The Structure of the Game

I was wondering from the structure of the game, like those two levels in the beginning that kind of happened before the quote unquote by areas. Were they in there always? Or did you was that a compromise? Was it like, Oh, let's just do these two not super, super stressful levels so that people who you do those a couple of times and then after a while, you're like, wait, I don't have to start on the East Coast.