Last time we talked about the development and history of the creation of Half-Life 2, as well as how its plot and structure changed. This time Cybersport.ru offers to go to the archaeological excavations and see what did not live up to the release, but in one form or another managed to appear on the network. Deleted models, unrealized ideas and everything that was found in leaks and official concept art – in the material.
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The richest arsenal
Flare gun
As expected, there were many weapons in Half-Life 2 at different stages of development that did not make it into the final version. On Borealis, for example, Gordon was supposed to be armed with a flare gun: he shoots flares at a short distance and can set fire to opponents. Somewhere in the same place, an ice ax appeared, which was clearly removed in order to add a mount, and a fire extinguisher necessary to eliminate fires on the ship. In other situations, he was useless, so he went under the knife along with the level.
By the way, the cremator flamethrower could be at your disposal. His shot literally corroded organics and was especially effective against unprotected enemies like zombies and ant lions. It was also possible to set fire to opponents with the help of Molotov cocktails.
Brickbat
It is worth noting that in the early stages the famous gravity cannon was not in the game. Its place was taken by a physical cannon: it allowed objects to be lifted into the air and moved, as well as connected to each other. But unlike the release version, she did not know how to attract things to the player and launch them flying with great force. For throwing and lifting objects, the brickbat function was used, which literally allowed you to take various objects with your hands like cremator heads, dead headcrabs and beer bottles.
There were also more familiar weapons: for example, at some point, Gordon could get a Kalashnikov assault rifle at his disposal, which fired in several modes (single, with a cutoff of three rounds and automatic). The MP5K, which the scientist used in Half-Life, should have returned, but in the end the submachine gun was replaced with a more advanced model MP7. A combine sniper rifle could also appear in Gordon’s arsenal – in the game it is still used by snipers of the Alliance patrol, but Gordon only has a crossbow. There was also a heavy machine gun HMG1 with a monstrous spread and no less monstrous damage: if it was possible to hit, the soldiers of the combines literally died from a couple of shots.
XM-29
Interestingly, from the original Half-Life, another weapon almost appeared in addition to the MP5 and the crossbow. It’s about the tau cannon: visually, it looked like a weapon mounted on a buggy in the release version, and worked according to the same principles as in the first part.
Early trailers often featured the XM-29, an assault rifle that was actually being prototyped by the US Army. In our world, its production turned out to be extremely expensive, so it was abandoned, but in games it found a second life. In the world of Half-Life 2, it was used by soldiers of combine harvesters, but later the XM-29 was replaced with a pulse rifle. The cut-out weapon fired with good accuracy, with the help of the built-in sight it easily turned into a kind of sniper rifle and allowed high damage with the built-in grenade launcher. In the leaked beta, the functions of the latter, however, were removed.
Socket wrench in the hands of Alix
And these are only weapons, models of which are present in the game. And there are those that did not go beyond concept art – for example, elite synthetic soldiers of combines (also, by the way, not included in the release version) had to attack the player with a cunning spear rifle. And Alix in early concepts was armed with a socket wrench – it is assumed that this was the heroine’s signature weapon, like Gordon’s mount and Adrian Shepard’s gas wrench from Half-Life: Opposing Force.
Friends and enemies
Alix early concept art
The situation with deleted characters is no less interesting. It’s worth starting the conversation with the main characters: Alix Vance was originally planned for a completely different one. The girl had bright red hair, was half Asian and half African, and her costume consisted of a green jacket with a fur collar and a blue-green overalls. In the leaked beta, the heroine already had the face of actress Jameel Mullen, which remained in the release version, but the costume corresponded to the early sketches.
It is no less interesting that for a long time Alix had no family connection with Eli. In the early stages of development, Eli bore the surname Maxwell and was a friend of Alix. By the time of release, his surname and relationship with the heroine underwent changes, but the design remained largely unchanged throughout development – except that in the first sketches you can see a bandage covering one of the hero’s eyes.
Concept art with Gordon, Alix, Eli Maxwell, Skitch and the Dog
Alix’s father was another hero, Captain Vance. He was one of the few high-ranking military survivors and led the “conscripts” – a special unit in the service of the harvesters, created from the former earthly military. The concept of the faction has gone under the knife, although references to conscripts can still be heard in speakerphone announcements. According to the idea, the conscripts were supposed to be the lowest echelon in the combine troops and work under cover for the Resistance. When the faction was cut out, Eli Maxwell and Captain Vance became one character, Eli Vance, and part of the captain’s functions was transferred to Barney Calhoun and Odessa Cabbage, one of the leaders of the Resistance, which occupies the “New Little Odessa” outpost. It is noteworthy that the head of Odessa was borrowed from Odell, a remote engineer at Borealis. As they say, nothing is forgotten.
Continuing the conversation about Alix, it is worth noting that in addition to the Dog, she could have Skitch – a female alien of an unknown species. At first, the Dog belonged to Eli Maxwell, not Alix, but later migrated to the girl’s pets instead of the deleted Skitch. The alien hasn’t gone beyond concept art.
Helena Mossman
The previously mentioned Helena Mossman differed from Judith Mossman not only in appearance, but also in character. According to the initial idea, according to her behavior, it was possible to guess in advance about the impending betrayal, but the character was changed to a softer one after Michelle Forbes began to voice the heroine.
Wallace Breen, the City 17 administrator, also didn’t get his final look right away. The early version of the hero was simply called the Consul, and was inspired rather by the Big Brother from George Orwell’s 1984. It is interesting that gradually the hero had to lose his human appearance, turning into a synthet, but the player could find out about this only at the very end of the story in a personal meeting. “Brinkast”, huge screens, also had a different look: instead of large holograms, in some parts of the city there were spherical objects hung with picture tubes.
Borealis workers with weapons
In addition to conscripts, two more factions went under the knife: workers and civilians in masks. The first appeared in two forms: some worked at Borealis, others at a combine factory. Visually, they differed only in the color of the overalls: factory workers wore green-orange uniforms, and those who worked at Borealis wore more neutral gray. It is also worth mentioning here that children also worked at the factory, who are not in any form in the release version. The masked civilians were relevant at the time of the early 2001 scenario, in which the air in City 17 was heavily polluted. They also cut them out because Valve was betting heavily on new facial animation that would not be visible behind the gas masks that hide the face.
Missing soldiers
Concept art of the cremator
You cannot ignore remote opponents, of which there are a lot of indecent ones: more than a dozen of harvesters alone did not get into the game. One of the most memorable was undoubtedly the cremator – a passive cleaner that burned bodies and other organic matter like random monsters on the streets of the city. Interestingly, it is not fully known what the cremator was: its body resembles a human, although there are only four fingers on the hands, and the heads are created by children in factories and are easily separated from the body (in beta, Gordon could throw them). In the laboratory of Eli, you can still find the head of the cremator, however, the scientist cannot clearly explain its origin.
Fast zombies were originally another combine warrior, an alien assassin. The enemy was much more dangerous than the one in the release version: in addition to fast movement and attack with claws, the assassin had throwing knives and grenades in his arsenal, as well as the ability to hide in a smoke screen and interfere with the passage in every possible way. It is worth noting that the assassin, among other things, could also taunt Gordon: the corresponding audio files were found in the beta files.
Assassin Girl Concept Art
Another version of the harvester assassin has already been mentioned in the text: a girl in light armor met on the Borealis. Outwardly, the Assassin girls strongly resembled the elite Alliance patrol soldiers that can be found near the end of the game. Presumably, the Assassins held a fairly high position in the Alliance hierarchy. As is the case with many other models, the Assassin Girl has not disappeared without a trace: her helmet is used by the aforementioned elite soldiers, and the leg fixtures have been transferred to Chell from Portal.
The half-synthetic, half-human harvester guard was supposed to be one of the bosses in Half-Life 2. He was armed with a special cannon that shoots a disintegrating beam, capable of killing almost any enemy with one hit. In close combat, the guard could kick Gordon hard. The enemy’s design is remarkable: despite the fact that he has a human head, he “looks” with the help of a camera built into the massive suit, since he is devoid of eyes. In addition, judging by the data found in the beta, many types of attacks on the guards simply did not work and they had to be confused by throwing objects with a gravity gun, after which parts of the armor were ripped off with explosives. The gun dropped after death could be taken back – apparently, it was primarily intended to fight the striders.
Unknown species
Bullsquid model
If we talk about alien fauna, then not so much was cut. To the aforementioned bullsquids and hounds, you can add the hydra – a worm-like creature consisting of a transparent body and three tentacles. She could be seen in the first official trailer: the hydra stabbed one of the Alliance soldiers and dragged him down the sewers. According to the leak, it was one of the game’s bosses, but despite a lot of development efforts, the creature turned out to be rather inexpressive in the gameplay.
The game planned an alien assassin captured by the headcrab, who was also supposed to become one of the bosses: he had a large reserve of health, he could jump high and had most of the attacks of the original carrier, with the exception of throwing grenades. And of course, the monster was more stupid due to the fact that it was controlled by a headcrab.
Bloody headcrab, front view
In Ravenholm, special, bloody headcrabs were planned. They differed from the usual ones primarily in their colors, slightly smaller size and more detailed claws located near the creature’s mouth. The zombies associated with them were also scrapped, but their legacy is more alive than all living things: all animations of both headcrabs and zombies went almost unchanged into the release version. It’s just that the models increased the polygons and removed the excess blood.
Finally, a new type of barnacle could appear in the game: in the deserts, the aliens did not hang from the ceiling, but stood on the ground. How exactly they were supposed to attack is not fully understood.
Darkweb
Synthetic crab
Another faction, mostly missing from the game, were synthetes – self-replicating robots that could evolve. These include, for example, striders, Alliance stormtroopers, and battle scanners. Closer to the finale, you can see several types of synthetics that have not been removed from the game, but also have not been brought to full-fledged opponents – synthet mortar and synthet crab. In the early stages, both were supposed to appear in battles with Gordon, and not only on the assembly line in the Citadel, but Valve decided to abandon the plans. But there were also enemies that were remote or did not go further than concept art, some of them were already mentioned in the section on combines.
Synthetic crab could be accompanied by assault synthetes – smaller creatures (still exceeding the height of a person). About them, alas, nothing is known except for their appearance. The attacking synth had the same fate: he was the size of a strider, but with a much more massive body and serious weapons.
Alien Soldier Concept Art
The alien soldier of the harvesters did not receive his own model, and remained at the level of concept art. The alien resembled an upright worm, attacked with an energy whip in close combat, and fired a pistol at long distances. In part, its design migrated to the Alliance advisors.
Another harvester fighter, left only on paper, is a super soldier. It moved almost silently and was only slightly smaller than the Striders. It was the dimensions that caused the cancellation of further elaboration of the creature – part of the design was applied to the creation of the elite soldiers of the Alliance Patrol.
Early concept art of a synth soldier
By the way, the guard of harvesters originates in the elite soldier-synth harvesters: like the assassin-alien, the elite soldier was planned as a fast and agile enemy, armed with a unique weapon – a rifle-spear. The synth soldier had an interesting physiology: his right hand was much smaller and thinner than the left, which was later used in the design of the brute for Left 4 Dead 2.
It was decided to remove all “aliens” with human features in order to make the harvesters a more mysterious threat.
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