As part of celebrations for Halo 2‘s 20th anniversary this November, Halo Studios is releasing a recreation of that lost E3 demo from 2003, via a Steam Workshop mod for the Master Chief Collection.
“The buzz and hype going into that event was off the charts and the stakes were higher than ever,” reflected Halo’s community director Brian Jarrard, in an anniversary blog post.
“I have fond memories of so much playtesting and practising, internal challenges to see who could take out every single enemy in a flawless playthrough.”
Jarred spoke about the “electric” response to Halo 2’s E3 demo. “None of us ever would have expected that 20+ years later, a group of passionate community modders would bring this demo to life as a full-fledged mission,” he continued.
As for why it has taken so long for the demo to be playable to the wider Halo community, this was due to ‘snags with technology’. Thankfully, the original files and assets have now been recovered, although work still needed to be done to make the demo playable today. This was because the 2003 demo was built in a version of the Halo engine that doesn’t actually exist any more, and assets weren’t compatible with other existing versions of Halo 2.
“This put us in a bit of a quandary,” Halo senior franchise writer Kenneth Peters explained. “Even the original executable is difficult to work with, as you need an Xbox developer kit to get it to boot, which is in increasingly short supply even within the studio. But now, in 2024, we have the Digsite-developed tools to analyse and automate up-porting old assets, and the unearthed knowledge to know why Bungie built things the way they did in the demo.”
The free Halo 2 E3 demo mod will be released on 9th November, via Steam Workshop, and include gameplay that didn’t make it into the final release.
Additionally, Halo Infinite players will be able to revisit recreations of Halo 2 multiplayer maps and gameplay in Halo Infinite’s Delta Arena Playlist from today, 5th November. Further details can be found via Microsoft.
For more, last month a former member of Texas-based support studio Certain Affinity confirmed reports the team was working on a battle royale mode for Halo Infinite, calling the cancelled project a potential “game changer”.
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