To be fair, assuming that the citadel sections in the beta were gonna be like how it turned out in retail, I doubt it would have been as scary. Yes I'm absolutely terrified of the citadel and the combine as I run through hallways wiping out entire armies of the combine with the super gravity gun like there's no problem. Terrified.
Makes you wonder what in God's name kinda universe did they come from and what's their intentions for Earth are, the mysterious nature of the combine is what scares me the most if you ask me.
Some universes, *well in theory,* could be so different and unexplained, that a 3D human eye (2D projection of which view we do receive through our brain) wouldn't even be capable of capturing the view, and i am not even talking about their own laws of physics. This is why *Universal Union* and *Overwatch* are totally two different things. *More-than-3-coordinates-entities,* which pass through time and space into our 3D universe, must reconstruct themselves into their 3D version of themselves, and i can tell that Marc Laidlaw knows this stuff pretty well since he have put *Calabi-Yau equation* in "Psyche" scene (also in this scary raw Hazard Course level where Gordon was meant to go out of his current universe/realm). As far as we know, with every spark of once race's intellegent activity (at least we know that it's a cross-dimensional teleportation) UU probably "checks" this race. Later nation is (i assume) given an opportunity to be a part of the union, or be on their own. Once challange was accepted, UU gives everything they know to this race, and probably leave only an advisor or two as their representatives to only *report* sentient life's progress and *advise* this nation's representative. The goal is to turn everyone into *an adaptable being for another dimension,* and the only thing that can let you do this is a *synthetical transformation.* How does it works? It is unknown, but one thing for sure is that people whom passed it shouldn't be called cyborgs, which *Synths* are considered as by community's (and Valve's actually) mistake. You probably know what RTB is, right? And what Breengrub's twitter is made of. These two things gives you an explanation of what Synth exactly is, and it's definitely not a brainless violent soldier, like everyone stereotypically thinks about OTA soldiers, though lowest classes of Civil Protection are totally fucked up psychos. Everything we see in Half-Life: 2 was (almost) made by *Humans,* and Humanity... "humanity" is still in charge of their planet. They just enslaved themselves and actually they failed. From the retail version of the game we know that UU discarded humanity, for many things: they failed their programme, started a war with their own kind and at least one caterpillar was injured. This is what i call a real fuck up. Also, The Citadel, they managed to blow it up, okay srsly wtf. UU probably thought that death penalty wouldn't be enough for these fuckers.
Lefleiner - but there is a misunderstanding in the Synth's description given by Laidlaw. He says that their kind can evolve, replicate, and repair themselves (regenerate probably), but we saw in the release how stalker was welding something into a gunship. A) Developers forgot their main idea B) Gunship is not a Synth *that's bullshit* C) It was don just to show the oppression of Stalker's life. Gunship probably repairs itself and regenerates, but who said that it can't be worshipped by some slender lunatic?
They were less subtle in their creppy, alien, exploitative nature but that would not work with the fact that the earth combine in the final release was a human construct. They were inspired by combine human forces present on Earth. This is why they had to change their ambient soundscape, probably.
The whole idea of the citadel is that the combine is sort of bringing their world to ours to help produce their armies and control the people, so a comparison to xen is not too far off seeing that its so alien. The Half life 2 beta citadel though is sort of a middle ground, where its not anything too new, but just a combination of all the wrong things in our society coupled with the fear of insignificance.
Those Stalkers whom you were genuinely meant to fight and fear because they'd hide in the shadows and sneak up on you… whereas in the final, the Stalkers are foes you feel sorry for instead because they're people who resist becoming one with the Combine.
@nigge r they weren't burning people who do crimes, they cleared headcrabs and infections. They where essentially really messed up janitors, they where planned for HL alyx but basically got reskinned into Jeff from half life alyx.
@nigge r in HL2? thats retail so we don't even know if its actully him doing that, plus you have to consider he'd be burning bodies as well, once again thats retail so its hard to even say if it was a cremator that did that.
@nigge r yeah there in the retail one, not confirmed if that was the cremator or not, its possible some dusty version of the cremeator is out there. Eg the head, but nothing to really confirm, closest we got is the Jeff creature.
Yea generally HL2 beta was more sinister and more about a rule under an iron fist, which still shows in the full game but to a lesser extent. The beta was also a bit more communist like using forced labor and basically being slavery and more cold, unfeeling, and just emotionless, which ironically gave it more emotion. The full game had more of a theme that the combine were actually trying to protect humanity (though failing their job miserably)
The new citadel looks proper. It looks like a serious space ship, which it is. This one looks like a Disney castle. I don’t know what would’ve been better to keep the dictator or doc. Tbh, I kinda feel like the docs world has no hope, the planet is destroyed. The final remaining urban centre is half ruined, and later also destroyed, the seas have retreated, maybe majority of resources drained. Fighting for freedom seems to be pointless. That was the first feeling I had when I came out of the train station. While, a dictator seems like a typical story. Overthrow him and you are free. Doc green even says, that they “might” let us reproduce, and he is right. The only hope that humanity has is its own destroyers mercy.
If by protecting you mean progressively turning them into mindless transhuman soldiers for cannon fodder on their external wars, while totally annihilating all life on Earth by draining it from it's resources, yeah, it's a very good protection.
some random guy on the internet in the retail version . There is a separater machine in a cutscene that is seen sending you to breens office instead of sending you to a dehumanizer for turning humans into combine. The stained blood would be everywhere around this machine .
@@isomericgamer6644 In retail Half-Life 2 these sound are still being used. For example: Drone2LP - tunnel between Black Mesa East and Ravenholm Drone4LP - the Nexus
Looking at these concept art images like at 1:21 reminds me how Half-Life 2 had such a bigger scope originally. Half-Life 1 was about Black Mesa, a top secret scientific research facility in strife in it's own little corner of the world. Half-Life 2 was going to take all the themes of HL1 and amplify them to 11, jumping from the accident in your little corner of the world to how it's taken its toll on all of humanity as miserable gears in the Combine's machine. You're partially responsible for it all yet you're going to fix it. I think Valve kinda played it safe with HL2 which isn't bad, but if Valve had all these unused deep ideas they definitely come up with a rich HL3. They went back to some of their HL2 Beta stuff for Half-Life: Alyx, and they've got the tech and money to incorporate the ideas they couldn't do before.
Indeed, the idea of the beta is so constrasting to the game we ended up getting. I'm glad that mods like Dark Interval or Raising the bar Redux are doing a fabulous job at recreating the beta but from my view I think Valve could have used the Beta ideas for a potential new IP or perhaps a DLC to half life 2 with another character and another city - like how HL1 got Opposing force and blue shift dlc's.
@@iamoncrap I think that's because they're reducing the muscles to the minimum and take out the internal organs (Judging by the big stitch on their chest, they probably have their organs taken away) when they turn someone into a Stalker.
I wish Half life 2 beta would be released too, as an expansion pack. As a script, it could be the story of Barney and how he did managed to join combine, all of this happening in another city probably in US. At the end of the game, barney gets deported in Europe in City 17 and so, Half Life 2 begins. #CrowbarCollective must see this
@@idiotsimulator8055 In an early instance of the beta, like 2002. In lore, America got fucked the most by the portal storms and is most likely just a wasteland with much inferior cities compared to Europe.
The beta citadel had tile floors and railings? That looked like nova prospekt. Old citadel looks like something outta silent hill or some psychological horror game like that, and that stalker concept art... the distorted child's music, the train horn, the voices....
The beta combine apparently used more human technology for their constructions. Like the beta vehicles were just ordinary human helicopters and cars used by the combine
@@FemboyTrain honestly, its such an interesting concept, a species using stolen tech from other species to enslave more species, we dont really even know what the original combine look like
@@moosey7165 it pretty much is, it adds far more to the hopeless depth of Half Life 2, since the Combine is so powerful in its influence that it doesn't need to commit effort to reverse engineer technology, humanity is good enough at killing itself, the sight of a Soviet helicopter or some antique APC makes it so fucked up because it feels like you wouldn't even be able to beat the Combine if this is the equivalent of a nuisance, they don't worry about you enough or humanity at all to commit their own technology, but later in the beta as Gordon proves to be successful in the campaign against the initial forces, the Combine start to acknowledge Gordon and the resistance more and the instability going on and you start to see more horrors out of a nightmare, the spider like giant, the strider marches through the war zone of City 17 crushing human resistance and what not other stuff sent in, but even before that their was some twisted assets of the Combine like the guard, assassin, stalkers, etc...
JESUS IS REAL AND CAN GET YOU THROUGH EVEN THE TOUGHEST SITUATIONS IF I LIVED IN HL2 BETA I WOULD STILL WORSHIP 👏👏 👏JESUS AND HE WULD SAVE ME FROM THE BAD ALIENS AND TAKE ME TO HEVEN THE BIBLE SAYS GOD WILL SAVE US FROM THE DEVIL SO I WOULD STILL GO TO CHURCH IF I LIVED IN HL2 BETA NEAR THE CITADEL
The Combine is an interdimensional race that have taken control of multiple alternative universes. I wouldn't be surprised if heaven and hell itself has been overtaken by the Combine.
@@hatti... well, I don't know. the multiverse is truly infinite beyond the point of repetition, so the prospect of the combine controlling all of it is illogical
RedMatter Yes, but what I was trying to do was convey the power of the Combine. The only way I can see Gordon having even some semblance of a chance against the full Combine empire would be to go back in time and kill them in a weaker state. And the Borealis can travel through time.
DOOM: "We have the most scariest FPS out there." Quake: "NO we have the most scariest FPS out there" Half Life 2 Beta: *demonic screeching* "We have the most scariest FPS out there"
00:30-01:17 I like how I get slaughterhouse vibes from this area of the citadel... the sterile white tiles, the blood smears, the pale light... what a truly horrific place devoid of any humanity.
it aint fake i mean this sound is an edit of the actual sound so practically this is semi fake but the og sound isnt someone died to make "trans6" an thing
I just wanna see Valve go back to the beta and finish Half Life 2 just so we can see what it would look like. Screw Half Life 3, this is the thing I've been waiting for all this time.
there is a little mod being in develoment called "dark interval" which plans to recreat in a more modern way what half life 2 beta could be, its pretty nice you should checkout their first releases!
From the Half-Life wikia, about HL2 Beta: "The Combine was utilizing and recycling existent human materials and buildings instead of adding their own technology to them. This is why the early Citadel, for instance, had its walls covered with tiles."
0:00 something is so eerie about the hl2 beta citadel, just being able to see the entire thing in one frame with the street below looking like a flat plain compared to it i feel like this is the alternate timeline where either 1) gordon doesn't awaken until 30-40 years later, where most of earths natural resources are gone and the citadel is decaying, or 2) half life 2 still happens as normal, but gordon isn't found again at the beginning of half life 2: episode 1, so the combine regain control
Retail Combine is creepy in a more cosmic and abstract way with how incomprehensibly powerful and both cold and emotionless they are, like a giant uncaring machine. Beta Combine is just plainly disturbing in a more straight-forward way, with their dark Orwellian aesthetic, poisoning the air and turning Earth's atmosphere into this green-tinted toxic mess, with how they seem to adapt and warp human technology and resources, and the whole dark bio-mechanical vibe they seem to have going on. The Retail Combine makes Earth look sick, but the Beta Combine made Earth look dead, almost warped and hellish in a way. I really wish we could play this version of Half-Life 2.
I like to see the Beta as an alternate timeline that Gman had the option to make real, like he let Alyx do for her Father at the end of Half-Life Alyx. This alternate timeline of the Half-Life universe is insanely interesting, creepy, unsettling and outright awesome. The toxic air and the green dark sky that is caused by it makes the whole environment feel much more dystopian and it is a route that I believe a lot of people would have loved to see.
As much as I love the current Half-life 2, I would have loved to play this! It is so eerie and terrifying, and yet, the protagonist is so powerful at the same time.
No you wouldn't have. The original journey of the Beta was extremely long to the point of feeling exhausting for the player. Why do you think it was cut?
@@crylune It was cut because the files got leaked. Everyone knew what was going to happen. So Valve decided to start again and create a new storyline. Plus, I didn't mean storywise anyway. I meant the gritty nature, the wide choice of weapons, the stuff I personally am in to.
@@hyperthetical This is untrue, if you check the beta leaked files; you can see that Valve had already scrapped the old beta and were well into developing the current retail Half-Life 2. Half life 2 was leaked in 2003 and if you check one of the 2003 builds you can see that it is identical to the current retail game just with old assets and assets from the beta - this is why some people like to refer 2003 build as the middleground of the old hl2 beta vision and the current retail hl2 that valve chose to make
Is there a way to put back all those themes sources in the final game? Would be awesome, i feel lke this is the real Half Life. If you focuse deep in the concept of the game it's really horrify. all the sounds it all by itself the scary it is.
Honestly i prefer the recent citadel. The beta citadel alone doesn't even look like a citadel, or atleast supposed to be a citadel. I think the leak was beneficial because it gave valve some years to rethink their mistakes, I mean look at how different both versions of hl2 are! The skyboxes in beta were so gloomy almost like a game out of the half life franchise. Even hl1 didn't give the same vibes as this beta. Not to mention the citadel looks very large yet it doesn't feel large. It's color and the "generator" sounds each sound like the game was taking place during the 1950's. One of it's sounds BEING from an "atmospheric re-entry accident" from the beginning of the cold war. The recent citadel is all about futuristic science-fiction and dark energy with all of it's tracks: Neutrino trap, Negative Pressure etc. all of them made to suit the dark-cyan citadel. The beta citadel is something... I'd say "out of this world". The game also includes the Borealis but I just think that all of the events are taking place a bit too fast and early. Ravenholm and the Coast are the only seemingly recognizable parts that made it into the final game. Valve probably included them as a sort of "reference" probably.
Yea, the beta citadel looks like a super creepy Disney Castle. The new Citadel feels more fitting for the combine and the game. The beta levels/concepts/ideas are interesting but it's understandable why Valve scrapped them.
Jake yvl but was there an actual digital copy of the storyline? I’m not talking about some remade version, I’m asking if there was an actual one made by valve.
The beta stuff like combine and the citadel concepts were incredible rad, such a shame it never made it to the game thanks to the guy who leaked the game back in ~2002-2003. If there was a full game showing us on what HL2 was aiming into, I mean a real game by Valve, I know there are some mods which try to rebuild on how it was originally planned but an official release would answer many questionable things that are up in the air to this day.
If you look at the leaked stuff, the changes to the citadel where made before the game got leaked. It was a decision by valve themselves to change the tone of it.
Anyone else get an ASMR reaction from some of this? Its disturbing but some sounds just bring out the right frequencies to put a tingle down my spine and it feels so wrong.
GOD I WANT THIS GAME SO BAD! Im glad they stuck to the original, there must have been a reason, and if they didnt perhaps the game wouldnt have been all that groundbreaking. But i really wish we could play this! Its so dark scary and fucking coool!
Theres something almost traumatic about how every interior of the industrial areas has dirty wall tiles all an off color of white that it looks like a sanatorium from the 1920s
There's something about those white tiles inside that just make it so creepy. It feels like the citadel is some kind of insane asylum to me. It just gives me that kind of feeling. There are no words to describe how this place makes me feel other than terrified. *And i frickin love it*
considering the combine using organic life for things, i wouldnt be shocked if the citadel itself were alive in some capacity, and some of these are the citadel itself crying out for help
the hl2 beta was almost cosmic horror because the combine collective consciousness wasn’t actively controlling all of the combine, but the combine in general are definitely incomprehensibly large
You wouldn't have liked it were the game actually like this. People noted the original journey was very very long and exhausting, and not that engaging as it is now.
@@crylune You were literally born in 2003. Why do you even care this much? What makes you Valve's official historian/"fact checker"? Let people have their own opinions and tastes.
I saw alot of comments asking for a remake of the beta The only promising mod i found was dark interval Just download it and give it a try it is very short and a bit rough around the edges but very promising
There's also Missing Information (WIP): www.moddb.com/mods/missing-information And raising the bar deluxe: www.moddb.com/mods/half-life-2-raising-the-bar-redux
i want a game 18+ where we just take a tour through the torture rooms of the citadel and see all the half robot half human harvesters and organ feeders all that
Anyone newly discovering HL2B, check out Raising the Bar Redux and Dark Interval, 2 mods of Half Life 2/the Source Engine that both reintroduce beta elements, Redux closer to the retail game and Dark trying to be as close to the Beta as possible.
It's always interesting how these always sound far away. Like, I know some people have suggested the Citadel being alive, but if it was alive... don't you think it'd be loud and all around you?
I feel like the final game version of the Citadel was the right choice. However I wonder why they choose to re-use most human buildings and enslave humans, while the Citadel looks quite costly and alien-like. The inside of the Citadel would of looked more darker if they went with the tiled walls seen in some concept art.
I wish they sticked to this dark beta version. I mean what did we get? A very neutral indifferent looking game. It should have been more stylized which is what this old version had. Yes it was dark. But people claim there was no reason for it to be that dark - I disagree.
I'm glad they didn't. The beta was cut for a reason. People found the original storyline and journey to be way too long, extremely long in fact, to the point where it felt exhausting. The old City 17 was set in an American city, possibly Washington. Hurray. Overdone to shit. Practically based on 1984, a subpar novel at best. Also overdone. What we got in retail HL2 was an unique dystopia set in an eastern european city, and that was much more appealing to playtesters and to everyone else, as we know by now. So, no. They shouldn't have sticked to this. Sure, it's interesting, but it was ultimately pretty boring and wouldn't have made HL2 the critically acclaimed game it is today.
