10 Things You Didn't Know About Half-Life

Did you know that after a lot of development, in 1997 the version of Half-Life that had been previously produced was completely scrapped as it was deemed not good enough?

In a Valve Employee Handbook in the Valve Timeline section, the game in its alpha state was internally reviewed during 1997. The document outlines that at this point the "Half-Life team returns to the drawing board and essentially starts over."

That's quite amazing when you realise that the full game actually shipped in 1998, giving the team just a year to reconfigure what they'd already made and pump out the game we know and love.

The Alpha version has since been leaked, and features several unfinished maps (21 in total), slight changes to the storyline, scripted sequences, and many environments appear differently to how they do in the final version.

Mods also exist to allow the alpha version to be freely playable too, despite the fact it was never meant to be seen by the general public.

The G-Man is also not present at all in this version and was added in at a later date to the final build. Considering he's one of the most important characters now in the series, that was probably a good idea!