Halo: Combat Evolved Devs React to Speedrun (Marty O'Donnell, Marcus Lehto) 

Lmao even the devs know the lvl is boring af.

@@slandgkearth It honestly felt like Microsoft told Bungie they need 10 campaign levels so they just rushed The Library

@@slandgkearth that and it had awful checkpoints in the library mission

"this video is looping, I think"

@@pierreo33 they said in the video that it was originally supposed to be more fun and you saw the index the whole time but some limitation happened so they walled the staircase off and just put elevators and they accidentally made it too long during play testing

I mean, he most likely has a recording studio costing thousands of pounds in his house, so I’d assume his mic is top of the line

took the words right out of my mouth

@@huwfollantyearl6726 damn that's a really heavy studio

@@huwfollantyearl6726 that's the joke

@@huwfollantyearl6726 What’s making the studio so heavy??

That's the problem. They act like 20 year old kids when they are 45+ grown adults. Their current product reflects that wholly

@@callmeshaggy5166 If you're referring to the newer games, I'm pretty sure most if not all of them did not work on them.

Apparently, devs are not allowed to have a sense of humor.

@@Kyle_Schaff no, replying to The White Recluse's comment

v can

Timestamp?

Nvm 16:18

@@erens-basement Thanks c:

To be fair, these guys poured the souls into this game for a couple years. The speedrunner said, "Nah, I'll make it an hour." That has got to be heart breaking.

​@@jordan9604the speedrunner has probably also put a significant amount of time into the game outside of a single run lmao

Well he IS right about the music being great 😉😂

Imagine being the dude who made the halo soundtrack.... thats probably his greatest life accomplishment At least I'm assuming because , how do you top that ??

@@noblecyborg-savage By being Mick Gordon. I love the Halo soundtrack.

finding out he is the femal vocal and not telling his other coworker till 40 days later lmfaooooo

When do they say that in the video?

In the dev commentary back in 2010 or something, they explain that the cave was meant to be a combat area. The banshees shoo you into it, and as you fight further it turns into forerunner.

@@connorstutsman8011 "How am I supposed to respond to that?"

@@Dr_Pickle where could I listen to that?

@@samuelwillis look up Halo CE developer commentary.

“At least let them turn the flash lights on” 😭

omg these fuckers were the worst.

The question on all of our minds when doing a Legendary Library run..

@@Idonious or any run even on easy (yeah I play on easy) the rocket launcher flood have killed me many times.

Gahahaha yes SIRRRRR

@@Idonious Easily the most dreaded moment of my legendary run. The whole Library mission was rough.

Instead of Cortana yelling about the Chief going rampant if you kill the bridge crew on PoA, it should just be this guy muttering "Marty, he's killin' the marines!"

Where can I sign?

Jesus is coming soon he loves you all please repent and accept him and don’t take that vaccine btw

Yes

@@Thowzand_ yeah sure, any moment now, aaaaaaany moment for the past 2000 years

What time in the video was that said?? 😂😂😂

@@neltronz 9:17

come on, the library wasnt that bad

@@phoebelovesYOU until you're going for the deathless achievement...

Not nearly as bad as sacred icon and oracle

the library was one of the easiest for me

Lmaoo

I actually enjoyed sinking into the flow in The Library, but it was pretty long.

@@emPtysp4ce According to the devs, it should have ended 1/3rd of the way in.

I saw this comment just as the devs said that line. lmao

Yeah, I also noted that they said we were supposed to be able to see the Index the whole time, and descend into the nine circles of hell, or some big spiral thing, but they couldn't do it. I would have loved to have seen that, but hardware limitations made the library what it is, and the entire circular design of the level with multiple floors really added to the scale of the structure regardless. If I could mod this game, I wouldn't change a thing, except perhaps have a more obvious physical or light bridge barrier around the Index, so the Flood can't just grab a Banshee and take it. The fact that the developers made the encounters so different, with Rocket Flood, Carrier Forms, and so on, with so little to work with, and so many corridors is amazing. I played one of Bungie's older games; Pathways into Darkness, and the geometry of The Library is leaps and bounds ahead of the randomly generated, and not-so-random mazes they were doing with sprites. Also, the texture for the elevators was beautiful, the chapter transitions and title cards added some much needed humour, and Anniversary and the MCC ruined it; although at the same time, I am glad that I no longer get lost in the levels because of the arrows they borrowed from Assault on the Control Room/Two Betrayals. We could have used that on the Truth and Reconciliation. Then William C. Dietz played the level on Normal (?), and added so much more by just piecing together what was on the level, and creating tension and horror he excels at in the novelization. I also note that Bungie and 343i forgot the lesson imparted by the Library. The same 30 seconds of fun over and over and OVER and OVER and OVER and _over_ and _OVER_ again really does not bloody work. See Halo 4 and the Prometheans for examples.

My favorite level and the devs would have butchered it if they hadn't been so immersed in production. Guess I know why I dont enjoy games as much anymore.

Truly

Frfrrr

It has a little something for everyone

Has or will ever

By a huge margin too

They didn't play alot of oblivion since it didn't exist yet lmao but morrowind

this why the are always bad players

Bungie devs grew up with games where bhopping was a valid speedrun technique

me too game development is usually never talked about or documented unless they have a short documentary about it like elder scrolls 4 did.

​@@846nick halo is unique because EVERYTHING is documented pretty thoroughly in one place or another.

I see you everywhere.

Hi there

why? It's literally just some inside joke reference that only one of them even remembers

I was crying laughing when he was saying that to Marty 😂😂

Oh yeah, I thought the same thing

Even though its so old now I still feel its got more weight to it then newer shoots for the mechanics I loved the old walk also just storm forward especially to the music I must have played it 15 times at least

These guys killed it. I spent so many hours in this game. lol

@@sean7332 games nowadays are more flash and less nuance. Hope we get something like a NV successor in cyber punk!

You guys are old fans but I’m a new one I have been only playing for a year and a half but I have spent over 200 hours on halo ce

ElseAndrecool I was probably around 4 years old when I started playing halo, 19 now lol. Time is weird man

Poor guy just wanted to make his friend laugh haha

*TIMESTAMPS* 13:52 Marty he's killing the marines! also 15:10 and 59:00

Marty is the sound guy and everyone else on this call is a veteran game dev. The more cynical devs on the call are mocking Marty because he lacks the depth of knowledge about this game and game design in general. It's obvious to everyone else in the call why the speed runner is killing the marines, but suddenly Marty, the sound "designer", chimes in with "OMG gUyS TheYrE kiLLiNG the MaRINes?!?!?". This is probably pretty frustrating for the (actual) game developers on the call, who are eager to explore how the speed runner is breaking the game engine. Meanwhile, Marty is like 'GuYs Isn'T it SUCH a bUMMer hOw wE cAn'T hEar mY sCoRe BeCause tHe VoLumE is OFF?!?'

@@benmcavoy8804 you’re over thinking it there my guy.

@@benmcavoy8804 he’s joking about the music dude... and he actually played a massive role in the halo games, much more than just audio

😂😂😂😂

It is beautiful

Right, felt like the video was a little over a decade old when i started watching

When was that???

@@TrudeaisaWEFpuppet 34:20

He wasn’t just the composer after all, he was audio director and did all character audio cues and dialogue recordings

At the time, since this was 20ish years ago, game devs were still more considered nerds, geeks, basement dwellers, the whole bit. This is why you never listen to what anyone says and just do your own freaking thing.

No one knew how successful Halo would become. 20 years later, and still going strong. It's interesting to think about.

@@QueenofSilence101 until 343 killed it

@@pierreo33 they killed it the way disney kiled star wars. The classics will always be loved, but everyone has moved on.

It was about time to recognize Jaime's work, what an absolute legend

@@Dylan-pt1iv $uicideboy$ art album with Germ

I dont think this is true, or at least wasn't, or currently isn't? I know I've seen Bungies credits in there. I believe 343s credits come up, then Bungies.

@@charlesmaclellan8124no, they don't have bungie or 343 credits they've never been in mcc

@@crashbash8549 So there's no credits at all in the game?

It may of been at their own request, is probably why

I got so much satisfaction out of that, the Library was always my least favorite level because of how long and repetitive it was

@1993DJC they mentioned it was a performance (perf) issue. sounds like the xbox or engine wouldnt had been able to handle that large of an unbroken interior space. they wouldnt have been able to get away with their normal optimizing tricks like BSP swaps without somehow breaking line of sight through the level

I appreciate their wonderful, reasonable, mature balance of being proud of their achievements and what they like in their creations, while also acknowledging with humility their mistakes and lessons learned along the way years later.

I personally wouldn't say it's too long of a level, there are longer missions in ce. I think the library was a decent length but it's far too repetitive, and this is coming from someone who loves the library, actually think it's a fun mission personally. But I can admit it's tedious and repetitive.

I like the lenght of it because its gameplay is unique and fun and it's a nice break from the previous levels into something more challenging and survival oriented. The dance you have with the enemies is different, it's really important to decide wether to push or retreat based on rng and your resources and what target to kill first, it's really momentum based, in comparison to other levels. Some flood waves really get your blood flowing, although some walking sections are useless. Still better than the hell that Keys first part is. PoA is based on firepower and planning and tutorials Halo is based on area control on large scale T&R is based on skill, tactics and control on smaller scale SR is based on exploration and offensive approach AotCR is based on combat arenas and veichle combat 343GS is based on spooks and ambushes Library is based on momentum and survival TB is based on adaptation Keys is based on retreating and being careful of your position and spawns The Maw is based on constant forward pushing and finishing the fight

And I also didn't know that Marty did the flood sounds.

Honestly it explains why they always land so close to the ground when dropping off troops.. Also explains why they literally freeze in the air when they stop to let the dudes out, cuz they're literally just pausing the playback animation...

Most fascinating fact for me

Love how rooster teeth then went on to use the same method for red vs blue serise

Talk about nailing it on the first try. Versions of that structure are still being used to this day in Infinite!

He put a video up on his RU-vid channel that documented him making that song and the ideas behind it. I think everyone is shocked to learn that it’s actually him. I would highly recommend his RU-vid channel for behind the scenes halo stuff

L-M-F-A-O that is awesome

@@ianhall6614 Whats his RU-vid channel?

@@ianhall6614 but he was joking right? There's no way that's actually him

It’s just his name Marty O’Donnell. Go to the search function on his channel and type in under the cover of night, which is the name of the song. His channel is awesome, it gives me such nostalgia throw back memories. Halo CE-ODST were truly special times and I find myself wanting to relive those years a lot recently

Keep killing it man I watch every new WR. Waiting for sub 60 minutes. Keep doing the 360 swag.

Awesome work as always Garish!!

loved seeing the devs trying to speculate how you were going to pull off some trick, "wait.. he's not supposed to be able to do that" LMAO

@@JonTostanoski fuckin nails it when I see him do it

Generalkidd did a test on it. It is NOT faster than the other warthogs in the game, it's actually slower to prevent a crash during a jump.

They’re like what happens if the robotics club all became actually legit cool 20 years later and they can finally vibe 😂

Because in theory you are usnually not supposed to be able to do it this quickly

Sakurai: No, this isn't the way your supposed to play the game

@@annonymous7286 lol

Yes you are right

Shame they didn’t have Joe or Jason, they were great in the developer commentary.

@@capnkaba Oh for sure, that dev commentary is so funny

The developer commentaries are absolutely hilarious

That's how they were able to make some of the most fun FPS games of all time. It's a shame all the popular FPS games today are just hardcore competitive. Halo definitely had a serious competitive scene, but it's the casual modes and goofing around with friends that made Halo so popular and beloved. FPS games in general have just gotten way too serious over the past 5 years or so, even Halo 5.

*TIMESTAMPS* 13:52 Marty he's killing the marines! also 15:10 and 59:00

@@alvzcizzler 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Paul Russel :)

@@alvzcizzler also 35:30 lol

brief bit at 58:59 as well

He really has embraced it, his RU-vid channel is stacked full of behind the scenes stuff and music stuff and breakdowns. He's very much Halo's #1 fan

@@Whiteythereaper Damn, that's tough and cute at the same time.

@CommandoDude You sound exactly like my older brother, except he called me a sociopath instead of a psycho

Nah it's "IT'S HOG KILLING TIME"

@CommandoDude ngl i do it sometimes to take their ammo XD

Marines in CE exist to be either warthog gunners or ammo mules. They have no other purpose

@@fenfrostpaws2000 they were bred for a sole purpose

Damn you were a teenager when the first halo came out

Except with even more dorking around, I'd love that

Doing something akin to what recently happened where a dude took one of the old Dead Space devs through remake would be great for some of the old Halo devs. Seriously, if these guys just ran a weekly stream of playing through the campaign and just chatting about Halo or whatever, I'd invest in it.

You can watch the development commentary of their games, specially Halo CE and Halo 2 with Marty O'Donnell, Joe Staten and Jason Jones

It'd be awesome if they reacted to InfernoPlus's Cursed Halo too, just because it would be interesting to see them react to what he did to their beloved game

Look up the Halo ce and Halo 2 dev walkthroughs. They are kinda long but alot of neat stories from the making of those games. Idk if Halo 3 has one cuz they already did alot of vidoc's for H3

It's not really easier. It's impossible to see in old graphics.

The truth is that in the anniversary graphics the entire map is rendered while in the classics it does it in parts

Which time spot? I watched and think i missed it

@@droprelease4820 Every time Garish goes out of the map he switches to anniversary.

@@kaddasixseven3581 thus, easier

By a whole minute I bet

The underbreath comments and stuff

It's going to be super hard to beat that record, especially by a large margin unless a new skip is found. I bet he can do it, but the record breaking might slow down a little bit. We will see.

Its also sad because the recent Halo game dont have this special touch by their creators, do it will never reach that level of nostalgia, sadly

Yeah I'm glad Marty has no problem telling it like it is in regards to Bungie and the MCC

it's jarring when it just cuts back to the main menu in this version. The credits with the music were much nicer than being right back in main menu after you save the universe

343 removed their own message/credits at the end of halo 4, it was a weird choice

@@vaahtobileet Hence why i will never purchase MCC in the first place, not on Xbox, not on Steam, nowhere. They cut so many things from the original games, especially this one.

Im hoping there's a mod on PC that includes the credits.

We'll never see anything like it ever again 😢

Sadly they all split. We need more devs loving what they're doing

I miss when game developers were passionate about what they made instead of just finding something to do that pays. If only we could have a group as great as them making the Halo games instead of the souless 343 Incompetencies.

@@alexanderrobins7497 don't forget their own beliefs in making games All of that combined made it that much greater. Jaime with his 30 sec of fun Joe with his cinematic and perfectionist or OCD Marty wanting the feeling to seep into the player and smooth transition I can't rmb wad Paul one was, but every1 of them all had core beliefs that acted as the pillars of the game design

Actually, I wish Jen Taylor was also participating in this react video. I don't think we've ever heard her side of Halo's development. And it's especially weird considering she's been with this series the longest along with Frankie O' Connor.

My favorite was one of the seemingly more senior designers constantly praising the level designers and artists. Really wonderful to hear that!

Timestamp?

@@Savant_Ananya 41:21

"Not while we're being recorded"🤣

thats what the stadia dev wants from now on

From the process they described in terms of what it took ("Everything had to fit together air-tight" or you'd get an error for example) it sounds like OOB was the last thing they expected to see because all the level guys it sounds like had to spend literal days of their lives making teeny tiny tweaks because their tool would say "NOPE NOT AIR TIGHT!"

@1:02:30 :)

But then again Americans are known for their smiling and how much they do it compared to most countries. It's a cultural thing

Americans: ☺️ Finns: 😐

117 likes! Oh not anymore

SISU 🇫🇮

Was hoping Marty would say "Smile, would you? While we still got something to smile about!"

"Puma"

@@MrZaranthan Whats a puma?

@@MrZaranthan "A Walrus"

@@fatty1040 Stop making up animals.

@@MrZaranthanyou made that up 😏

LMAO

He sounded like Caboose from Season 1!

yes he so did

Could you release a mod, cheet-code, or DLC, that allows us to fly them the same way?

There's a dev commentary on the Halo CE cutscenes, in which it's described how Marty saved Halo, twice. They had to do the same thing with Chief in cutscenes, so his movement is kind of janky because they were recording mouse look and using that at playback for the cutscenes.

Best answer is either: A. Thruster stabilization after the autumn impact B. Data pockets (did you know it's faster for the government to fly multiple terabytes of data from one place to another than to send the data over the internet? Same basic idea)

Fr

"Sword Flying" intensifies

:(

no he said they were Dustin Echoes, they all were him. Still no clear answer on who Dustin is though.

@@spartan117celmfao

@@spartan117ce it's a name they gave to one of the marine npc's. They were talking about him earlier on in the video

Timestamp?

im fairly certain there was a developer commentary done ages ago

@@KezJUNGLIST Yup, included as part of the Halo 3 special edition and its up on RU-vid though its only cutscenes. They've done it for Halo 1 and 2 and Reach but not 3 or ODST unfortunately.

There was one years ago. I remember back in AOTCS they were talking about crazy Cortana as early as back then even lol.

its been done, foo

yessssssssss

2020 is not THAT bad after all.

Some even longer than that

@@jcdenton3512 Hardy LeBell was the first person who came to mind. He left mid way through Halo 2's development. I remember he said he also said he did not like some of the gameplay choices or something like that.

Marty and Jamie work together at high wire games, their own studio. I’m pretty sure Paul Bertone works there too. They put out a game last year and I’m hoping they announce a new game soon because those guys have extreme talent and passion

They still are amazing imo, both bungie and 343 respectively have made documented attempts to re-capture the essence of the second level of CE, and neither managed to succeed. Even Halo 3 which is almost universally loved never really raised the bar the same way CE did in 2001

imagine if Halo ended there and Halo 2 never was a thing... DANG I can't imagine my life without Halo! Too many memories

i that get me when they said that when i was a kid i wanted to see how it all end

They meant they didn’t know they had a future working on more Halo games. It all comes down to what people want. Thankfully for them it was more Halo.

@@randy1822001 thankfully for us too!

The line " No were just getting started" was added for the pc release. In the original "Halo, its finished" was the last line

NO

I wouldn't like a normal alien game but this. This was just amazing. They nailed specially whole map design, I'd never imagine how aliens look and put a green fellow with black eyes.

Fresh faces may not have hands on experience but you can expect their 100% effort.

You'd be hard pressed to find a dev team that doesn't have a new dev on it.

I mean, they had a lot of people working on the first halo game, so obviously someone in there is going to be a fresh face?

@@protonjones54 Didn't they have like, 40 people working on that game in under 9 months or something eventually.

which time slot is that?

@@droprelease4820 not sure on the time stamp but a lot of the times he glitches into geometry and moves outside of the game space, you can see the graphics shift into a different colour scheme and texture maps. That’s because he has switched graphics to anniversary edition

uh if u watched the speedrun he's doing it specifically to "possibly" skip the glitching frames he gets in that section. Shedding a few seconds.

@@droprelease4820 For example: 51:10

@@thrivingentrepreneur you're wrong; anniversary is the same game just a different coat of paint, no physics engine difference. He chooses to change the graphics because those textures don't exist in the original graphics

I’m sure they still talk

And at the beginning one of them says they're just here to talk

Yes!

Lmao sums it up pretty accurately.

Listen to the Halo commentary on the Halo 3 legendary edition that O'Donnell, Jason Jones, and Joe Staten did for Halo 1. It was always a thing

Who's Dustin echoes?

@@protonjones54 At the end of Combat Evolved, when the Chief and Cortana are on the ship out of the ring, the Chief asks if anybody else made it. Cortana says "No, just Dust and Echoes. " Or something along those lines. To many it sounds like the only other person who made it was Dustin Echoes.

I think the helmet was Pvt. Jenkins? I could be thinking of a character that was only in the book

The Library level part made me sad, after hearing what the original plan for that level was. Such potential that never came to fruition

@@NazmusLabs Thats why these types of videos are so great, we get to see behind the scenes, take a look at what could've been

@@BudgiePanic Bungie devs used to make commentaries over halo ce and halo 2, dont remember if they did halo 3 tho

@@Spaggot they skipped 3 and did reach

@@parsa123vahid The ones we were given were a few hours long, and after halo 3 released

On Marty's channel he recently posted a video of the making of that track, with his raw audio files of him singing like that

@@WaveOfDestiny yea im gonna need a link like now

@@raincitygraffiti search marty o donnell under cover night inception

I’m going to need therapy to get over this one. Thanks Marty

its critical we send a support group there immediately