Half Life 2 Beta: City 17 - The City That Never Was

before we begin i'd like to give a shout out to the half-life 2 project beta community they've done amazing work in recreating the beta version of half-life 2. and secondly if you enjoy the video please consider subscribing it will take a second but it'll make my day half-life 2's development is an interesting topic because of the leaked files everybody got to see how the game progressed throughout its five years of development from 1999 to 2004 between 2002 and 2004 the game started to look like what we have today there are some differences but they had the overall design finalized you can see these if you load up the 2002 or 2003 versions of the beta by using the project betas launcher but the game was very very different before 2002. i think it felt a bit too dark and decrepit in that world there were elements like the combine making the air unbreathable on purpose and forced child labor we won't go in the details for now but rather focus on just one thing from the beta and that is a city 17. as you can see from the concept art on screen this version of half-life 2 was way bleaker and depressing than the one we got and the one we got is already filled with the feeling of hopelessness this beta cd17 is much more gothic or cyberpunk rather than explaining what happened between half-life 1 and now the game just drops gordon in a train headed towards city 17. no explanation is given as to how he got there it just starts the moment you get off the train you realize this is a changed world scanners are flying around combine monitoring everything and gordon's old boss on the screen you pass by many people and you piece together the story i won't go into much more because we all know what this city looks like and what the story is let's move on to a different city 17 a city 17 that feels like it's from an alternate universe so this is the 2001 version you can select new game to start but i would suggest you open up the console and type in map space followed by the letter c so it can show you all the maps that were supposed to be the city 17 levels most of these start with 3017 underscore and then some numbers for example the first map we're going to be looking at is c17 underscore zero one underscore one three as far as i understand the zero one is the section of the map and the thirteen is the revision number so this is city 17 or rather what it would have been if wall hadn't changed the location to some eastern european country flying cars gritty textures and that skybox i love it weirdly but the thing is the first time i saw this two things came to mind blade runner the original one in 1984 and that's it that's why this aesthetic wouldn't have worked something you'll notice in this map and the rest of these well you'll notice that it doesn't shine in this city i think it may be part of that unbreathable atmosphere plot element notice how the citizens will have gas masks on something else you'll notice is how different the buildings look on that point let me show you something this image you're seeing is dated 1998. this was the first piece of art valve came up with when they began developing half-life 2. notice something off the buildings they're american in style in architecture the original half-life 2 would have taken place somewhere in america probably washington dc or well vancouver dressed up as new york [Music] this is the same map but an improved version the last revision was 13 this is underscore 16. at first it looks like the same but if you look closely there are some little details they added in plus the area where that combine guard was standing on the corner is changed he's now in this small box it's a small map doesn't let you proceed any further than here [Music] map 3 revision 8 this is a construction site map because it's unfinished i'm not sure where to go to proceed further [Music] i did try finding a way but i couldn't it was blocked off one thing that i really admire about these maps are the dingy textures on the buildings notice those crumbling building texture in the background map for revision 13 the player probably comes down this shoot pipe or maybe it was something else this feels like a central part of the city because of the high-rise buildings and the layout that's the console on the screen this character later came to be known as dr wallace breen the administrator so far they really kept a consistent feel throughout the maps dark depressing and desolate this map map 4 gets revised a bunch of times revision 23 you might have noticed that there is an element of city 17 that we haven't seen yet an iconic one one that is visible from every corner of the city will see it in this revision it's the same map pretty much but with some additional changes [Music] i feel this style this aesthetic or whatever you want to call it whatever they were thinking of would have never worked for a half-life game i would have loved to see this aesthetic in some other game made by valve but not in half-life 2. this beta city 17 is just orwellian a bit too much more valiant i guess this does not follow the half-life 1 mood sure earth is supposed to be under siege by the combine but it shouldn't be this bad this is a pure dystopia through and through these maps give off a edgy feeling that i can't really explain it's that element of being overtly dark just for the sake of it something that was prevalent in entertainment media in the late 90s and early 2000s i get what they were trying to do but half-life isn't known for grime and grittiness maybe max payne or batman but not half-life half-life one for me is a story of a scientist being the right man in the wrong place going against all odds and coming out on top and that's what they continued in the retail version the sequel and they chose the right direction i played these maps multiple times for this video and i'll be honest even while they are unfinished they are depressing in a previous video i said half-life 2's world has stark contrast between opposite frames of mind in half-life 2 you can see the contrast of defeat and hope through the shadows and light in the world design here it's just all depression referring to what i said earlier this is too much blade runner it's your average fictional dystopia that films in the 80s and 90s depicted the retail version of city 17 is unique there may be games in the future that copy half-life 2 style but no one can say half-life 2 copied someone else's in summary i would have loved to see this style in some other valve game or any other game in general from that time i am fascinated that they were able to achieve this aesthetic with these maps even if i got to see an unfinished product i can only imagine that had they continued with this style how amazing the end product would have been but on the other hand i would never replace the retail version of half-life 2 with anything else that game is a masterpiece like its predecessor so thank goodness they did what they did that's about it i didn't go much into the rest of the beta content because it is honestly a rabbit hole there are not dozens but hundreds more maps that i can show you but i chose to show you some of the city 17 ones if you would like to see me cover more beta related stuff comment below and let me know if you enjoyed the video and want to see more videos like these please subscribe to the channel and i would really appreciate it

Channel: Radiation Hazard

Views: 32,653

Rating: 4.8881431 out of 5

Keywords: half life 2, valve, beta version, dark atmosphere, grim alternate reality, leaked hl2, half life leak, city 17 beta, city 17, blade runner, cyber punk, orwellian, 1984, alpha version, half life 2 development

Id: 4ekJzv8DgxY

Length: 14min 0sec (840 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 18 2020