Half Life 2 Anniversary Archive: E3 2002 Demo

This build reminds me a lot of Dishonored. Asimov really has a style of his own!

Man..

..This is fucking great.

I wish we had beta tech demo builds in steam

Thank you, Valve.

It’s insane seeing a literal Source 1.5 engine

These Half-life beta stuff is straight up nightmare fuel. And I love it.

I know that most of it looks pretty rough, but the lighting still looks so incredible. I think that's what allowed Source to have such a long shelf life.

Some little details I greatly appreciate;
1: the flare the APC fires off when the Antlion Guard attacks it, and the Synth Gunship responding shortly after to kill the Antlion Guard. In terms of immersion, absolutely fantastic, but I can see why that solution to it was ultimately done away with. It wouldn't have been all that fun to deal with that sort of self-contained puzzle- but I can see it's influences on the release version of the game, including Dog pushing over the later incarnation of the APC in the Anticitzen One chapter.
2: the 'playground' design style for several of the levels, including fun little interactions, like that rack of explosive containers that could be shot off at zombies down the corridor. Ravenholme absolutely needed further refinement, but I'm kinda sad that the docks section was trimmed out altogether.
3: That Combine Guard interaction towards the end of the video. That would've been a fantastically frightening experience as an opening chase. Punching through the door cover to look around for the player, followed by kicking the door out of it's frame, was a visual that I think deserved love in the final game.
4: the watchtower fight. While obviously heavily scripted in many respects, it felt like a natural escalation to enter the Beta's version of Nova Prospect, without utilizing the Antlion Pheromone sequence in the final game.
5: the shiny 'ivory tower' vibe of the earlier iteration of the Citadel, contrasted with the more orwellian feel of City 17. The beta art direction had a certain charm to it that didn't survive to the final release, and it makes me a little sad. I personally felt like the final version of the game's art direction lacked a lot, and I think I'll blame the rushed state from Valve's overreaction to leaks back then.

Altogether, this design archeology is immensely fascinating, and I kinda hope Valve puts together something like a 'what if' map pack for all this for the Workshop and let people explore a more fleshed-out version of the Beta, allowing players to explore the older design intent of Half Life 2.

Me sorprende lo bien que se ve este video

Bring back func_vehicle

About darn time!

Man, they showed off games EARLY back then.

One of the most important events in modern entertainment history right here.

Amazing to see the flying alien ship design and ant lions made it into the game we know today.

The time when Source before Source.

So from what i've learned from the documentary: the real reason we won't ever get HL3 is because they think the Borealis would make for a boring corridor shooter set piece.

I mean, yeah, but it'd be literally the only stage like that. Its not like the entire game would be a corridor shooter. That'd be like if i discounted Half Life 2 because I thought the airboat section was boring.

That Gordon console splash looks sick, Deus Ex style

valve and our lord and saviour Gabe Newell may we please have the entire Half-life 2 files from 1999-2003

VALVE REALLY AHEAD OF ITS TIME

This feels genuinely surreal to watch.

This is defo an good of example of the goldsrc to source transition. There it definitely feels like goldsrc but on the final product there was a big difference

Ah, E3. When development studios cared about engaging with fans.

Most PCMR kids were unborn back then...

Офигеть... Про это и рассказывал крипто...

Valve is letting us eat good

Go pound sand

Gabe pleace, make more HL games. You and you company are only one hope in this dark times of videogames indostry.

❤

We need a public demo build

RELEASE THE DEMO PLEASEEEEEEEEEE 😢😢😢

Good Guy Valve! Now where is Half life 3?!?!?!?!?!? WE NEED THE STORY TO FINISH!!!!!!

is nobody gonna talk about how cool the console art looks

What did they do to my poor baby the USP between this and release to make it feel like a pea shooter that shoots actual peas

Does this make anyone else nostalgic for a time when full releases were better than the trailer? Looking at you, killzone 2...

That pistol sound is chunky AF

Woooow

This all feels very HD with 60 FPS. That means one of the devs decided to launch up this build and do some gameplay footage for us.

absolute cinema

Man that pistol sound is so good in the Borealis demo

похоже на любительские карты, т.к. местами нет логики в происходящем

Valve pushing the limits and boundaries once again to deliver on what fans want. Most devs see beta stuff as “scrapped content”, what i, and im sure a lot of others see, is the potential. Its things like this that inspire newbie developers to make the games they want to see in the world. Thank you for the years of innovation valve

a full OFFICIAL demo of the borealis? In this economy??

Didn’t remember that gunships basically had today’s SMG sound for their guns.

I would love to play a full game like this!
Its the Half Life 1 and Half Life 2 actually combined

Watching this demo has made me appreciate the final product we got in the end even more, and I certainly can see why Valve made the changes they did for retail.
However, I am super impressed with the Terminal demo at the end! I'd have loved to have been able to see things like soldiers marching through the streets in the opening chapters of Half-Life 2, or explore a couple of more areas to see life in the city before all the action kicked off.
I get a lot of stuff is cut for pacing reasons, but it would have been nice to have the option of witnessing this stuff by exploring 'off the beaten track', so to speak. (That way, players on second play throughs could bypass it all for speed if they wanted)

Now, my dear normies, imagine if we got that on the 20th anniversary instead of workshop.

Is valve working on half life 2 beta now?