I've been looking for this footage since I saw it as a kid in 2012, almost convinced myself I was having a Mandela effect moment but I finally found it.
Original Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_URU8Vn9AI
Some notable things:
- This seems like Pre-Alpha footage picked up right after they were working on Spider-Man 4 (notice the early tendrils being the Spider-Man 4 web textures colored red in clip 5, and Manhattan map being the Spider-Man 4 version in clip 7)
- Because this was around Pre-Alpha era, they were mainly focused on prototyping mechanics and not on creating art assets. Which is why Heller in this video is just an edited version of Alex's model (although it's possible Alex could've been the protagonist in one of these clips)
- The only new art assets noticeable are the slightly modified Prototype 1 UI designs with leftovers from Spider-Man 4's UI Designs. Also the obvious salad finger tendril arms with early attack animations and the early mid-air blackhole animation (seen in the announcement trailer and E3 gameplay footage). There's also an early Prototype 2 Brawler model, and the finisher animation that looks not too different from what it looks like in the final game
- In the files of the game, there's an unused animation for putting on and removing the hood. You can see in most of the clips, the player is unhooded, but in clip 7 you can see that they're wearing a hood.
I like to think that clip 7 is actually the earliest in development since the jacket mesh is the same as Prototype 1's jacket mesh, whereas the other clips show the collar of the jacket higher to look like Heller's jacket. Which means that clip 7 could've been when they had Alex as the protagonist and the previous clips are supposed to be Heller. I could be wrong however, and all these clips are supposed to be Heller.
Either way, this footage is the reason why they showed the armor in the announcement trailer. Because this is what Heller's model looked like at the time since they didn't have the final model yet. There is only one shot of the finished James Heller model in the announcement trailer with the blade, but that was probably put in last second once they finished modeling him right after recording all the gameplay footage with the armor for the announcement trailer. Not a good decision in hindsight since the armor never really appeared in the game as an actual power, but at the time they probably assumed that they were going to keep it as a power rather than as a skin.