Even though all of this looks so unpolished compared to the final release, it was still absolutely mind-blowing at the time. The lighting, the physics, the models, animations, basically all of it. Amazing stuff.
@@waterbears9874Imagine that you only know graphics as good as GTA San Andreas and then this comes out. It was something like that. Seeing those wet shaders, the physics, that part where Gordon goes up in the tower and he sees all of the map… that was mind blowing back then, no one did it back in the day
In 2002 no less. The only game I can think of that came close to that visual and interactive fidelity at the time was S.T.A.L.K.E.R., also in leaked development builds.
bro tbh i feel this is a well scripted video. I mean the console looks bit genuine, but no way in hell there was a 3.60Ghz cpu in 2002, that physics and water reflections. Surely they could used old assets or maps they had and ran on a modern PC, but i doubt this is a pure video recorded in that era.
pretty sure there were many playable versions of this already released as mods years ago, including recording videos of said mods in high quality, have you been under a rock?
@@psychosis1767 I think GTA 5 has this if you get stuck underneath a car. I suppose the reason most games don't have a system like that is because devs are confident regarding polishing the collisions and what not.
This is genuinely magical. It's literally halfway between Half Life 1 and Half Life 2 (Obviously, but I mean it's right in the middle in terms of feeling and vibe). It's perfect, I'd love to play this.
I would say this is closer to HL2, while 2000 demo was closer to HL1. I would really love to see what the tech was in 2001, and actual PostGoldSrc - PreSource engine
In the documentary they talked about the initial idea of Half-Life but with multiple alien factions (including the Combine and the insects). That's totally the vibe I get from the first demo.
@@somefries3101You're half right half wrong. The right part, is that these "beta weapons" are usually using fanmade assets and bad animations. The wrong part, is that the weapons in the video are actually the most well made, and other beta weapons were not like that.
What a bizarre fusion of HL2 and HL1. I'm so glad they did away with some things, but I also wish they kept others. That big combine dude who punched through the red door was such a sick sequence
Bringus you do have to remember that they did pull out so they may have realised a lot of this wasn’t working and couldn’t be implemented in the September 2003 timeframe
@@BreadCroissantthats the gunship pinging sounds, there are two versions of it, one for idle patrol and the other one for when spotted and engaging the player
both sounds are actually still in use in retail but they are very different(or heavily modified Im not sure) and much more quiet than the early version, you can still hear them just not that intimadating as they were in the early version.
If you check out their documentary, this level went through like two level designers. Neither could get a "good" level out of it. Something to do with the very narrow areas and pathways that they couldn't get around because ship.
@FinanceNinja yeah I watched it thro its entirety, and I agree with them, some people say the beta half life was better, but at the end of the day its just like Gabe says, you gotta know what is fun and what is not. When they talked about the borealis being too much of a small space for combat and gameplay in general, it reminded me of that one segment on nova prospect were you gotta defend yourself in a room with turrets until Alyx comes, it felt like a tower defence and it really wasnt fun, it is still a good part of HL2 because it makes the climax of that area, but looking at the borealis I cant even imagine one entire chapter of just this...
It's like making a good airplane or train level in a fps, pretty difficult due to the layout if you wanna make it somewhat realistic. I suppose they could've just replicated a larger ship or made it a shorter level but somewhere there decided it wasn't working.
you can see the steady evolution from GoldSrc to Source in all 3 demo's. SIGGRAPH was still very much GoldSrc. GoldSrc+ if you will but still very much the same engine as the one from Half Life. This one we can see Source gradually becoming a reality but there is also a lot of legacy stuff from GoldSrc required to get it to work. E3 2003 was Source in all it's glory.
This feels surreal to see, I never expected so much beta material to be shown officially by Valve, it's literally a cathartic almost out of this world religious experience for us obsessive HL2 beta fans. I honestly want more or a release of this build and demo. This has definitely been one of my favorite things that has come out of the 20th anniversary. Thanks Valve!
@@kiki88561 True… but on the other hand, the game’s over twenty years old, and we already have a small portion of the beta content in our hands, so there isn’t as much of a reason to care about what gets shown off anymore.
@@mushroomwitch4765 Who knows what secrets they might have in the build. For all I know they could have a password to one of their offices in them. The point is - there's no reason to release anything, the point isn't that there's no reason NOT to release anything.
Supposedly someone was brought on to do some music and sound design and his style is very intimidating. Airex_reactor was one of his songs and it’s wild.
i just finished watching the gunship segment here. the horrifying sounds and the way the gunship moves since it's still a living thing, really gave me this surreal feeling of being trapped in a horrifying and hopeless alien world.
As someone who used to obsess over Half Life 2 Beta, I know the fanmade recreations of this tech demo on the back of my palm and seeing an official rendition of that and noticing all these details that the community got right and wrong is huge!
also explains why certain details looks kinda off between certain elements like striders being kinda this organic brown look compared to most of everything else the combine fields in the retail release, or why the antlion guard's color scheme is just completely different
I think they must still have this build. It's 1080p 60fps. That wasn't even a thing back then I'm sure. I'm sure i saw in the console at somepoint the cpu was 3.6ghz, that definitely wasn't possible back then.
@@SteveODonnell The only thing I wonder is if this footage was meant for the big screen at e3 before they pulled out, and if that would explain it at all, or if it really is a modern recording.
@@Tony-fx9ky He's probably talking about the 2001 E3 version which finally got leaked too like 1 year back. Anyways, not even current Source engine seems to be able to do this. I mean at least on CS2 they just made the glass breaking a boring effect, which imho is a straight downgrade from HL2/CS:S times. To be honest haven't seen many dynamically breaking windows even to this day in games. I feel like all the development in realism/physics and stuff (which would make the games more immersive) just disappeared after first Crysis - and that was a game released in 2007. Even to this day most game engines can just do really pretty lightning and day to time cycles - they can't do fast reflections or even mirrors without RTX these days, and we don't see any dynamic physics to this degree, that you could even interact without it being just a scripted sequence. Yeah everything has ragdolls and the like, but no exploding environment stuff that they really tried to implement 20 years ago. Now I'm actually suprised if I can do anything else than break a simple window in todays games.
Some details compared to the 2003 leak build: the hl1 viewbob and camera bob is present the grass textures are different the gunship uses the unused sounds left in the leak the gunship uses a different texture the antlion guard doesnt have a specular texture and uses different textures the ar2 can shoot grenades the ar2 uses an unused reload animation the ar2 has a specular texture which is left unused in the .vmts for the ar2 textures the shadows dont fade depending on the shadow length compared to the 2003 engine the antlion guard punching animation is faster the gunship has slightly different animations the citizen walking animations are different the striders use different animations the combine soldiers have their own footstep sound (which reuses the physics sound for ragdolls) the weapons drop like in hl1 and have no physics like in hl1 the antlions dont have an unburrow animation the concrete footsteps use the hl1 pl_step1-2-3-4 rather than the 2003 concrete1-2-3-4 sounds can pitch bend in this build the doors make different sounds the pistol has faster firing speed the WON menu is obviously used the ar2 muzzleflash uses the ar2 muzzleflash which is left unused in the files of retail and 2003 leak fire leaves smoke the cloud texture is different the explosion sounds are different the footsteps for dirt are using softshoegeneric1-2-3 sounds left unused in the leak the ar2 uses the npc reloading sound the physics are laggier once in demo playback the gunship can only fire gunship fires the cannon twice at the same time the shotgun viewmodel uses the higher poly hev hands like the leaked bugbait viewmodel the concrete floor textures are slightly different soundcapes dont fade out and instantly cut to another soundscape the glass flecks arent dependent on the lighting ambient the glass break sounds are using their hl1 counterpart (in the leak files, a lot of hl1 sounds are left unused but some were overwritten with 2003 sounds, the glass break sounds were one of those sounds that were overwritten compared to other sounds, which once replaced, were changed to completely different directories rather than overwriting the old ones) the lense shaders ignore props the combine soldiers have death sounds that arent present in the leak the metal textures at 24:49 are different the explosion is completely different the dsp effects are identical to hl1, especially the reverb after loading a new map in console all of the bullet impact sounds on materials are different, sounds not present in the leak the borealis barrels use a different, rusty texture the red overlay once damaged isnt present the blood textures at the antlion tossing the combine ragdoll around part at the beginning of the video are a brighter red the strider and strider gun use different sounds the gunship dies from only 2 ar2 grenades, so it has lower health than the leak counterpart or the ar2 grenades deal more damage than their leak counterpart the shotgun has more force the shotgun reloading speed is faster the shotgun reload sounds are different the antlion flying animations are different the ar2 viewmodel doesnt have 1 additional firing animation compared to the leak model the fence models are different the combine soldiers have different behavior the gunship has slightly slower firing speed all of the weapons deal more damage in general compared to the 2003 build the blood particles once getting shot are less detailed compared to the leak build the bullet impact particles are less detailed bullet impacts on metal material brushes make ricochet sounds water uses a different texture the guard cannon has unfinished shaders once a weapon's ammo is depleted, it doesnt switch to the next weapon the shadows are sharper some of the prop models are slightly different the gunship takes a lot longer to fall and leaves a scorch mark on impact the ar2 doesnt recoil as much as the 2003 counterpart zombies have a headcrab unlatch animation, seen at 25:36 and 16:38 the bullet impacts on ragdolls and the player use hl1 sounds the ar2 grenades can damage the gunship and striders unlike the 2003 build the smg1 sounds are different the dust particles texture is different or using slightly different code the gunship uses the normal muzzleflash and bullet textures the flare uses a different texture the muzzleflash lights (also flashlight) are much sharper the lever sounds use hl1 lever sounds the concrete impact sounds are different the antlion burrow texture is different the muzzleflash light has more range the antlions have faster attack animations the metal textures are different wires have different physics the combine soldiers have different running animations the gunpickup2 sound is different the wooden planks use a different texture the hl1 blood textures are used the ladder textures and sounds are different the metal footstep sounds are different the shotgun reload sounds are different the pistol sounds are different props and ragdolls have less weight the stalker lasers have slightly different effects the SLAM uses hl1 satchel physics once dropped the combine soldiers use a different model and textures the antlions use different textures the zombies use a different model the headcrabs use a different texture the ambience is different the strider gun effects are less detailed inverse kinematics are not present in this build the button textures are different the ravenholm sky texture is completely different the barrels use different textures compared to 2003 some of the posters use different textures the windows have different textures the build is version 2034 and the compile date is may 20, 2002
at 3:36 i can see why they would get rid of this, not only would you be dealing with a ship shooting at you but you would also have to deal with a endless swarm of antlions
@@drifter402 Even without, that section was waaaaay too difficult. Even in the finished product when they split it into like three different engagements, each of them are still very hard!
So many ideas that weren't so much cut as reinterpreted elsewhere like battling the airship in the lighthouse and the "cat and mouse" aspect of the antlion guard. Still a pretty darn cool cut level! No wonder people have always been so obsessed with trying to recreate this stuff.
Lighthouse and adjacent areas is basically end of highway 17, then sandtraps and nova prospect in retail. Quite interesting to see how they re-interpreted this demo map in retail version.
It's always fun to see what could have been. The Half Life series is like a goldmine for that sort of 'what if' with the cookie crumbs we've gotten over the years.
6:25 - This gunship sound has been reused as a recognisable ambient sound in the official HL2, especially during the Entanglement and Anticitizen One chapters
"Valve makes games, so they must be pro-gamers, right? Just like how since game journalists write about games, they must be pro-gamers too, right? Since they all work with games, they must have gotten the job because they're good at games!" -A child (with a child's understanding of how the games industry works)
18:06 People hated on the Strider in HLA for not being authentic enough when in reality the HLA Strider's Warp Cannon effects and sounds were more or less directly inspired from this era of HL2's development.
HL2 back in the day blew our minds with physics story ... game play .. and just everything else .. and TBH nothing has captured that excitement as much since .... and 20 yrs later HL2 has remained a constant companion on my hard drive throughout the years .
I love that the original "sand bad" was just the combine getting absolutely destroyed by those antlions. Half expected the guard to just appear and punt the ragdoll out of the map like a football player.
the demo build is probably still around because the gameplay looks recent because it's 1080p 60fps and the console shows that the CPU clock speed is 3.6GHz and in 2002 no CPU was that powerful
It's insane how amazing this game looks even for 2002. Especially that unused boat section with the exterior shot at 10:26 and those reflective surfaces at 15:25 .
It is amazing, that one of the screenshots on my bootleg HL2 DVD-Case is from exactly this moment: 20:13 20 years I asked myself - where did they get it from? It's not in the game!
Finally finished this video and I'm so glad the general public has now gotten to experience some of the HL2 beta. I played every map a few months ago and it's really magical to see the evolution of these maps. For example, there are even earlier ravenholm maps than this video shows, and you can see how some sections of those maps survived all the changes and are even in the retail game.
@@quaker2636 Funny how seemingly the earliest concept of Half Life 2 ended up being one of the concepts that we are still waiting for almost 25 years later.
it's interesting watching it here because you can see ALL the little features in Valve's in house engine that the leak was missing and that subsequent remasters miss. Cool stuff!
I can see why they decided to wait another year. While it certainly would have impressed people, it wouldn't have been _blowing your mind_ impressive. Various parts were clearly not ready yet, either. But holy damn am I glad we get to see this now. There is _so much cool alpha stuff_ in here!
The jump from where we were in the days of HL1 to when the leak happened was insane. I remember getting a copy of the leak and just being flabbergasted. Its almost indescribable the feeling we had when witnessing HL2 for the first time. Then it happened again with the episodes and then with the release of alyx. I'm very hopeful for the HL universe given the attention that is being shown. Thanks to all of the community that stuck around. Here's to another 20 years!
Wow the hydra animations are incredible, I don’t think those were shown in movement too, this is such a great moment, finally seeing what those legendary demos actually are like.
Fascinating archive demo, love to see the early days of Half Life! Not all companies are willing to share such early demos to the public, and as a game developer myself, I find them extremely fascinating to analyze.
This is a really fascinating tech demo. So many different concepts on show. The texture work also looks much higher quality than the final game at points. They must have had to pare it back to get it to run on the hardware of the time
I love how textures are drawn on it. Simple, basic stuff but beautiful! Vertex lights with little things applied into mesh. Cool. Best times for graphics in gaming industry. :D
The Combine soldiers at 8:49 seem to still be using some HECU animations and voices. One of the most fascinating things about the HL2 beta is how transitional it all is, it's right between HL2 and the original Half Life.
What's interesting, dynamic shadows look pixel perfect and very-very sharp, unlike release ones. Like they were stencil-based on some stage of development. A small detail that involves certain appearance.
@@tumble8323 no. Lightmaps are responsible for the lighting that never moves (well, there are still some tricks). I am writing about entities shadows, such as zombies and headcrabs. They are pixel perfect, have no soft edges and dynamic by nature. These couldn't be produced by lightmaps by any means.
@@Capewearer Those shadows are not dynamic they react to only 1 lightsource and i think it might use some sort of decal-based code. I played HL2 on fx5200 (which supports Dx9 but i never managed to make hl2 run on Dx9) and still got those pixel-perfect clean shadows. Game ran on Dx8 so there were no other dynamic lighting. Even flashlight created no shadows whatsoever.
Good call holding off on showing this. While a lot of the elements of what would be in the final game are there it's super rough and you can see how much revision went into the assets between this and even the 2003 demo. Fascinating to see after all this time however.
26:22 ok the sound design here kinda blew me away, I've heard that sound so many times but used in this context it's so great, pitched up and sped up like that it fits the small "rollers" perfectly
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
Even though all of this looks so unpolished compared to the final release, it was still absolutely mind-blowing at the time. The lighting, the physics, the models, animations, basically all of it. Amazing stuff.
really wish i couldve known what it was like when this was as good as games got on a graphical level
@@waterbears9874 the emphasis is on the gameplay. go back and play the classics of this time and you can feel it
@@waterbears9874Imagine that you only know graphics as good as GTA San Andreas and then this comes out. It was something like that. Seeing those wet shaders, the physics, that part where Gordon goes up in the tower and he sees all of the map… that was mind blowing back then, no one did it back in the day
In 2002 no less. The only game I can think of that came close to that visual and interactive fidelity at the time was S.T.A.L.K.E.R., also in leaked development builds.
bro tbh i feel this is a well scripted video. I mean the console looks bit genuine, but no way in hell there was a 3.60Ghz cpu in 2002, that physics and water reflections. Surely they could used old assets or maps they had and ran on a modern PC, but i doubt this is a pure video recorded in that era.
20:03 after ages, finally im seeing this moment in 1080p god thank you
Not just 1080p, 1080p and 60 FPS
@@splintergectornathan9045 Not just 1080p60, but actually 1200p60
pretty sure there were many playable versions of this already released as mods years ago, including recording videos of said mods in high quality, have you been under a rock?
half life 2 beta fans eating good today
FR
thank you roman
And Episode 3 too, the disclosed footage in the documentary is insane!
о, помню твои видео)
ello nfrkz bangerz
10:27 thats sick for 2002, looks amazing even today
yeah, why they didn’t just showcase this… It would’ve blown everyone’s mind back then
@@artun42 gabe thought it was boring
@@artun42 I think it might be saving story in HL3 idk too
@@BreadCroissant there will be no HL3 ever, get real already
Lmao bad timing@@4g3nt69
Love the subtle noclipping at 4:40
You love accidentally noclipping?
so I wasnt hallucinating haha
Phah, yeah, it looks like the player got stuck and used noclip bind to unstuck themselves.
Postal 2 has a detection system for getting stuck and also teleports you back. I wonder why other games haven't done that as a failsafe?
@@psychosis1767 I think GTA 5 has this if you get stuck underneath a car. I suppose the reason most games don't have a system like that is because devs are confident regarding polishing the collisions and what not.
14:38 that combine was like "Maybe if run away and then walk back in casually he'll leave me alone"
Then he was blown up, bad day to be him I guess.
Main Yoru present
This is genuinely magical. It's literally halfway between Half Life 1 and Half Life 2 (Obviously, but I mean it's right in the middle in terms of feeling and vibe). It's perfect, I'd love to play this.
I would say this is closer to HL2, while 2000 demo was closer to HL1. I would really love to see what the tech was in 2001, and actual PostGoldSrc - PreSource engine
In the documentary they talked about the initial idea of Half-Life but with multiple alien factions (including the Combine and the insects). That's totally the vibe I get from the first demo.
I can't understand how the guns here actually look great compared to these beta HL2 weapons addons for gmod
@@somefries3101You're half right half wrong. The right part, is that these "beta weapons" are usually using fanmade assets and bad animations. The wrong part, is that the weapons in the video are actually the most well made, and other beta weapons were not like that.
@pr3ssstart makes sense
What a bizarre fusion of HL2 and HL1. I'm so glad they did away with some things, but I also wish they kept others. That big combine dude who punched through the red door was such a sick sequence
Nice seeing you here man
Bringus you do have to remember that they did pull out so they may have realised a lot of this wasn’t working and couldn’t be implemented in the September 2003 timeframe
hi bringus
Dude I love your videos
Seeing these very HECU-like Combine soldiers ragdoll just like the retail ones feels so jarring
7:13 I am enlightened to see that ladders are still shit during that build
I was looking for this comment. I had to scoff at that like "Good old HL ladders".
I've died more times to ladder fuckery than to actual enemies
press interact to mount and dismount ladders in source, idk why no one knows this
@@some-replies I feel like this wasn't a thing originally.
@@abcpea It was. Half life 1 hazard course taught you. People have been complaining about ladders for 25 years and never read the instructions
10:40 So THAT'S where sky_borealis01 got into the skybox list for Half-Life 2 for all these years.
one of the prettiest and most calming imo, next to the final map of hwy17 with the lighthouse battle
too bad it has no hdr
@@viannizvnv7222 someone already modded HDR for it tho
6:53 the sound design is just brutal! poor cyborg creature.
the fact the combine overtake planets to turn their species into soldiers against their will is so overlooked
4:00 11:40 that gunship alarm is new and so scary too
@@BreadCroissantthats the gunship pinging sounds, there are two versions of it, one for idle patrol and the other one for when spotted and engaging the player
both sounds are actually still in use in retail but they are very different(or heavily modified Im not sure) and much more quiet than the early version, you can still hear them just not that intimadating as they were in the early version.
Am i tripping or it is heavily distorted sound from flapjack?
To see this in such high quality and framerate and posted by Valve itself feels so surreal
Interesting to see HL1 sound effects and viewmodel bob this late in development
I guess 2003 was when Source sound effects began to come into play
The game really only came together in the last 365 days
well it saves lots of money and resources to use assets you already have to plan out the thing you actually want
I highly doubt this was late in development
and sprites and DSP
Oh God the Borealis was THIS detailed before being scrapped
If you check out their documentary, this level went through like two level designers. Neither could get a "good" level out of it. Something to do with the very narrow areas and pathways that they couldn't get around because ship.
@FinanceNinja yeah I watched it thro its entirety, and I agree with them, some people say the beta half life was better, but at the end of the day its just like Gabe says, you gotta know what is fun and what is not. When they talked about the borealis being too much of a small space for combat and gameplay in general, it reminded me of that one segment on nova prospect were you gotta defend yourself in a room with turrets until Alyx comes, it felt like a tower defence and it really wasnt fun, it is still a good part of HL2 because it makes the climax of that area, but looking at the borealis I cant even imagine one entire chapter of just this...
It's like making a good airplane or train level in a fps, pretty difficult due to the layout if you wanna make it somewhat realistic. I suppose they could've just replicated a larger ship or made it a shorter level but somewhere there decided it wasn't working.
Borealis could work well in Alyx or more hlvr tbh
@@FinanceNinja I guess they were right to cut it out. Ship levels suck in most of the games. Only stealth like in Splinter Cell worked for me.
You can tell that they were in a transition phase between GoldSrc and Source. It's so weird seeing it like that though.
you can see the steady evolution from GoldSrc to Source in all 3 demo's.
SIGGRAPH was still very much GoldSrc. GoldSrc+ if you will but still very much the same engine as the one from Half Life. This one we can see Source gradually becoming a reality but there is also a lot of legacy stuff from GoldSrc required to get it to work. E3 2003 was Source in all it's glory.
This feels surreal to see, I never expected so much beta material to be shown officially by Valve, it's literally a cathartic almost out of this world religious experience for us obsessive HL2 beta fans. I honestly want more or a release of this build and demo. This has definitely been one of my favorite things that has come out of the 20th anniversary. Thanks Valve!
Have same feeling catharsis wow before you even post the comment it's insane
Yeah I also hope they actually release this builds.
@@Maxine07 No chance they'll do anything of the sort... we can just hope for more leaks.
@@kiki88561 True… but on the other hand, the game’s over twenty years old, and we already have a small portion of the beta content in our hands, so there isn’t as much of a reason to care about what gets shown off anymore.
@@mushroomwitch4765 Who knows what secrets they might have in the build. For all I know they could have a password to one of their offices in them. The point is - there's no reason to release anything, the point isn't that there's no reason NOT to release anything.
23:39 Okay, this scene, ROCKS! I wish we had this kind of scene in the retail version.
Made me jump
We need a public demo build
They are leaked tho
@@Dogy7764no the beta was 2003
HIGHLY doubt these were playable in the first place
@@aplsed they have say that is imposible to play it (sorry for the shitty english i speak Spanish)
@@AlgunDown Yeah, even if we could play it too. Alot of the events and stuff looks scripted for showcasing instead of gameplay
Jesus christ the droning noise of the old dropship is intimidating. It sounds less like a bio-machine and more like an apex predator.
Supposedly someone was brought on to do some music and sound design and his style is very intimidating. Airex_reactor was one of his songs and it’s wild.
The gunship was also horrifying
i just finished watching the gunship segment here. the horrifying sounds and the way the gunship moves since it's still a living thing, really gave me this surreal feeling of being trapped in a horrifying and hopeless alien world.
@@nilssonschmillson5395 This is not true. Kelly Bailey was HL's sole sound designer and composer until he left after doing Portal with Mike Morasky.
Where’s the dropship? I see the gunship but haven’t seen the drop ship yet
As someone who used to obsess over Half Life 2 Beta, I know the fanmade recreations of this tech demo on the back of my palm and seeing an official rendition of that and noticing all these details that the community got right and wrong is huge!
also explains why certain details looks kinda off between certain elements like striders being kinda this organic brown look compared to most of everything else the combine fields in the retail release, or why the antlion guard's color scheme is just completely different
2013 me: Valve my favorite company.
2024 me: Valve favorite company of my childhood.
Somehow as long as Gaben is in charge, it probably will always be. :D
STILLS US THE FAVOURITE COMPANY 🥹💗🔥‼️
cmon, dont be a soy fanboy. Valve is garbarge rn. Its just fan service rn
Does nothing and communicates nothing for years in a row.
Competition shoots themselves in the foot every year.
"Guys, what's this strategy called?"
Same!
For something in 2002 this looks amazing
I think they must still have this build. It's 1080p 60fps. That wasn't even a thing back then I'm sure. I'm sure i saw in the console at somepoint the cpu was 3.6ghz, that definitely wasn't possible back then.
@@SteveODonnell The only thing I wonder is if this footage was meant for the big screen at e3 before they pulled out, and if that would explain it at all, or if it really is a modern recording.
Some moment felt like all this was pre recorded demoing, especially the half framerates for certain physics objects@@SteveODonnell
I keep having to mentally time travel back, remember the window this came from -and man are you right
@@SteveODonnell lol ofccourse its modern recordiing
9:55 bro casualy destroyed Kleiner's lab
here's johnyyyy
FREEMAN YOU FOOL!
Kleiner: Gordon you lousy mf
а это тут причем @@кейонник4242
sad that they removed this with the gas bottles
6:32 for glass to be breaking "dynamically" like that in 2002 is already a major achivement.
Duke Nukem Forever already had glass like that in 2001. Either way, this doesn't make it any less impressive. This looks amazing for 2002.
@@playerdoestheinternetDuke Nukem Forever was released in 2011...😮
@@Tony-fx9ky He's probably talking about the 2001 E3 version which finally got leaked too like 1 year back.
Anyways, not even current Source engine seems to be able to do this. I mean at least on CS2 they just made the glass breaking a boring effect, which imho is a straight downgrade from HL2/CS:S times. To be honest haven't seen many dynamically breaking windows even to this day in games. I feel like all the development in realism/physics and stuff (which would make the games more immersive) just disappeared after first Crysis - and that was a game released in 2007.
Even to this day most game engines can just do really pretty lightning and day to time cycles - they can't do fast reflections or even mirrors without RTX these days, and we don't see any dynamic physics to this degree, that you could even interact without it being just a scripted sequence. Yeah everything has ragdolls and the like, but no exploding environment stuff that they really tried to implement 20 years ago. Now I'm actually suprised if I can do anything else than break a simple window in todays games.
@@Tony-fx9ky and the game was in development since 1998 😯
@@Kankipappa dynamic glass was in Max Payne 3, game itself looks amazing even today.
Some details compared to the 2003 leak build:
the hl1 viewbob and camera bob is present
the grass textures are different
the gunship uses the unused sounds left in the leak
the gunship uses a different texture
the antlion guard doesnt have a specular texture and uses different textures
the ar2 can shoot grenades
the ar2 uses an unused reload animation
the ar2 has a specular texture which is left unused in the .vmts for the ar2 textures
the shadows dont fade depending on the shadow length compared to the 2003 engine
the antlion guard punching animation is faster
the gunship has slightly different animations
the citizen walking animations are different
the striders use different animations
the combine soldiers have their own footstep sound (which reuses the physics sound for ragdolls)
the weapons drop like in hl1 and have no physics like in hl1
the antlions dont have an unburrow animation
the concrete footsteps use the hl1 pl_step1-2-3-4 rather than the 2003 concrete1-2-3-4
sounds can pitch bend in this build
the doors make different sounds
the pistol has faster firing speed
the WON menu is obviously used
the ar2 muzzleflash uses the ar2 muzzleflash which is left unused in the files of retail and 2003 leak
fire leaves smoke
the cloud texture is different
the explosion sounds are different
the footsteps for dirt are using softshoegeneric1-2-3 sounds left unused in the leak
the ar2 uses the npc reloading sound
the physics are laggier once in demo playback
the gunship can only fire
gunship fires the cannon twice at the same time
the shotgun viewmodel uses the higher poly hev hands like the leaked bugbait viewmodel
the concrete floor textures are slightly different
soundcapes dont fade out and instantly cut to another soundscape
the glass flecks arent dependent on the lighting ambient
the glass break sounds are using their hl1 counterpart (in the leak files, a lot of hl1 sounds are left unused but some were overwritten with 2003 sounds, the glass break sounds were one of those sounds that were overwritten compared to other sounds, which once replaced, were changed to completely different directories rather than overwriting the old ones)
the lense shaders ignore props
the combine soldiers have death sounds that arent present in the leak
the metal textures at 24:49 are different
the explosion is completely different
the dsp effects are identical to hl1, especially the reverb after loading a new map in console
all of the bullet impact sounds on materials are different, sounds not present in the leak
the borealis barrels use a different, rusty texture
the red overlay once damaged isnt present
the blood textures at the antlion tossing the combine ragdoll around part at the beginning of the video are a brighter red
the strider and strider gun use different sounds
the gunship dies from only 2 ar2 grenades, so it has lower health than the leak counterpart or the ar2 grenades deal more damage than their leak counterpart
the shotgun has more force
the shotgun reloading speed is faster
the shotgun reload sounds are different
the antlion flying animations are different
the ar2 viewmodel doesnt have 1 additional firing animation compared to the leak model
the fence models are different
the combine soldiers have different behavior
the gunship has slightly slower firing speed
all of the weapons deal more damage in general compared to the 2003 build
the blood particles once getting shot are less detailed compared to the leak build
the bullet impact particles are less detailed
bullet impacts on metal material brushes make ricochet sounds
water uses a different texture
the guard cannon has unfinished shaders
once a weapon's ammo is depleted, it doesnt switch to the next weapon
the shadows are sharper
some of the prop models are slightly different
the gunship takes a lot longer to fall and leaves a scorch mark on impact
the ar2 doesnt recoil as much as the 2003 counterpart
zombies have a headcrab unlatch animation, seen at 25:36 and 16:38
the bullet impacts on ragdolls and the player use hl1 sounds
the ar2 grenades can damage the gunship and striders unlike the 2003 build
the smg1 sounds are different
the dust particles texture is different or using slightly different code
the gunship uses the normal muzzleflash and bullet textures
the flare uses a different texture
the muzzleflash lights (also flashlight) are much sharper
the lever sounds use hl1 lever sounds
the concrete impact sounds are different
the antlion burrow texture is different
the muzzleflash light has more range
the antlions have faster attack animations
the metal textures are different
wires have different physics
the combine soldiers have different running animations
the gunpickup2 sound is different
the wooden planks use a different texture
the hl1 blood textures are used
the ladder textures and sounds are different
the metal footstep sounds are different
the shotgun reload sounds are different
the pistol sounds are different
props and ragdolls have less weight
the stalker lasers have slightly different effects
the SLAM uses hl1 satchel physics once dropped
the combine soldiers use a different model and textures
the antlions use different textures
the zombies use a different model
the headcrabs use a different texture
the ambience is different
the strider gun effects are less detailed
inverse kinematics are not present in this build
the button textures are different
the ravenholm sky texture is completely different
the barrels use different textures compared to 2003
some of the posters use different textures
the windows have different textures
the build is version 2034 and the compile date is may 20, 2002
bro LMFAO
A day before my birthday, may 21st.
Thank you for this list! Good info to have for reconstructing this version.
This feels like a Garry's mod update log that sounds like a lot but doesn't add shit to your game
Even the demo was ahead of its time.
This is why Valve is known for being chill
what
@@vivious_they arent greedy like ea or nintendo
@@Koptevoiexactly they support their community unlike Nintendo or other companies
Corporations are not your friends, not even valve software
@@Koptevoi thats not what he said, and that is not true
The more animalistic noises of the Combine Gunship and it's different engine noise are 👌
The gunship crashing is pretty cool too
And the fact that it acts hurt before crashing too! Eery to see it flinch before going down.
The engine noise is still used in the final game as an ambient sound effect for what are supposed to be distant gunships.
at 3:36 i can see why they would get rid of this, not only would you be dealing with a ship shooting at you but you would also have to deal with a endless swarm of antlions
In hindsight I can see why they weren't too into this at the time since we have the completed game to compare it to.
@@drifter402 Even without, that section was waaaaay too difficult. Even in the finished product when they split it into like three different engagements, each of them are still very hard!
So many ideas that weren't so much cut as reinterpreted elsewhere like battling the airship in the lighthouse and the "cat and mouse" aspect of the antlion guard. Still a pretty darn cool cut level! No wonder people have always been so obsessed with trying to recreate this stuff.
Lighthouse and adjacent areas is basically end of highway 17, then sandtraps and nova prospect in retail. Quite interesting to see how they re-interpreted this demo map in retail version.
It's always fun to see what could have been. The Half Life series is like a goldmine for that sort of 'what if' with the cookie crumbs we've gotten over the years.
that part with the guard breaking the window and sticking his head through was really cool.
It's sad how it replaced combine elite soldier
@@BreadCroissantthey should have added both
Half life 2 demo is so different then what we got now.
23:03 the original wolfenstein March
10:30 WHAT?? IN 2002? Bro these guys werent cooking they were burning the entire source engine! That lighting is so better than these years game's.
6:25 - This gunship sound has been reused as a recognisable ambient sound in the official HL2, especially during the Entanglement and Anticitizen One chapters
a-aren't you gabe's son? >.
the game is surprisingly detailed for being a demo
Seeing the Original OICW in such high quality is just a dream come true
THANK YOU VALVE, THIS ISN'T LOST MEDIA NO MORE, REALLY THANKS VALVE!
11:14 accuracy gives out this was recorded by IGN
the camera movement seems very slow throught the whole video. maybe the sensitivity was fucked up in that build or something?
@@EpicGamer-fl7fn I think it was to prevent visual tear from jittering the camera too much
@@EpicGamer-fl7fn this is literally how it is in every game presentation before modern e3
Охуеть, не ожидал увидеть тут тебя
"Valve makes games, so they must be pro-gamers, right? Just like how since game journalists write about games, they must be pro-gamers too, right? Since they all work with games, they must have gotten the job because they're good at games!" -A child (with a child's understanding of how the games industry works)
18:06 People hated on the Strider in HLA for not being authentic enough when in reality the HLA Strider's Warp Cannon effects and sounds were more or less directly inspired from this era of HL2's development.
THANK YOU VALVE!!!!
HL2 back in the day blew our minds with physics story ... game play .. and just everything else .. and TBH
nothing has captured that excitement as much since .... and 20 yrs later HL2 has remained a constant
companion on my hard drive throughout the years .
Time to get an SSD bro.
I love that the original "sand bad" was just the combine getting absolutely destroyed by those antlions. Half expected the guard to just appear and punt the ragdoll out of the map like a football player.
the demo build is probably still around because the gameplay looks recent because it's 1080p 60fps and the console shows that the CPU clock speed is 3.6GHz and in 2002 no CPU was that powerful
Definitely, you can tell that at the time the demo was made this was running at 10-15 fps based on the physic objects.
@@golarac6433 demo playback have lower tickrate so the physics itself lags out.
i dunno i could imagine Valve had overclocked 3.6 GHZ CPU in 2002...maybe even just single core.
It's insane how amazing this game looks even for 2002. Especially that unused boat section with the exterior shot at 10:26 and those reflective surfaces at 15:25 .
It is amazing, that one of the screenshots on my bootleg HL2 DVD-Case is from exactly this moment: 20:13
20 years I asked myself - where did they get it from? It's not in the game!
That moment was featured in a lot of advertising for the game
It’s on the actual official case too
I like how antlions look like smaller antlion guards because of their orange color, really makes it look so that they're the same species
can't believe they just casually dropped this
21:58
Heeeeey, it's that strange metallic sound from Citadel pod travel section! I knew that!
Finally finished this video and I'm so glad the general public has now gotten to experience some of the HL2 beta. I played every map a few months ago and it's really magical to see the evolution of these maps. For example, there are even earlier ravenholm maps than this video shows, and you can see how some sections of those maps survived all the changes and are even in the retail game.
10:27 Wait is that "Borealis"? From Half-Life: Episode 2? I suspect it wasn't him but the ship segment was awesome in the demo.
Yes, it was called Hyperborea and was later scrapped and then reused for Ep2 and 3 as a way to connect Portal to Half-Life
Borealis wasnt created during EP 2. It was going to be an actual important thing in the HL2 Beta
Borealis was a thing waaaay from the beginning of HL2's development, at an early point it was even where the game was gonna start.
@@quaker2636 Funny how seemingly the earliest concept of Half Life 2 ended up being one of the concepts that we are still waiting for almost 25 years later.
@@quickstergamestutorialsgam3899 great point hahah. Let's hope we won't have to wait another 20 years...
it's interesting watching it here because you can see ALL the little features in Valve's in house engine that the leak was missing and that subsequent remasters miss. Cool stuff!
A mix of GoldSrc and Source looks so surreal. Like a glimpse into an alternate timeline. AWESOME
I NEVER expected This to come out as a demo video of HL2 Beta for 20th anniversary
I can see why they decided to wait another year. While it certainly would have impressed people, it wouldn't have been _blowing your mind_ impressive. Various parts were clearly not ready yet, either.
But holy damn am I glad we get to see this now. There is _so much cool alpha stuff_ in here!
1:05 poor combine soldier inside the vehicle .
Hes fineeee
Sounds more like a conscript to me
NO! No! NOO!
@@haanbogii7778 I thought he was asking for "Help"
Thank you for Half-Life, Valve.
Thank you Valve Half Life
Valve you for Thank Life, Half.
Valve-Life you for Half, Thank.
Yes thanks for Half Life. Like many here, I don't complete games and play most for like 6 minutes, so the story not being completed doesn't matter.
@@gamerxt333 ????
The jump from where we were in the days of HL1 to when the leak happened was insane. I remember getting a copy of the leak and just being flabbergasted. Its almost indescribable the feeling we had when witnessing HL2 for the first time. Then it happened again with the episodes and then with the release of alyx. I'm very hopeful for the HL universe given the attention that is being shown. Thanks to all of the community that stuck around. Here's to another 20 years!
It's amazing how good this looked in 2002 but even more amazing how much better it got at release
Wow, at 25 minutes in I hear Portal 1's ambience and right before that the portal gun's sound. I never saw this beta footage before. Absolute treat!
Timestamp?
That ambience is in retail HL2 Ravenholm, and Portal 1 shares it
tone_alley or something
Once again, this is absolutely stunning. Thanks for sharing this footage too
Wow the hydra animations are incredible, I don’t think those were shown in movement too, this is such a great moment, finally seeing what those legendary demos actually are like.
24:00 "Here's what you won't get on your 486..."
The shiny reflective citadel looks gorgeous, almost looks like something out of Halo.
Fascinating archive demo, love to see the early days of Half Life!
Not all companies are willing to share such early demos to the public, and as a game developer myself, I find them extremely fascinating to analyze.
That gunship synth is actually amazing! Horrifying even! Someone needs to mod that into HL2 and Gmod!
I love the scale of the first map. Thank you for sharing this with fans!
First the Halo 2 E3 Demo, now we get high quality Half Life 2 demo videos!?
This is amazing.
21:13 Damn Dr. Breen had some swag back in 2002.
Love me some chrome citadel.
This is a really fascinating tech demo. So many different concepts on show. The texture work also looks much higher quality than the final game at points. They must have had to pare it back to get it to run on the hardware of the time
Out of curiosity like where?
@@earthwormjim91Like...everywhere? What do you mean?
Never in my life did i ever expect to see e3 2002 demo videos..
Valve has blessed us
the funniest part is that you can play it
Thanks for the extra content on my favorite game series on my birthday! ❤
Amazing Valve kept this footage for all these years. Thank you!
bro that part with the combine guard punching through the door was awesome 😭
i like the sound of the gunship in this demo better. it’s more ominous.
I love how textures are drawn on it. Simple, basic stuff but beautiful! Vertex lights with little things applied into mesh. Cool. Best times for graphics in gaming industry. :D
Would love to play this. Thank you so much for releasing this look ❤
Man the pistol sound effect went hard in 2002 16:00 Love that
Seeing combine soldiers with the hl1 AI and movement is so funny
The Combine soldiers at 8:49 seem to still be using some HECU animations and voices. One of the most fascinating things about the HL2 beta is how transitional it all is, it's right between HL2 and the original Half Life.
What's interesting, dynamic shadows look pixel perfect and very-very sharp, unlike release ones. Like they were stencil-based on some stage of development. A small detail that involves certain appearance.
Splinter cell moment KEK
the lightmaps were probably just set to a higher resolution by the mapper
@@tumble8323 no. Lightmaps are responsible for the lighting that never moves (well, there are still some tricks). I am writing about entities shadows, such as zombies and headcrabs. They are pixel perfect, have no soft edges and dynamic by nature. These couldn't be produced by lightmaps by any means.
@@Capewearer Those shadows are not dynamic they react to only 1 lightsource and i think it might use some sort of decal-based code.
I played HL2 on fx5200 (which supports Dx9 but i never managed to make hl2 run on Dx9) and still got those pixel-perfect clean shadows. Game ran on Dx8 so there were no other dynamic lighting. Even flashlight created no shadows whatsoever.
@@lFoxtrotlit didn't do it until source 2007, 2004 release didn't have flashlight shadows
You may find yourself loving half Life again.
I know yall don't like looking back, but jesus sometimes you should. This is amazing.
What do you mean we all don't like looking back? Sounds a bit vague
@@vlado544 im talking bout valve
It's so weird seeing that old HL1 WON style console. I'm so used to it using Steam's GUI.
2003 GoldSource and Source replace Steam GUI, was launched Steam. 1997-2002 still old console version build (Quake engine + HL1 engine)
@deliivanov4779 I remember. It's just surreal to see it being used in an early Source engine build.
20:45 HD cheaple is real
Also travis citizen
It looks like Samuel is in the back of the line
@@lhats3027 it is, but we've already got his model so don't really care too much
3:35 oh shoot it's that noise we've been hearing in the city war chapters.
Yeah I was like "So THAT'S what that sound was"
We never thought valve would officially relesse hl2 beta footage. And yet here we are
19:18 WOAH! That looks exactly like the effects they used for the strider cannon in Half-life : Alyx, neat!
i am both sad and relieved they did not keep the gunship sound, that sounds like a nightmare
Old graphics , texture and anything look amazing and beautiful.
Thank you Valve for releasing this, You did a great favor to all gamer community
"Oh, that's cool. They released a little antlion guard scene demo. It's not much, but i'm glad we get to see this."
>pause video
>it's 30 minutes
Watching these demos is like looking at the cover of an animorphs book going from GoldSrc to Source.
Good call holding off on showing this. While a lot of the elements of what would be in the final game are there it's super rough and you can see how much revision went into the assets between this and even the 2003 demo. Fascinating to see after all this time however.
26:22 ok the sound design here kinda blew me away, I've heard that sound so many times but used in this context it's so great, pitched up and sped up like that it fits the small "rollers" perfectly
love how it says godmode ON in the beginning
1:52 antlion jumpscare
The sounds for the weapons in thus version are satisfying af. Hope someone makes a mod for this one day.
The map at 07:14 shows Bremerton and Sinclair inlet, locations just 15 miles west of Seattle, where Valve is located
weren't they in Bellevue, Washington back then though?
with this video I'm a child again, feels like redescovering it for the first time