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 actions that were either cut down or removed entirely from the final game. Main article: Half-Life 2 original storyline While ' Half-Life 2 Beta' is often used for convenience, it is somewhat incorrect, since the leak files cover several stages of the game's development, spanning over years, and since no information about their different development stages is known except the engine build number.
