anyone know if any review copy/builds were ever leaked? E3 trailer with a SHIT load of differences from retail, all ingame engine scenes, SFM didn't exist back then.
There's the public beta that came out a little before October 9, 2007, but it's similar to the retail build. One of the several different TF2 games Valve made before deciding on one leaked, and some group tried to make it function. This one is nothing like the cartoony TF2 we know today. I don't know how much they modified, but here you go. edit: fixed the date
WOW, very odd. has this ever been put up for download? i really like that e3 techdemo physgun haha, lots of beta hl2 items in here
Someone uploaded it years ago, but I forgot where. Try the Beta Archive. There is a bunch of information on Valve's old ideas on the official TF2 wiki, and Valve shared a bunch of concept art. They did not show art for the military, sci fi and a few of the other proto TF2 iterations sadly.
SFM did exist back then, it was just internal & went by a different name. If by military you mean the version of TF2 called Brotherhood of Arms, there is definitely a video & pictures of it out there. This is the first idea of TF2 to be worked on, I believe. Still ran on the Gold Source engine (HL1). The other Source engine based TF2's never seemed to have gotten too far past the initial planning stage (from what we've seen). It did give us a look into some of the ideas for gametypes that were rattling around in their heads, however.
I actually own a copy of the open beta. I remember reading somewhere that there are a few differences on some of the maps from the retail version. I wish I got to play that more before it closed since I found you can get like 40 items at once. Is there a way that you can still play it? There are a bunch of skins on gamebanana that make the classes look the same as they did in the first trailers shown. I have also found a group that are working on reintergrating the grenades that were removed.