Here at Digital Tech Explorer, we frequently journey into the rich history of gaming, uncovering compelling narratives born from vibrant communities. If you were part of the Half-Life modding scene at the turn of the Millennium, you likely encountered They Hunger. This zombie horror adventure, developed by Black Widow Games, masterfully adapted the technology and design principles of the iconic Half-Life to forge a new, thrilling experience. Released exclusively on PC Gamer demo discs in 2000, it stands as one of the best single-player Half-Life mods, delivering a near-professional survival horror game at a time when zombies were still a relatively fresh concept.
They Hunger was the final single-player creation from Black Widow Games, but it wasn’t supposed to be. Between 2005 and 2008, the studio was deep in development on a sequel for Half-Life 2‘s Source engine – a project ambitiously titled They Hunger: Lost Souls. This was set to be Black Widow Games’ first commercial endeavor. However, the game was never finished, and the precise reasons why have remained a compelling mystery. In the absence of official information, strange theories emerged about the project’s ultimate fate and the elusive design lead, Neil Manke. A few years ago, two unfinished playable alphas surfaced, offering a tantalizing glimpse of what the team had envisioned.
Dead hungry
They Hunger: Lost Souls was officially announced on October 19, 2005. The game was set in 1960s north-eastern Europe, where players would take on the role of a tourist caught in a zombie apocalypse after their taxi is run off the road by a steam train. Black Widow Games planned to release Lost Souls episodically, with the first 4-5 hour episode taking place in a monastery.
While zombie games are common today, the concept was still novel in the mid-2000s. The game aimed for a deeply immersive experience by being completely HUD-less. Players would track health via a “Bio-Monitor” on their character’s wrist and check ammo by physically pulling out their weapon’s clip.
Black Widow Games had a strong reputation, and project lead Neil Manke was a respected figure in the Half-Life modding community. Daniel Fearon, creator of the legendary Sven Co-op mod who later became involved with the project, noted, “Neil Manke had been well known as a top Half-Life mapper since USS Darkstar.” He added that the game was “fairly highly anticipated.”
The shift to a commercial project was necessary due to the complexity of new game engines. In the original announcement, Manke explained, “Next generation game engines are so complex and detailed that we would never be able to invest so much time and resources for such an ambitious project any other way.” The goal was to offer it as a “low-cost alternative” to other commercial games.
According to the studio’s website, Lost Souls was 75% complete at its reveal. By April 2006, it supposedly entered alpha and was “very close to release” that October. In January 2007, a post titled “Alive and kicking” apologized for the long development and assured fans the project was not cancelled. This was the last direct update on development, with the final website post appearing on February 7, 2008. After that, there was only silence.
Mystery meat
With no official news, speculation began to spread. In 2019, a user on The Dark Mod forums claimed the project collapsed because Neil Manke “fell deathly ill,” leading to the studio’s disbandment. The user also alleged that the project’s manager, Einar Saukas, had lost contact with Manke but eventually re-established it, which led to the release of the unfinished alphas.
Animator Nathan Fearon, who worked on They Hunger: Lost Souls, couldn’t confirm these claims due to a non-disclosure agreement and faded memories. “I don’t know that much myself, and I’ve forgotten a lot of details,” he said. While he doesn’t know what happened to Manke, he believes the game was “even closer” to completion than the rumored 80%. Regarding the leaked alphas, Fearon stated they are “missing a lot, like the flinching animations, so the zombies aren’t stunned/don’t react when you hit them.” He believes the final internal build was “a lot of fun to play.”
His brother, Daniel Fearon, had more detailed memories. He primarily communicated with project manager Einar Saukas. “A while after the Lost Souls development stalled, Einar talked to me and we made a plan to invite Sven Co-op developers to help finish the project… Ultimately, it didn’t get that far.”
Daniel recalls hearing rumors that Manke was “going through personal problems” before he departed the project. He described the game’s state near the end: “environments for all of [the episodes] had been completed by Neil. The art and gameplay systems were almost entirely complete, but most sequences related to the story were missing, and gameplay design… beyond the first episode was mostly not started.” Missing elements from the first episode included a scripted taxi crash intro and a “boss fight with a zombified bishop.”
Daniel’s plan was to help manage the remaining development, but it became “increasingly difficult” to contact Saukas. “I briefly considered flying to South America to try to work out a deal to actually take full control of the project,” he recalled, but ultimately decided against it. “In the end, I just decided to see how long it’d take for him to respond to me if I stopped nagging, and he never did.” With its creative lead gone, its project manager out of touch, and no one to take the reins, Lost Souls simply fizzled out.
The leaked alphas, while incomplete, showcase a potent atmosphere of dread. The bleak mood, reminiscent of Half-Life 2‘s Ravenholm, is effectively conjured through its environments and sound design. There is a small chance a more complete version exists. On ModDB, a fan project called They Hunger: Lost Souls ReBuild was started to reconstruct the game. The project’s creator, Kirill Davydkin, claims he received an email from Neil Manke, which read: “There is no build for Lost Souls out there… Only Einar and I had the full game. And, I no longer have the game.”
If genuine, this suggests Saukas may hold a more complete, albeit still unfinished, version of the game. But even if this build ever surfaces, it will only offer a wider glimpse into a story that was never finished. They Hunger: Lost Souls, it seems, will remain forever lost.