Due to Half-Life 2: Elevating the Bar and the Half-Life 2 beta leak from 2003, we have had a number of little seems at ideas Valve thought of for the FPS sequel however needed to reduce throughout improvement. As an example, because of information discovered within the leaked model, we all know there have been plans for a stage set on an icebreaker ship that will result in a mini-submarine journey to an underwater base—an concept that ended up being re-used within the Half-Life 2: Episode 3 synopsis, and the fan sport based mostly on it.
The latest twentieth anniversary documentary has shone much more mild on the earliest plans for Half-Life 2. Curiously, these early plans weren’t doing a lot to construct on the plot of the primary sport. “The primary two years we tried loads of issues,” says author Marc Laidlaw, “and loads of these story arcs that we had initially did not have actually any carryover from Black Mesa or any of that.”
These concepts included an Earth that was struggling underneath a number of invasions from totally different alien species. One bug-like alien species survived within the type of the antlions, although there have been initially a lot greater plans for them. “It had three alien races,” engineer David Speyrer says of the preliminary Half-Life 2 idea. “The Warrior Aliens, the Insect Aliens, and the Spy Aliens. And it had a Prague-like metropolis, which ended up being the closest factor to Metropolis 17.”
Whereas Metropolis 17 attracts inspiration from real-world cities like Prague, Sofia, and Paris, a vignette printed in Half-Life 2: Elevating the Bar mentions that it is rather a lot like Metropolis 40 and Metropolis 49, and presumably each different world metropolis underneath alien management, which might make visiting them a bit redundant. Presumably that wasn’t true of the world tour that fashioned one deserted idea for Half-Life 2.
“I bear in mind we have been actually formidable originally,” says stage designer David Riller. “I bear in mind we designed, what, 4 cities at one level? Prague, Jerusalem, Chicago, Los Angeles, I imagine. We had an Arctic base, an underwater base, an icebreaker ship, an airplane sequence that crashed right into a excessive rise, which we reduce proper after 9/11. We had a number of Mix bases within the Wasteland, we had the Air Trade, which is the place they have been taking the ambiance from Earth, we had a practice depot, and so forth.”
Speyrer lays the blame for this sprawling scale to “sophomore anxiousness,” a want to high what Half-Life had performed earlier than that resulted in some impractical concepts. Later within the documentary it is talked about that after a analysis journey to a real-world icebreaker ship they realized how tough it might be to make fight enjoyable in such tight areas, which is why it was scrapped.
Laidlaw explains that loads of these early, throw-it-all-at-the-wall ideas have been deserted as a result of, as he places it, “Gabe saved asking, how is that this Half-Life?” Laidlaw means that it was solely when the workforce determined to convey again characters like the primary sport’s scientists, tying the sequel on to Half-Life, did it solidify into Half-Life 2’s remaining type.
“We actually clearly needed to cut back what we have been making an attempt to do,” says Riller. “However that is OK, to go slightly bit nuts originally.”
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