and would've kept the inclusion of Father Grigori. It saw various leaks in 2013, revealing screenshots and rendered assets intended for the game, after previously coming up on the CVs of former project developers.
Later confirmed by Arkane Studios that you wouldn’t assume the role of Gordon Freeman, they instead pointed to a “different, very interesting character” and Laidlaw later confirmed it would’ve “stuck more closely to the atmosphere of horror”. Sadly, we’ll never fully know just what they had planned.