When did Consul get cut?

[gasmasksamuel42]

I'm making a couple of maps for the Hl2 beta, and was wondering when the consul got replaced by Dr breen?

[Витой]

He wasn't exactly cut. Consul as you know him was just temporary image that some artist has made as he imagined this Big Brother like figure. Someone created concept art of him and then they reused this face for paper posters and Consulcast.

When they finally decided to make a model based on an actual person they modeled Consul after Roger Guay. And yes, this model was initially called Consul.mdl (also Consul_Statue.mdl was made with the same face). The earliest use of Consul.mdl/Consul_Statue.mdl is November 2001 so that's probably when Consul with retail-like face was created.
So yeah, he wasn't cut, he evolved into Breen as we know him.

[gasmasksamuel42]

He wasn't exactly cut. Consul as you know him was just temporary image that some artist has made as he imagined this Big Brother like figure. Someone created concept art of him and then they reused this face for paper posters and Consulcast.

When they finally decided to make a model based on an actual person they modeled Consul after Roger Guay. And yes, this model was initially called Consul.mdl (also Consul_Statue.mdl was made with the same face). The earliest use of Consul.mdl/Consul_Statue.mdl is November 2001 so that's probably when Consul with retail-like face was created.
So yeah, he wasn't cut, he evolved into Breen as we know him.

I know he evolved into breen, but i meant when he evolved into breen.

[2003 Metrocop]

In..2002 era i think, if not then 2003

[Cvoxalury]

The old trainride intro from very early in development  already mentions Dr Breen by name.

These vignettes were made to establish the backstory and sense of locations, and that's done before building them, thus the vignettes are very old. One is dated 2000, they are likely from the same time period. So, we're talking very early production (or pre-production even).

It's pointless to ask "when Consul evolved into Breen". Consul didn't "become" Breen. He was already named Breen during early production. The vestigal "Consul" - which is a title - was kept until it was phased out in favour of "Administrator". There will never, ever be a direct answer saying that "on this date or that, we officially christened him as Administrator and stopped calling him Consul".

Because that's not how things worked.