Digsite just dropped a test scenario for earthark out of nowhere so I explored it a bit. I noticed the script had one last line commented out, wonder if it was there to prevent the petals from closing.
It went even beyond this, H2 storyboards had Truth's death nearly word for word for how it is in H3, even down to the Arbiter killing him More or less the only key difference H3 has compared to what H2 was going to have is that the Ark is it's own installation and not on Earth. Everything is more or less the same in a way, or at least the same story beats (even down to Chief ending up plummeting down to Earth in a jungle) but the Arbiter was much more involved (basically imagine H3 co-op of him being there with you every level) and H3 also had some extra levels to pad things out like Tsavo Highway and Crow's Nest. So arguably the only real new stuff we got was Cortana and Halo Edit: Saw this in the comment below this one and no, Bungie did not retcon Forerunners. I didn't mention this because it was completely unrelated to this post anyway, but Jamie Grissemer thought the original H2 reveal just wasn't very impactful enough so the H3 team did the Spark reveal instead. Humans were always Forerunner until 343 changed that with the Forerunner Trilogy books. It was not changed in H3, in the story or the terminals. See HiddenXperia's and C3 Sabertooth's videos on this.
@@CantRead1 Don't know why my comment got removed but, no, this is not true. I would recommend watching C3 Sabertooth's and HiddenXperia's videos on this.
@CantRead1 In CE/2 humans were the direct descendants of the Forerunners. In 3 the Forerunners were still humans, but they were uplifted by the Precursors. We were humans who evolved naturally on the shared home world. Hiddenxperia has a phenomenal video showing how in Bungie’s can Forerunners were definitively ancient humans.
It’s pretty crazy just how unfinished Halo 2 actually is. For the longest time I thought Bungie was just exaggerating when they said that it’s their greatest failure. Digsite, Vengeful Vadam’s Halo 2 Uncut mod, and C3Sabertooth animating Halo 2’s storyboards give us a glimpse into how ambitious Bungie was. It’s too bad that due to a combination of hardware and time constraints we weren’t able to get their magnum opus. My ideal Halo would be a remake of 2 that gives us Bungie’s original vision (favorite part of that is how Truth’s plan actually made perfect sense, with him wanting to wipe the slate clean and become God by having the Ark create a new species based on his genome. We also missed out on the Arbiter having a complete character arc, and the big reveal that humans are Forerunners).
Screw that. We are going to make this ourselves. Leave it to the community and the halo fans to piece together the true halo 2 we never got! Can’t wait for this, each day we get closer and closer to our goal. I can imagine what it looks like now! It’s going to take a lot of work, but when it is all said and done, this is going to be amazing!
I want to live in a world where the OG xbox was strong enough for the Halo 2 engine, and bungie had all the time it needed to fully develop Halo 2 into all of its planned glory.
Ahh so the Halo 2 concept art of Chief in the desert (the one with him wielding dual SMG's with a scorpion in the background) makes more sense now after seeing this.
Man, the scale they were going here was never going to work on the original Xbox. It would have been fantastic if they actually finished it, but this would have ran atrociously.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think we'd EVER see cut content like this. Seeing flood juggernauts and the cut warthog run was shocking enough, but seeing this?! Mindblowing.
Can you imagine if Halo were rebooted under a new timeline, where they created Halo 1 and Halo 2 in their original Humans were Forerunners plot? It'd certainly breathe new life into the IP, get old fans intrigued into old Bungie plot concepts, and new fans would feel it's new and exciting!
It's incredibly eerie seeing the Halo 2 version of the Ark. Surreal atmosphere. Who would have thought Bungie made it that far to the point that the Ark was made?
Damn, I never thought they got this far along on the development here. Yeah, it’s early, but damn. Really glad they kept the design for the Ark intact for Halo 3’s Ark portal.
Something about the simplicity of the art design in Halo 2, even if it’s because of technical limitations - lends such a certain atmospheric vibe. The Halo 3 sandbox if far more polished but did slightly sacrifice a touch of zeitgeist. LOD staying lower so the grand scale of architecture looms is the right move. We should want very good graphics but with cleaner LOD. Don’t over design.
@@protonjones54 lol Sandbox = physics engine, feel of being in the game Zeitgeist = “spirit of the times” or general vibe LOD = level of detail. Things can be too detailed and over stimulating and take away from the art design. Not sure if that’s what was confusing or not.
jesuschrist thats massive, what the fuck, yeah they werent lying when they said halo 2 was TOO MUCH ambitious, its a shame cuz these ideas were cool, but yeah, no way the xbox could run this on an engine made with ducktape and spit.
Damn, I never thought they got this far along on the development here. Yeah, it’s early, but damn. Really glad they kept the design for the Ark intact for Halo 3’s Ark portal. **EDIT:** Btw, I love your username!
So, I heard somewhere that New Mombasa was flattened like a parking lot, as in that was the original idea, but it was retconned (the video I watched was about Halo Retcons over the years) so I guess my question is, WAS it the original idea? Or did someone just add that to the background when they brought this concept to life?
Man I am absolutely filthy about the fact they never got to finish this game. Halo 2 would have been a perfect game if (a) the story actually got finished and (b) they didn't kill the lighting engine (or at least spent the time to redesign the game to look good with the inferior lighting system). Halo 3 was a poor consolation prize by comparison. And 2005 Bungie could have gone on to create something new and exciting.
@@cheechunlimitedlol the story sucked compared to 1 and 2, and it never lived up to marketing, not even close, multiplayer and custom games is what it’s remembered for
@@sagenebula7120 It's pretty fun, but could have done with two or three months' extra polish. But that would have ruined Microsoft's Q4 shareholder reports.
@@cheechunlimited not really, the first half is just filler, Truth's character is squashed flat, the Arbiter's story gets shafted, the Flood storyline makes no sense (they go to Earth twice-once off-screen-and spores get into the atmosphere, but somehow Earth doesn't get overrun by flood and you can just stop them by glassing a small area????) Miranda turns into an idiot who thinks she should try to attack Truth and his brutes solo in a pelican despite the fact there are heaps of ships and small craft at her command, and it turns out the halo *does* kill flood after all. The dialogue writing is a big step down in general. The first two games had plenty of cheesy moments but Halo 3 is next level.
