The Half-Life 2 Beta Beginners Guide

[Jar of Flies]

Hi all. This guide is intended for absolute beginners who may be interested in getting the Half-Life 2 Beta up and running. I've been in the Beta community for a number of years and I am currently an admin on several prominent Beta communities, so I hope this qualifies me to speak about it.

What is the Half-Life 2 Beta?

The Half-Life 2 Beta, or "Leak" as it is commonly referred to as, is an unfinished build of Half-Life 2 from 2003. It was stolen along with the source code of the Source engine by Axel Gembe, a German black-hat hacker. It is not technically a Beta, this is the name given to the stolen files by the community. It is commonly referred to as a Beta however, so for the sake of consistency the terms "Beta" and "Leak" will be used interchangeably.

The Half-Life 2 Beta is unique in that it offers a fascinating insight into the development of Half-Life 2 that we may otherwise not have. It is very buggy, very unfinished, and very interesting.

What's different?

A lot of stuff is different in the Leak. The leak contains different features in almost every single regard.

NPCs are different: they are either totally unique NPCs or are different versions of the NPCs we now know and love. For instance, the Combine soldiers have odd yellow uniforms. Some NPCs remain virtually unchanged, with only slight differences in style.

Weapons are different: the Leak has a huge number weapons ranging from the overpowered sticky launcher, to the then-futuristic OICW concept rifle, to the innovative physics gun. Some weapons are clearly useless, such as the fire extinguisher and binoculars that were clearly usurped by the suit zoom. Either way, the weapons are entirely unique: the number of different weapons greatly outnumbers the number of weapons that remained in the final version of Half-Life 2.

The Beta contains multiplayer: unlike Half-Life 2, which shipped without a multiplayer component, the Leak contains a rudimentary multiplayer feature that retains many of the same features as the first Half-Life game. It's buggy, but it works - sort of.

The storyline of the Beta is much different: the Beta does not have a firmly established storyline. Instead, the Beta is split into two development cycles: the first cycle, which ended in 2002, and the second style, which was still being worked on in 2003 when the Leak occured.

The 2002 storyline has a very dark atmosphere - early iterations consisted of the earth's atmosphere being replaced with toxic gases in a facility called the Air Exchange, requiring all humans to wear special chemical suits. Later iterations from 2002 also included these dark tones but removed the gas elements. The 2002 storyline is most often considered as the true beta storyline, though it is very important to note that the Leak had no proper storyline: plot aspects would change daily in Valve's offices.

The 2003 storyline is virtually the same as the one that we have in the retail version of Half-Life 2. It is quite unfinished but the barebones is there.

The Leak also contains many features, gameplay and storyline scraps, and removed components that are too numerous to mention here. Several models, such as the aforementioned gasmask citizen, are lost to time.

These are not all of the differences in the Leak, but this post would be incredibly long if it did include every change.

What myths surround the Beta?

Because the Beta is so popular and yet so unknown due to Valve's refusal to speak on it's features coupled with the volatile state of development, early misconceptions and myths thought up about the Leak in the early days of the community have lead to a number of myths and outright lies existing.

The first myth is one that is still very widely circulated: the "Leak Soundtrack". This misconception was brought about by a community member who will remain unnamed to protect his or her privacy. It was widely spread in the early Beta community sites, and was a bizarre soup of tracks from other games entirely, mashed together into one supposed soundtrack. It is totally fake, and my video on the Lambda Videos channel should prove this. Some songs did exist within the original leaked beta files, but these are few and far between.

The second myth is also very common. This is the "German Hacker Curse", as I have dubbed it. This myth states that Half-Life 2 would resemble it's gritty 2002 state at retail if Axel Gembe didn't hack Valve. This is simply false. Valve had already moved away from the early storyline elements that included the darkness of the Air Exchange and the other related 1984 esque elements long before the Leak occurred.

The next myth isn't so much a myth as it is a misconception. When Half-Life 2 leaked, two versions were spread. The first is called the Anon leak, and the second is called the Russian leak. Many speculate that the Russian leak is better. It isn't. It includes an extra fan made map called "e3_gurluas", and a launcher. The launcher has been superseded by modern fixes. The map "e3_gurluas" is not actually from E3, and as such it cannot be found in the WC map pack. This pack will be covered later. The Anon leak is simply the pure untampered with files from the Valve servers.

Other minor myths do abound, but they are not widespread enough to warrant documentation here.

Okay, TL:DR. Where can I get the Beta?

Several sources exist for obtaining the Beta. These include sites such as betaarchive, which archives prerelease content from software and games, and private uploads on file sharing sites which can be found on YouTube and other sources.

The best source in my opinion is the site you are on right now, Hl2-beta.ru. The download speeds are good, and I and the other staff guarantee that the files on our site are thoroughly checked to ensure that they are clean and free of viruses.

I have the Beta, but it's broken and incomplete. What do?

The best way to make the Beta Better is to install fan made patches. The Downloads section of this site and the Valve Cut Content Discord are great places to find fixed maps, models and asset replacements/recreations for the Beta. The Mega Patches from our Downloads section are also excellent.

The most important fix is one that I cannot recommend highly enough. It is called LeakNet, and is made by VXP, a prominent beta community member. It is simply the best engine fix to date, fixing everything from the UI to the multiplayer to several broken scripts, such as the deforming terrain found in the E3 presentation. Leaknet can be found at leaknet.tk. Install it first, then any other fan made patches.

The next important thing to consider is the WC Map Pack. The WC is a collection of 1300 VMF map sources from Half-Life 2s early days. It includes maps from almost every stage of the development process. It it an invaluable insight into the development of the game. Download it from Hl2-beta.ru.

Many of the WC maps are incomplete, but you can fix them easily enough with dedication. Remember - VMF files cannot be used in game without compiling them in Hammer first - Hammer is the leak's mapping tool, and can be found in the bin folder of the Beta, where it is called wc.exe. A guide to setting up Hammer can be found on Hl2-beta.ru.

By fixing or compiling maps, installing fan patches and downloading LeakNet (remember to check for LeakNet updates regularly), you will have a much smoother Beta experience.

An important fact to note is that several other engine modifications exist. These include the Axel Project and other fan-made binary fixes. They are generally much poorer than LeakNet, and are often of dubious value because they are very rarely updated. Another important point to note is that Beta mods are not the be-all-end-all! Some mods, such as Dark Interval by Cvoxalury, are excellent. However, many of them suffer from low quality assets, such as models stolen from S.T.A.L.K.E.R., or exaggerated effects such as lens flare and bloom from the Cinematic Mod. They should mostly be avoided, because they are often never lore-friendly.

How do I play a map? New game doesn't work!

Open the console with the tilde key, or the @ key, depending on your layout. Type "map MAP NAME" without quotations, replacing MAP NAME with the nam of the map you wish to play. Maps can be found in the maps folder.

My textures are blurry!

Install the blurry texture fix or LeakNet. Both can be found on Hl2-beta.ru, but it is preferable to download LeakNet from the official site to see ensure that you have the latest version.

If you see an available memory issue, run the game in XP compatability mode as an administrator.

This has been a beginners guide to the Half-Life 2 Beta. If you have any questions you can do the following:

Contact me on this site (username is Jar of Flies)

Contact me on the Valve Cut Content Discord - a link can be found in our Links area.

Contact me on the Half-Life 2 Project Beta Discord - A link to the HL2 PB Discord can also be found in the links box.

Contact me on the Steam group or add me as a Steam friend - my name is in my signature. A link to the HL2 PB Steam group can also be found in the links box.

You may also contact me on YouTube by leaving a comment on the Lambda Videos channel. I am also an owner of the Half-Life 2 Project Beta YouTube channel, so you can also leave a comment there.