Industry archivists ‘Noclip’ release Half-Life 2 beta footage from E3 2003

As the video game industry ages, more and more of its history is being lost, with hours upon hours of important industry moments slowly being forgotten. Fortunately, since last year, the YouTube Channel / documentary creators ‘Noclip’ have been archiving these moments online in the best quality possible. The latest set of archived footage has arrived, including Half-Life 2’s 2003 E3 trailer.

Available to view now on their dedicated ‘Noclip Game History Archive’ channel, the first trailer for Valve’s iconic ‘Half-Life 2’ – which debuted at E3 2003 – can now be watched as intended.

The footage was said to have been “Sourced from original file sent to the games press” meaning it is as good a quality as we will get. Though the original file is in 720p, the YouTube video has been encoded in 4K to ensure as little artifacting as possible.

Alongside the HL2 trailer, Noclip have also published a two-decade-old interview with Adam Boyes as well as some miscellaneous game TV adverts from around the same period.

In a short amount of time, Noclip has managed to preserve many of the industry’s biggest moments, including the announcement of the PS3, Nintendo’s 2000 Spaceworld GameCube tech demo and more. Hopefully they continue with this endeavour.

KitGuru says: What do you think of Noclip? Have you watched their documentaries? What’s your favourite gaming industry moment? Let us know down below.

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