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Prerelease:Half-Life 2 (Windows)

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This page details prerelease information and/or media for Half-Life 2 (Windows).

This cactus is UNDER CONSTRUCTION
This article is a work in progress.
...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.
Notes: This page barely scratches the surface of this game's development.

Development Timeline

1999

  • June - Half-Life 2 begins development. Work on the Source engine also begins simultaneously.

2001

  • Late 2001 - Work on a showreel intended for E3 2002 begins.

2002

  • September - The team completes a second showreel.
  • October - Gabe tells the team that the game will be revealed by next E3 and will release that year.

2003

  • E3 2003 - Half-life 2 is announced by Valve.
  • September 19th - German hacker Axel Gembe acquires Half-Life 2's source code, after having infiltrated Valve's servers many months prior.
  • September 23rd - Valve announces the game has been delayed
  • September 26th - The leaked prototype is complied.
  • October 7th - The sourec code is leaked along with various other files.

2004

  • September 29th - A late build of the game included with the Collector's Edition is complied.
  • October 13th - Half-Life 2 is finished.
  • November 1st - The E3 2004 trailer is released as a .wmv file.
  • November 19th - Half-Life 2 is released digitally worldwide via Steam.

Sub-Pages

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1999-2000
Valve's two years of experimenting and secret development on the sequel.
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2001-2002
The team works on various showreels and demos meant for an announcement at E3 2002, but ultimately that never happen thanks to the game lacking a release date.
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2003
Despite the team's best efforts (and some serious crunch) the game is still not ready for release and gets delayed, with an infamous leak making matters more difficult.
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2004
In wake of the leak and now with the new release date the pressure is on to deliver Half-Life 2.
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Characters & Scenario
The game's plot was once quite different.

SIGGRAPH 2000

Hmmm...
To do:
Reference for this.
HL2 SG2000 TV.jpg

During the 27th Annual SIGGRAPH Convention on July 23th, 2000, Valve showed an engine test behind closed doors. to show off the capabilities of the (un-named at the time) Source Engine, doubling as the first test map created for "Half Life 2".

The demo comprised of multiple scenes showing gas-masked-clad citizens rebelling over Civil Protection, throwing Molotov cocktails & engaging in hand-to-hand combat with them. The most notable scene (and the only scene we have a screenshot of) is of the rebelling citizens running down a hallway, yelling "Get Your Free TVs!" (which the demo is commonly named after). According to David Speyrer, a red-haired Alyx (based on early concept-art of her) also appeared, along with other early concepts such as the Cremator.

The demo overall was made to show fire tech, physics destruction, materials, terrain displacement, and facial animation. While no footage of the demo has ever surfaced, a broken version of the map was included in the 2003 Half Life 2 Leak, as "city_test" in the WC map pack, and assets (such as the textures for the gas-mask citizens) can also be found in the leak.

Marketing Material

Hmmm...
To do:
  • Add screenshots from the game's physical release box. One of the screenshots has the gasmask civilians with a Strider.
  • Some promotional art, like the character art of Gordon, Alyx and G-Man used for the game's Steam Trading Cards appear to feature cut locations.

Likely as a remanet of the game's development, some of the game's marketing material still features cut content.

These screenshots are still used on the Steam page of the game.

References