The Never Before Seen Halo CE Anniversary Beta Build 

That would have been incredibly cool If Captain Keyes was wearing Trooper armor for those cutscenes, Someone should add that as a Mod.

the textures in retail CEA are alot more compressed and this build has alot more dynamic lights.

Seeing an Infection form pick up an Assault Rifle and shoot it while Heavy Price Paid plays is something I never knew I needed in life. Also I feel like the Master Chief model and Level 2's aesthetic match the originals much closer, which is really neat. And the Maw Sky is so cool looking, it looks like the sky during Halo 3's ending to me.

I feel like a lot of the lighting in this build looked better and more fitting to CE's esthetic.

Correction - the final version uses Assault Rifle and Magnum models from Halo 3, not purpose made ones as suggested here. They did this due to receiving a lot of complaints after the trailer was released, they figured that Halo 3's models were much closer to the CE ones and would be suitable replacements without them having to make any new assets, although they didn't do this for any of the weapons that weren't featured in the trailer, like the rocket launcher or sniper.

I bet that blood splatter was a cheeky position marker for Chief during the cut scene. Why they would need it is strange though.

I'm pretty sure the infection form firing the assault rifle is not that. Since it appears all the marines in cutscenes are invisible, I'm pretty that's the marine in that cutscene who gets attached by one and is shooting as he's trying to take it off, it's just because he's invisible it looks like the infection form has the assault rifle lol.

The guy who was Johnsons model I THINK is the guy you meet at the beach in New Alexandria, before you clear out the wraiths and activate the AA. That's the only black guy I can remember from Reach lmao

Imagine if they kept the Bang Bang Skull. And you had to use that in the MCC LASO Playlist. That itself could be fun or torture.

The thing that I find most jarring about the CEA graphics is how much more bright and colorful everything is, changing the art direction completely on some levels, especially in 343 Guilty Spark. It no longer had that creepy ominous vibe that the OG had that made it so memorable

I think the reason the water is missing in the early build is the developers saw the original Maw’s water behind the autumn and due to the textures intended to show morning light reflected off it, they mistook the sea for more sand. It’s like how everyone mistook the exploding pieces of flesh the mutants in Tomb Raider threw at you for fireballs due to the meat texture being so low res despite being taken from actual cadaver photos at a coroners office.

That is pretty wild how much better it looks. It would have been pretty cool to have skin swaps on the AR or anything else that looks different in later halos.

I love that the "Pew Pew" sound eventually made it into Cursed halo

The actual f. This looks ten times better than what was released.

I'd take a guess and say that the team probably had conflicting thoughts as to whether stay as close to the original game as possible, or iterate with some design changes. They made a big deal over how precise they tried to make things, which is nice but we can see the pitfalls of that through trying to mimick cutscene cameras, lighting systems, and color palettes of a simpler, more primitive art design. Add on some standard deadline crunch, and you get weird things like Keyes' 343 Guilty Spark's situation: an interesting placeholder that wouldn't be canonically accurate, but creating the proper asset isn't viable on their deadline; thus, the dress outfit ships.

the reach AR just fits so much better in cutscenes and looks so much better to me against shoulder

if I had to guess, they probably underestimated the fans intelligence and thought that people wouldn't recognise Captain Keys unless he was wearing his iconic uniform.

The bandana skull wasn't a preorder, it was the grunt funeral skull. I know this because I remember getting the bandana skull on Silent Cartographer was a bitch with Halo CE physics

The Pre order bonus was the Grunt Funeral Skull :) But nice video! It's weird and cool to see this build after so many years

In the cutscenes, you can see the floating weapons but with no models attach to them, so my best guest is that the flood infection that shoots the AR is actually a marine model that get the flood on his back or on the side and he’s trying to shoot but due to the flood infection being heavy or trying to control him, that why the rifle shoots aimlessly, but, since the weapons has no model, it looks like the infection form shoots the rifle.

Dude the beta build looks super cool especially the cutscenes . It bringsa me back to that dark vibe from halo ce

i completely lost my shit with the parasite carrying the gun and shooting it in circles, and then in slow motion and with your comments was even funnier xD good vid as always General!

5:07 I think it's worth noting that without the sunset lighting and more desaturated colors, Halo actually looks more faithful to the original version. Of course it needs better shadows and is too bright but it's closer than the final version

when im trying to look up for music to study and my yt homepage hits me with the "The Never Before Seen Halo CE Anniversary Beta Build"

Thanks for showing this! If you find more interesting changes in this build, please do more videos on it. These earlier textures look a lot more faithful to Bungie's original visision versus what we got at retail.

Seeing Keyes in high def armor is cool!

I cant wait for this to come to steam workshop. If it does. Also i noticed there is more blood in this build.

The flood with the AR isnt shooting it, the marine is unloaded, but the animation is still there, giving the strange effect.

Captain Keyes in combat gear is hella badass.

I ended up realizing that the Flood Infection form that looks like it spawns an Assault Rifle didn't spawn it and instead is jumping onto one of the unmodeled/invisible marines. This is why the Assault Rifle is upright and spinning around like that. One of the other things that i noticed was that instead of the invisible marine holding a floating Assault Rifle like the others, this one ends up having there weapon attached to the Infection Form as if it were a placeholder for the animation or as if there are two animations that play out for that marine for some reason.

I would like to see more of the beta build please. It actually looked really good even though this version was unfinished it looks better than the finished one

5:07 the coloring feels so much more acurate here

Love when you make smoother camera movements like this👍👍

I think the pillar of autumn looks better in this than it did in release. I always thought the H1A autumn textures blended too much together making the ship geometry look kinda flat. These older textures stick out more, and man the lighting is much better. The ship lights are much more noticeable and the darker lighting just seems much more realistic for space.

I’ve seen something like this in a demo back in 2010, when they were announcing the game on RU-vid, and I was like, hey those are the weapons from halo reach, and when I got the game back in 2011 when it was released, I was shocked that the reach weapons are gone, well except for the assault rifle.

5:20 The pilot lmaooooo and the way general put it was super funny lol

I REALLY want that keys in combat and maw dawn/dusk skybox in a mod for MCC omg it would add so much..

The flood assault rifle scene is clearly the bit where one of spores attaches itself to a marine that is firing, just the marine here is invisible so its just the spore floating

0:51 bro pre looks so much better

Srgt. Johnson's face in the cutscene in the flood facility is cursed lol

1:40 Poor elite was shot up into space and died T-posing

Quick correction: the Bandanna skull was not a pre-order bonus. It is available on the level The Silent Cartographer, and was placed in an indoor section near the security override station. The special skull that you needed a code for was the Grunt Funeral Skull.

Imma be waiting for the master chief model comparison video... Great work as always!

I actually just realized but the Pillar of Autumn is actually using it’s original Halo Reach model in the early cutscenes to POA, cause notice the red markings on the hull which aren’t on the final version of this cutscene

I still remember rumors of the pimps at sea back on the old Bungie forums. I'm old now

Funnily enough it seems like the first 2 level preview images were an attempt at remastering the OG level preview images, but shot at different angles. 2:42. Pretty sure the preorder skull was Grunt Funeral. 10:42. In the normal scene the pod infector grapples Bisenti and Bisenti’s weapon goes firing wildly. Because most of the marines in this version of the cutscene are invisible, you can’t see this. The pod infector isn’t firing the AR: it’s Bisenti, you just can’t see him. Look at the angle of the AR in that shot.

Pre release reach rifle is 👌

That armor model looks so GOOD

I agree the older build looked massively better. It's such a shame because the final release ended up looking nothing like the original.

The visual language in this build looks a lot better than in the final release. The metal side of the ring doesn't have OTT blue lights, the level "Halo" looks more in keeping with the original colour pallet and the flood cutscene looks darker and scarier

THAT ELITE WOULD BE MASSIVE . . . Realistically taking into consideration how that perspective shot was took, that Elite is damn near half the size of a section of the Halo Ring. Thats FUCKING HUGE

Sargent Johnson looks like Bill Duke.

7:06 your idea was so shocking I had to smile :)

6:35, the blood pool looks like it was put there for debugging, like it was supposed to indicate where the player would come out of the cutscene

It’s honestly pretty infuriating how much better a lot of things from this pre release build look compared to what was actually released

Gonna be honest... this was the first case of 343 not sticking to their guns a lot of this would have been awesome in the retail.

Would it be possible to do a comparison video of all the cutscenes? As in, side by side

the infection form with the assault rifle is connected to the marine that pulls it (infection form) off the other marine in the final version of the cutscene so i'm pretty sure the rifle isn't attached to the infection form but the skeleton of the marine that should be there. although popcorn with guns would be awesome.

Damn Cant wait to see all the mods that will come from this

*Pew*

High key the aesthetic and cutscenes look so much better in the prerelease version. Shame they decided to turn everything up to 100 in the retail version.

6:55 I suspect that bloodspot is a place marker for where Master Chief is positioned in the cutscene where he meets with Keyes

Cant wait for someone to finish and release this as a mod.

I believe the random blood splatter is there for when or if you shoot Captain keys and he falls there

2:37 the only skull here that was a preorder skull, was the grunt funeral skull. This is the first I’m seeing the “bang bang” skull though

The bang bang skull feels straight out of cursed halo

I need this to be playable.

My speculation about that mysterious blood splatter next to Keyes on the bridge is that it's a visual marker for the dev team to know where Chief will be standing when he arrives to trigger the cutscene. It's just a copy pasted prop from out in the halls where the Covenant are fighting Marines. The placeholder Johnson I think is a low resolution Sgt. Major Duvall from Halo Reach on the mission Exodus.

HaloBuildMessiah dropping hot builds dayum. Amazing showcase!

7:18 I guess the blood is there as a place holder for the people that work on the cutscenes? If I remember correctly it is the the place Master Chief stands in the cutscene and you get Cortana. So maybe they put it there as a reference?

3:08 that sounds like Sgt johnson impersonating the AR

can’t wait for this to get modded to the Mcc

as much as i love the warthog run at the end i wonder if they will make it more lore accurate. it was so much long than the pillar of autumn was supposed to be

lol the bang bang skull is hilarious

Can anyone remember with that one unused tech demo, playable cut scene was with master chief in the cave? I remember seeing a video when it came out, but I swear I can’t find it anywhere.

The blood was there to mark where to stand to trigger the cut scene

I think it’s the marine that greets you in exodus where you have to turn both aa gun on to save the civilian transports

the bang bang skull is cool

kinda looks like they used the blood splatter as a visual tool when not in the editor to see where the player would spawn in from the cutscene, simple little dev tool and trick

Johnson makes me think of Anderson in mass effect.. I don’t know why

Wouldn't it make more sense that the Reach models for the weapons were used in the remaster. The Autumn did leave Reach right before they found their first halo.

Damn a lot of things, especially the first cutscene for PoA, look sooo much better than what we got

This is really what the remasters should have looked like I. Also, remember the demo footage. And I'm like, why the hell did it not look like that? Especially since it took place after reach was his wife. I was glad to have the ma37 thirty seven assault rifle in the story I was very disappointed.We didn't get that in the final build.

Having Reach weapons makes sense since the Autumn just escaped from Reach.

8:30 is that the trooper that meets you after the Falcon trip on Exodus and asks you to turn on the AA Missile launchers?

6:43 I don’t know why no one ever believes me when I point this out but, I swear the bloody bullet holes are related to scripts for cutscenes and events. You can find them all over levels with less varied terrain like Maw, 343, and the Library.

Man. Feels like forever general kidd has been a kidd. Me too, me too. 😅 😌

The infection form grabbing the assault rifle is probably it infecting a marine

Would love to see these beta elements be included in a mod for mcc pc

This actually is pretty cool

Why the hell did they make space purple in CEA anyway?

Ma-an, I need someone from that team to be interviewed on why these cool changes never made it to retail.

They only way I ever seen this build was in the halo 10th anniversary and special edition Xbox magazines I was so hyped for it.

In the Official Release they replaced the Reach AR with the Halo 3 AR.

What happened between this build and the final version? So much of this build looks better than the final release.

10:18 the flood form doesn't actually pick up anything, it's the two marine who are missing models but their ARs are still present. Looks funny though.

9:18 imagine them wearing that on assault on the control room or two betrayals odsts in a armor of that color

The bang bang skull reminds me of the "human gun sounds" cheat from ts:fp. Shame it got scrapped

Johnson got all oiled up for his introduction.

Aw yeah, Canada day build for CE:A-