Half-Life 2 Beta City 17 Trainstation
An interpretation of the interior of the City 17 train station, circa 2001.
Developing this map was a bit of a bother. The leaked beta version of Hammer is dreadfully sluggish after a certain point, leading to absurdity like three second delays when selecting brush faces in the texture editing mode.
A larger issue however was the constant design back-and-forth I had when trying to establish the visual style. I wanted it to look authentic to the 2001 beta aesthetic (blocky, heavily reliant on level geometry to convey details that would be better suited as models, full of bizarre quirks that probably made sense to some designer at Valve at some point in time 21 years ago and full of overscaled and stretched texturing) but not completely terrible like some of those old maps could be. I think I managed to reach a balance.
But one thing is for sure - this is the last time I ever use leak Hammer again. You'd think years of fan patches for the beta would sort this out but it remains a rotten piece of software to this day.
The main lobby. A ticket booth can be seen in the distance beyond the horse statue. The stairs lead down to a subway platform.
The waiting area. In true 2001 fashion, the benches are made of brushes.
The central platforms. Reminiscent of an early concept art illustration by Half-Life 2 art director Viktor Antonov which features train stops both on ground level and on elevated supports.
The subway station. The trains are lacking details because they were taken directly from an early prototype beta map to keep continuity with the era and location.