Half-Life 2 Beta



Half-Life 2 Beta, (or sometimes Half-Life 2 Alpha, for the very early content) is a generic name that refers to the early version of Half-Life 2 before its initial release. It was not to be shown by the public and was leaked by hackers in 2003, making its possession by users somehow illegal content. It was therefore never released, but free mods are available for download or in development.

The most famous mod is Missing Information. It was however considered illegal by VALVe, as based on illegal content, and its production is now halted. The beta content illegal status is now blurry since the final game is now released. Other work-in-progress mods include Half-Life 2 (GabeN) or Project-9.

The book Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar revealed many of the game's original settings and action that were cut down or removed entirely from the final game. Half-Life 2 was originally intended to be a far darker game where the Combine were more obviously draining the oceans for minerals and replacing the atmosphere with noxious, murky gases.

Levels and NPCs seen in the Beta are therefore much darker and sinister than the final product.

The first Beta pictures were shown in Get Your Free TVs!, the very first Half-Life 2 level to be created, in 2001.

Leaked files
The leaked files consisted in a playable game, available in two versions, the "anon" beta and the "russian" beta, very similar to the retail product. Other files consisted in a zip file called the "WC mappack" (WC stands for Wordcraft, the early name for Hammer, the level editor), containing many incomplete VMF maps of very early chapters already cut in the playable game. Note that it is somewhat illegal to redistribute these files, even though users can't be blamed for wanting to see some behind-the-scene material.

Vehicles
The game included a drivable jet ski, which was replaced by the air boat in the final game because of the lack of an Arctic section. Another vehicle to be included was what looked like a large mining device, to be used in Ravenholm.

Friendly Fire
Half-Life 2 originally featured friendly fire, as with Half-Life. Valve found this to be annoying to play testers, as they would often accidentally kill their teammates, so it was cut. Instead, the player's weapon will automatically aim downwards whenever looking at an ally.



Hydra
Promotional shots and gameplay videos released before the game became available showed parts of these scenes, and also showed enemies that do not appear anywhere in the final game, such as the "Hydra," a massive, gelatinous, translucent, neon-blue creature that lived in the sewers. It was planned as a massive bulk far below the city with tentacles that would reach up and spear through enemies, including Combine soldiers. The Hydra was apparently cut because its AI proved troublesome: while impressive when attacking NPCs, it was less interesting, and more frustrating for players to fight, and was also difficult to code.

Other enemies
Other enemies cut from the game included Combine assassins (They were females, very similar in attitude to the Half-Life black ops; they are included in Half-Life 2: Survivor), a newly skinned Bullsquid, Houndeyes, various Synths and Combine Soldiers. Also City Scanners and CPs had new skins. There was also a planned creature called the Cremator who would clean the streets of bodies after a skirmish with a massive acid gun called an Immolator, which would double as an offensive weapon when the Cremator would become an enemy. The Cremator's head would eventually be featured in Eli's lab in Black Mesa East, encased in a jar of formaldehyde, which Eli will make comments about when the player nears the jar and views it saying "We still don't know what that does. Alyx brings in the strangest things".

Original plot and journey


The game was originally intended to be much more diverse in settings (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). Parts of the book Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar detail how Gordon would fight alongside characters such as Odessa Cubbage, albeit under a different name and in a different place, as well as fighting together with Captain Vance - a character that was later merged with Eli to become Doctor Eli Vance - and Vance's forces. Originally, Eli and Alyx Vance had no relation, and Eli's lab was originally intended to resemble a form of scrapyard and town in a cave than a better equipped laboratory within a hydroelectric power station; the scrapyard area where the Gravity Gun tutorial takes place resembles the original concept; being an auxiliary area as opposed to the bulk of the lab. The Citadel also looked very different, it was more round than the bulky Citadel from the final version.

Ravenholm
The E3 video, Traptown, shows that at some point in the game's development it was also possible to shoot any gun while using the HEV suit's zoom function and that the player could discard weapons, indicating they could only carry a specified amount of firearms at a time. Traptown was to be a section of the Ravenholm chapter. It seems to share some similarities with a section from the Ravenholm chapter from the released version of Half-Life 2, mostly the setting of the section. The trailer also showed the ability of Combine Soldiers to break open doors when blocked by props, which was removed before the final release. Also, the beta Ravenholm featured both Combine soldiers and zombies, whereas the final version features only zombies.

Initially a small mining town called Quarrytown, which was more of a puzzle solving section of Half-Life 2, with zombies added as the town's pests. Quarrytown eventually became Ravenholm.

Fate
It remains unknown if most of the cut Half-Life 2 scenes will eventually be completed and released, or if they are lost forever. A removed section of the original Half-Life was eventually released as the Half-Life: Uplink demo; a similar situation was in place with the HDR technology demo, Lost Coast, which was based on a scene that was cut from the sequel. It is possible or even likely that more removed sections of HL2 will be seen in future expansion packs, as Half-Life 2: Episode One didn't contain any of the aforementioned content. There's a possibility that Kraken Base might be in the further episodes of Half-Life 2 because Doctor Judith Mossman is only seen in Episode One on a monitor in the Citadel reporting from an Arctic base, which is replayed in Episode Two and the same place is shown to Gordon as G-man shows him a heart-to-heart. This might mean that Kraken Base (possibly under a different name) is being put back into the storyline. Episode Two includes areas of gameplay based around the "Antlion hive" areas cut from Half-Life 2, and the presence of the cut "Antlion King", now renamed to be an 'Ancient Antlion Guardian'. Episode Two also makes references to the Borealis icebreaker that was cut from Half Life 2, a research vessel revealed to have been created by Aperture Science (which is featured in the Valve game Portal) for some unknown purpose. It is likely that players will explore the Borealis and related Arctic base in Episode Three.

List of demonstrations shown at E3 2003



 * G-Man Emotions
 * Two Source Engine demonstrations
 * Docks
 * Kleiner's Lab
 * Traptown
 * Barricade
 * Bugbait
 * Coastline
 * Strider
 * Tunnels

List of cut E3 Demonstrations
Many E3 demonstrations never made the cut, either. The most popular among users, found in the 2003 leak as unfinished maps, are:


 * Terminal, whose remnants can be found on the HL2 Box Art. It was used in the HL2 Teaser Trailer. The column with a horse statue however made the final cut in the map preceding Gordon's first travel into the Citadel.
 * Industrial, which used an extremely early HL2 concept of child workers.
 * Depot, a map showing parts of the now-nonexistent Wasteland area surrounding the HL2 Depot.

Some other maps, which are very incomplete, are:


 * Strider, which was actually almost complete, with the exception of missing scripts which made it unplayable. Some parts of it were later recycled to use in the Hydra demo. A picture of this can be found around areas like Gamespot [1]. It is also one of the only pictures which shows a group of gasmask citizens, which further suggested the inclusion of Air-Ex, as civilians needed gas masks to properly breathe the intoxicated air. It was also used in the HL2 Teaser Trailer.
 * Sniper, which started as a player running through a ruin-covered street to destroy a sniper. This is also the earliest leaked map to use the sniper.

The preview of Half-Life 2 circulated to E3 and online contained a different version of the scene in which Gordon visits Dr. Kleiner's lab after first meeting Alyx. The preview version contained different dialog between Alyx and Kleiner, a slightly different design for Alyx, and ended with the lab being attacked by Striders, an event that does not occur in the final game.