Several City 17 levels at the start of the game and complete chapters from the second half of the game were completely removed and sometimes re-introduced in the subsequent Half-Life 2 episodes. Half-Life 2 was also originally intended to be much more diverse in settings, and the original journey was extremely long (to the extent that the game felt almost overblown, with little time being spent on developing existing characters one of the key reasons for it being cut). Half-Life 2 was originally intended to be a far darker game based on far grittier artwork where the Combine were more obviously draining the oceans for minerals and replacing the atmosphere with noxious, murky gases. The book Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar and the numerous leaked files revealed many of the game's original settings and action that were either cut down or removed entirely from the final game. Main article: Half-Life 2 storyline evolution This also applies to any other development period of any other Valve game. 'Alpha' and 'Beta' should never be used unless specifically stated. When referring to early elements of Half-Life 2, the terms 'early Half-Life 2 build' or 'early version of Half-Life 2' would be more appropriate, as well as, for instance, 'the early City 17' or 'the early Breencast'. All in all the correct terms are ' Half-Life 2 leak' or the 'playable Half-Life 2 leak' for the stolen content.Valve does not refer to it as a leak but as a theft. These files of course include anything referred to by the community as 'Alpha' or 'Beta'.

The ' Half-Life 2 leak' (or simply 'the leak'), when referring to the material stolen (or 'leaked') from Valve in 2003 by German hacker Axel Gembe, including source code, about 1300 maps, and a playable game (referred to by Gembe as 'Chosen 9').Therefore they should be taken as placeholder names referring to large periods of a game's development, 'Alpha' being used for the early stages, 'Beta' for the last stages that precede the retail release). Despite this, they are widely used across the community, as they are commonly used in the general gaming community to refer to any early stages of a video game. These terms, coined by the community and not Valve, are used incorrectly most of the time when referring to a particular subject of this period, as no development stages for any subject is known. Development stage names, such as ' Half-Life 2 Alpha', ' Half-Life 2 Beta', or simply 'Alpha' or 'Beta'.Within the Half-Life community, this period is referred to under several names. During that elongated process, many things were outlined, created and cut before the game's final release. The development of Half-Life 2 began almost immediately after the release of Half-Life, spanning from 1999 to the release of Half-Life 2 in 2004. There's an aggressive statement of this principle, which isn't entirely true but it's still interesting: It doesn't matter what we cut, so long as we cut it and it gives us the time to focus on other things, because any of the options will be bad unless they're finished, and any of them will be good if they are finished.' вЂ• Gabe Newell

Half life 2 custom map