On October 4, the first bomb dropped: The entire source code to Half-Life 2 was let loose. Newell was furious, but he also didn't know if it was the start or the end of the hacker's plans. Aug 11, 2017 - Create a mod with Source SDK, it will give you the source code. That's only Source 2006-2009. Source 2013 (the latest public version) could be.
The subject matter of this article contains in-development information that was cut from the final version of an official and/or source and appears in no other canonical source. It may also contain incomplete information since not all cut material is publicly known. This article has yet to be cleaned up to a higher standard of quality, per our. It may contain factual errors and nonsense, as well as spelling, grammar and structure issues, or simply structure problems.
Reader's discretion is advised until fixing is done. 'There is a lot of value in refinement.
There's an aggressive statement of this principle, which isn't entirely true but it's still interesting: It doesn't matter what we cut, so long as we cut it and it gives us the time to focus on other things, because any of the options will be bad unless they're finished, and any of them will be good if they are finished.' ― The development of Half-Life 2 began almost immediately after the release of, spanning from 1999 to the release of in 2004. During that elongated process, many things were outlined, created and cut before the game's final release. Within the Half-Life community, this period is referred to under several names. They include:. names, such as ' Half-Life 2 Alpha', ' Half-Life 2 Beta', or simply 'Alpha' or 'Beta'.
These terms, coined by the community and not Valve, are used incorrectly most of the time when referring to a particular subject of this period, as no development stages for any subject is known. Despite this, they are widely used across the community, as they are commonly used in the general gaming community to refer to any early stages of a video game.
Therefore they should be taken as placeholder names referring to large periods of a game's development, 'Alpha' being used for the early stages, 'Beta' for the last stages that precede the retail release). The ' Half-Life 2 leak' (or simply 'the leak'), when referring to the material stolen (or 'leaked') from Valve in 2003 by German hacker Axel Gembe, including source code, about 1300 maps, and a playable game (referred to by Gembe as 'Chosen 9'). These files of course include anything referred to by the community as 'Alpha' or 'Beta'. Valve does not refer to it as a leak but as a theft.
All in all the correct terms are ' Half-Life 2 leak' or the 'playable Half-Life 2 leak' for the stolen content. When referring to early elements of Half-Life 2, the terms 'early Half-Life 2 ' or 'early version of Half-Life 2' would be more appropriate, as well as, for instance, 'the early City 17' or 'the early Breencast'. 'Alpha' and 'Beta' should never be used unless specifically stated.
This also applies to any other development period of any other Valve game. Main article: The book and the numerous leaked files revealed many of the game's original settings and action that were either cut down or removed entirely from the final game. Half-Life 2 was originally intended to be a far darker game based on far grittier artwork where the were more obviously draining the oceans for minerals and replacing the atmosphere with noxious, murky gases. Half-Life 2 was also originally intended to be much more diverse in settings, and the original journey was extremely long (to the extent that the game felt almost overblown, with little time being spent on developing existing characters; one of the key reasons for it being cut).
Several levels at the start of the game and complete chapters from the second half of the game were completely removed and sometimes re-introduced in the subsequent Half-Life 2 episodes. Parts of the book and the leaked files detail how Gordon would fight alongside characters such as in the, as well as fighting together with and Vance's forces, the, in the, the and the rooftops of City 17. Originally, and had no relation, and Eli's lab was located in a cave in a scrapyard and was much rougher than the better equipped laboratory within a hydroelectric power station in the retail version (the scrapyard area where the tutorial takes place, being an auxiliary area as opposed to the bulk of the lab, is reminiscent of the original concept). The Citadel also looked very different, it was more round than the bulky Citadel from the final version. Early styles. Concept art based on the skybox of Vertigo.
While the playable game leaked in 2003 is quite similar to the retail product and already heavily trimmed, this earlier period of development of the game shows a quite different style. At this point, was a menacing metropolis with many huge skyscrapers, resembling American cities, and had a very basic, blocky FPS design. It was more faithful to the concept art seen in: darker, gothic, sinister, rainy, foggy, gritty, with a lot of brick, metal and glass, getting along well with the cut concept of the Combine replacing the air with poisonous gas and draining the oceans. It was therefore a much more dystopian, Orwellian universe (even though the final product is still quite Orwellian) even with touches of cyberpunk/steampunk style, in the vein of the book/film or other films such as,. It was also more faithful to 's early concept art and work on the game. The was rather using and recycling the existent human materials and buildings, instead of adding their own technology to them. This is why, for instance, the early had its walls covered with tiles.
During the time span leading to the 2003 leak, the team added more periods, such as the 30's, the 40's and the 70's, to finally get to a more Eastern post-Communist style we see in the retail version of the game, with older and smaller buildings, and a bright universe instead of a dark one, which is more in the vein of the original. The levels are a reminiscence to the original style, even though the American East Coast-style skyscrapers were all removed. Note that not all the concepts were not present in the development process at the same time, since the game had still a very rough, work-in-progress state. Half-Life 2 leak. Earlier versions of the game had a much larger and varied armory. See the for more details. Originally, the player could only hold a limited number of weapons.
They could drop a weapon any time by taking the gun out, then hitting a key to drop it. By the time the leak was made, the ability to drop weapons seems to have been removed, as the G key is bound to a function called 'DropPrimary', but it does nothing. At one point, the player could fire their weapon while zoomed in. This was dropped for balance reasons (however, vehicle mounted weapons can be fired while zoomed in; in addition, the zoom can be used as a makeshift scope by holding down the fire button and zoom button, then releasing zoom).
Some of the earliest weapons in the game were the and, both of which were dropped in the final version. Their early textures can be found in 'materials Models Weapons Obsolete' in the Beta. It has been suggested that the bulk of the weapons were cut due to the fact that they were too similar to one another, as the AR1 served a very similar role to the AR2, and the OICW the same to the SMG1. One of the earliest attempts at physics-enhanced gameplay was a weapon called the. It would allow players to pick of objects from the ground and throw them at enemies. Due to how many view models they would have to model for it to feel natural, it was cut. The performs the same function as Brickbat did, but in a much easier way (at least for the art team).
Most, if not all of the cut weapons are usable in the playable leak and the mod, although sometimes with some changes. Mapping. Early Half-Life 2 maps were built similarly to maps; most of the objects in levels were made out of brushes. In some of the earliest maps, Half-Life entities, such as 'monstergeneric', are used to represent characters such as. In later early maps the player would be able to place 'propobjects' in front of doors, barricading them so that enemy NPC would have to kick the door down in order to gain entry (shown in the early or traptown maps). Friendly fire Half-Life 2 originally featured friendly fire, as with Half-Life.
Found this to be annoying to playtesters, as they would often accidentally kill their teammates, so it was changed so the weapons do no damage to friendlies. Characters Combine. Early drafts of the soldiers were to make them look distinctively alien, but this was dropped when Valve wanted 'a more transparent enemy'. Originally, the Combine were to recycle human building materials for their own purposes. This resulted in somewhat odd designs, such as the 's interior being made out of ceramic tiles. One of the sound files for two Metrocops walking through the (sound vo sky in the Beta) indicates that Combine-developed weaponry could only be used by those with 'a messed up nervous system' and that non-standard issue weapons for Metrocops (such as ) would be confiscated if not approved by Dr. (at this point of development the Consul).
Monsters. Citizens. Originally, citizens were supposed to wear gas masks because of the making the air poisonous. This was dropped at the same time as the AirEx. There were to be child and adult workers at the factory section of City 17.
During the Street War, there was to be a special type of Citizen that would give the player ammo. The only proof of his existence is a texture sheet in the 2003 leak.
Major Characters. Alyx's father was originally a white man named. He was the head of security in the AirEx, and was to start the fighting that would ultimately destroy it.
Eli used to have no relation with Alyx, though they were to be very close. Instead, he was an eccentric old man living in a scrapyard.
Depending on the concept art, he can either be seen giving Gordon his or the Gravity Gun. In early drafts, Eli lost his leg while trying to examine a Particle Storm. Captain Vance and Eli were merged to create the Eli seen in the final version.
Alyx originally wore a futuristic jumpsuit and a green jacket, but this was scrapped a short time before the E3 demos were shown. Locations. Main article:. City 17. Wasteland.
Depot. Street Wars. Vehicles. (as a static prop). Israeli (used by the ). VAB (also used by the ) Fate of the cut material Many of the cut concepts will never be reused. There are some exceptions, however, and some elements finally made their way into the released games.
Half-Life 2. The Overwatch Elite gathering all of the elite units concepts, notably the and the. The was recycled into the.
being originally located at the end of the and before Eli's lab, it featured a lake at its foot, with at least one. This lake and the small docks were somehow kept for when the chapter orders was reversed, and for the only Ichthyosaur appearance during the teleportation failure at the start of Half-Life 2. Lost Coast Lost Coast was based on a chapter cut from and finally released as an HDR technology demo. However none of its material is in the leaked files.
Episode One. An early version of the. The train wreck featured in the short story Alyx was reused at the start of the chapter. The huge destroyed concrete level at the start of seem to have been re-used in the in the chapter Lowlife, where Gordon and Alyx are fighting Antlions and Gordon must find cars to block the Antlion holes.
The, originally to be fought in Half-Life 2, are at last directly confronted in Episode One. The was to appear in Half-Life 2, since a prototype map exists in the WC map pack.
The tube used by to leave exists in a very old WC map pack map. Episode Two. The Air Exchange train wreck was reused at the very start of the game, while at some point wrecked train cars in a valley were to be seen at the end of the Canals before Ravenholm, somehow recycled for the start of Episode Two. The, that were to be met in those caves. The, that was also to be met in those caves, recycled into the.
Some mining themes cut from Ravenholm, such as carts, were reused for the area. The AI was recycled for the.
Episode Three. The will most likely be seen or visited, as the ship., the Arctic base where probably sent her message from, might also be visited, possibly under a different name.
Was indeed stationed in Kraken Base in the early storyline. Mods Since the release of the retail game in 2004, many attempts have been made to restore the original storyline by making based on the leaked files. Some mods never went further than rough development stages and some fixes while some are still in development. Also, some players fixed several maps without including them in a full game.
These can be found across the web. One of the most famous mods based on the Beta, and actually the only to have ever been released, though in an unfinished state, is. While originally considered 'illegal content' by Valve, it has since been deemed legal as long as it is distributed for free as a mod and does not use the original source code. The mod's current version includes the E3 2003 presentation and an incomplete chapter. Half-Life 2 demonstrations. Main article: Behind the scenes There is a line i that can be found in the, which was to be said by a security guard in a port of the Hazard Course from the original game. The line is: ' Sorry, sir.
You know I can't let you through here without your good friend Superfly Johnson. Just kidding, Gordon. You go on through. This is a reference to Superfly Johnson character from the video game, best known for his poor pathfinding skills.
He is an ally, and has to follow the player through some levels. If the player reaches a loading point and the character is not with the player, the player character will say: ' I can't leave without my buddy, Superfly!' It also a reference to a line i said by the security guard when Gordon tries to go through a checkpoint without his suit on. The line is: ' Sorry, Mr.
Freeman, I got explicit orders not to let you through without your hazard suit on.' Menu gallery. on the ValveTime.net Forums. ↑. on CNN (October 7, 2003).
on ValveTime.net (October 2, 2003)., page 238. on., page 150.
on Flickr External links Misc. the original thread created by Gabe Newell on the Halflife2.net forums on October 3, 2003. article about Axel Gembe on Eurogamer.
on Rock, Paper, Shotgun Beta footage. on. on.
on. on.
on RuTube Mods based on the development of Half-Life 2. (part of Gabe's Love Tub, released but some works in progress left). (a rebuild of the Source Engine leaked in 2003, archived).
(released) ( ) ( ) ( ) Other official games ( ) ( ) Miscellaneous Development of Half-Life 2.