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List of pre-release Half-Life builds

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This is a list of known pre-release Half-Life builds spanning across the Half-Life series, from the original Half-Life through Half-Life 2. These are comprised of alpha, beta, demo, test, leaked, and early retail versions of the games. Not all are publicly available.

List[edit]

Version or build number Build date Release date Game Notes Publicly available
Version 0.52 (build 315) September 4, 1997 N/A Half-Life Leaked Half-Life alpha. Yes
Version 0.61 N/A N/A Half-Life Alpha version, described in Sierra's internal notes.[1] No
Build 366[a] N/A October 25, 1997 Half-Life Alpha version. Photo of CD uploaded by former Sierra employee Marc Tardif.[2] No
Build 418[a] N/A December 16, 1997 Half-Life Alpha version. Photo of CD uploaded by Geoff Keighley. No
Build 676 August 31, 1998 N/A Half-Life: Day One OEM demo of Half-Life sent to members of the press which then leaked online.[3] Yes
Beta 3 (build 693)[a] N/A September 17, 1998 Half-Life: Day One Sent out to testers.[4] No
Build 693 September 17, 1998 September 18, 1998 Half-Life: Day One Bundled with 3dfx Voodoo Banshee cards. Possibly the same build as Gold 1, but unconfirmed. Yes
Gold 1 (build 695)[a] N/A September 19, 1998 Half-Life: Day One Meant to be bundled with 3dfx Voodoo Banshee cards. Photo of CD uploaded by former halflife.net site owner Steve "jedisneak" Silva.[5] No
Build 703 September 27, 1998 N/A Half-Life: Day One Bundled with 3dfx Voodoo Banshee cards. Yes
Build 718 October 12, 1998 N/A Half-Life Evaluation build sent out to reviewers.[6] No
Beta 9 - Net Test 1 (build 722) October 16, 1998 October 16, 1998 Half-Life Sent out to beta testers for multiplayer testing. Uploaded by beta tester Chad Jessup. Yes
Beta 12 - Net Test 2 (build 725) October 19, 1998 October 20, 1998 Half-Life Sent out to beta testers for multiplayer testing. Uploaded by beta tester Chad Jessup. Yes
Build 727 October 21, 1998 October 28, 1998 Half-Life: Day One Bundled with the Thrustmaster Frag Master controller. Yes
Build 735 October 29, 1998 November 27, 1998 Half-Life First Italian retail release, compiled a week before other retail releases. Yes
RC4 (build 738) November 1, 1998 November 2, 1998 Half-Life Release by warez group CLASS, compiled three days before retail. Leaked by a temporary employee at one of the OEMs.[7] Yes
Build 1083 October 12, 1999 October 20, 1999 Half-Life: Opposing Force Press demo of Opposing Force. Yes
Build 1417 September 10, 2000 September 11, 2000 Half-Life, Half-Life: Blue Shift Debug build of the cancelled Half-Life Dreamcast port. Photo of CD uploaded to the Sega Dreamcast Info website.[8] Impending
Build 1448[a] N/A October 11, 2000 Half-Life, Half-Life: Blue Shift Preview build of the cancelled Dreamcast port. Photo of CD uploaded to the Sega Dreamcast Info website.[8] No
Build 1601[a] N/A March 13, 2001 Half-Life, Half-Life: Blue Shift Review build of the cancelled Dreamcast port. Photo of CD uploaded to the Sega Dreamcast Info website.[8] No
Build 1638 April 19, 2001 April 20, 2001 Half-Life, Half-Life: Blue Shift Leaked build of the cancelled Dreamcast port. Yes
Build 1659 May 10, 2001 May 15, 2001 Half-Life, Half-Life: Blue Shift Leaked build of the cancelled Dreamcast port. Yes
Build 1672 May 23, 2001 N/A Half-Life, Half-Life: Blue Shift Leaked build of the cancelled Dreamcast port. Scene release. Yes
Build 1757 August 16, 2001 N/A Half-Life, Half-Life: Decay NTSC-U build of the Half-Life Playstation 2 port leaked by the scene group (_Z_T_X_). Yes
Build 1800 September 28, 2001 November 30, 2001 Half-Life, Half-Life: Decay First European and Australian retail release of the Playstation 2 port. Yes
Build 1813 October 11, 2001 May 28, 2002 Half-Life Demo of the Half-Life Playstation 2 port included on the PlayStation Underground Jampack - Summer 2002 disc. Yes
Build 1819 October 17, 2001 N/A Half-Life Standalone demo disc of the Playstation 2 port. Yes
Build 2034 May 20, 2002 N/A Half-Life 2 Used to present the E3 2002 demo reel. Also refers to itself as "BUILD 2030" in the version string. No
Build 2391 May 12, 2003 N/A Half-Life 2 Used to present the E3 2003 demo reel. No
Build -7 September 23, 2003 N/A Half-Life: Source The "HL1 Ports" leak. Yes
Build 2526 September 24, 2003 N/A Half-Life, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Half-Life: Blue Shift The "WMods" leak. Yes
Build -4 September 26, 2003 N/A Half-Life 2 The Half-Life 2 leak. Yes
Build 2153 September 29, 2004 November 16, 2004 Half-Life 2 Collector's Edition of Half-Life 2, compiled over a month before the standard retail release. Yes
Build 2915 October 31, 2006 N/A Source Particle Benchmark Benchmark of particle simulation of The Orange Box branch of the Source engine. Yes

Notable builds[edit]

Half-Life Alpha[edit]

Main article: Half-Life Alpha

Half-Life: Day One[edit]

Main article: Half-Life: Day One

Half-Life Net Test 1 and Net Test 2[edit]

Net Test 1 (dated October 16, 1998 and marked as "Beta 9") and Net Test 2 (dated October 20, 1998 and marked as "Beta 12") are builds sent on disc by mail to playtesters[9] very shortly before the final release. Their main purpose was to test the game's multiplayer functionality. The Net Test 2 build was first dumped and made publicly available by former beta tester Chad Jessup on September 20, 2024,[10][11] and he would later post the Net Test 1 build on October 19, 2024.[12]

Half-Life: Opposing Force Press Demo[edit]

This section is in the middle of an expansion or major revamping.

Half-Life 2 leak[edit]

Main article: Half-Life 2 leak

Source Particle Benchmark[edit]

Gallery[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 This build number is inferred by the known release date. As the build in question is not publicly available, the actual build number may be off by a few versions.

References[edit]

  1. Never-before-seen Half-Life development documents on ValveTime (August 24, 2016)
  2. Li icon.png Marc Tardif on LinkedIn
  3. Half-Life Preview on The Adrenaline Vault (September 24, 1998) (archived)
  4. Finally got a copy of that Half Life Alpha disk up. See inside for link to files on Reddit (July 30, 2013)
  5. Comment on Shacknews (December 19, 2007)
  6. Just a Start - tighl01 on [- Tigger-oN's Half-Life -] (November 11, 1998)
  7. Interview with Gabe Newell on PC Gamer (November 5, 1998) (archived)
  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 Half-Life, the FPS that didn't have the chance to live on Dreamcast! on Sega Dreamcast Info (September 22, 2024)
  9. Twitter favicon.png Tweet: "Yup! This was to test real computer configurations, network/internet connections, etc. The only real way to get as many details and bugs as possible, is to send out beta discs to a large group of people out in the wild." @ubahs1337 on Twitter (September 20, 2024)
  10. Twitter favicon.png Tweet: "Oh! Oh! Something I've been talking about for years... Half-Life 1 beta 2 CD." @ubahs1337 on Twitter (September 19, 2024)
  11. Twitter favicon.png Tweet: "I was a beta tester and went into the studio for an in person play test." @ubahs1337 on Twitter (September 20, 2024)
  12. Twitter favicon.png Tweet: "This is a temporary location. I'll get it up on the internet archive when it's healthy again. They're working super hard on that, by the way, give them some love." @ubahs1337 on Twitter (October 19, 2024)