The Half-Life series has been getting a lot of attention over the past month or so. While rumors of Half-Life 3 are usually to be ignored, the latest series seems to be more solid than ever. Then there's the Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Documentary, which revealed a lot about the development cycle and plans for the unreleased Episode 3.
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Of course, the most interesting part of the documentary was the never-before-seen footage from Half-Life 2: Episode 3, which revealed the arctic environment and the ice gun. However, there have also been some revelations about the early plans for Half-Life 2, including several cities and content that was removed after 9/11.
Half-Life 2 originally had a lot more content
As noted by PC Gamer, the early plans for Half-Life 2 diverged greatly from the original game. Writer Marc Laidlaw revealed that the plot did not carry over much from the unforeseen circumstances that took place at Black Mesa. There were plans to show Earth being invaded by several alien races, with the Antlions playing a much larger role.
“It had three alien races,” explained engineer David Speyrer. “Warrior aliens, insectoid aliens, and spy aliens. And it had a Prague-like city that ended up being the closest thing to City 17.” It was also planned to jump between cities like City 40 and City 49 to show what the occupation was like there.
“I remember we were really ambitious in the beginning,” added level designer David Riller. “I remember we designed, what, four cities at one point? Prague, Jerusalem, Chicago, Los Angeles, I believe. We had an arctic base, an underwater base, an icebreaker, a series of planes crashing into a high-rise building.” which we discontinued right after 9/11. We had several Combine bases in the Wasteland, we had the Air Exchange, which is where they took the atmosphere from Earth, we had a train depot, and so on.”
All of these ideas were the result of the developers trying to figure out what they could work on, but were eventually scrapped when “Gabe kept asking, how is Half-Life?” That's when Valve regrouped and built what happened in the original Half-Life.
Half-Life 2 is a critically acclaimed FPS from Valve. It continues the story of Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist formerly working at Black Mesa. This time they have to fight the alien Combine empire.
