You can definitely see the old Marathon genes carried over a lot during early development, what with the Assault Rifle having a grenade launcher and one of the Magnums having the "Mega-Class" designation just like in the Marathon Trilogy. (EDIT: The "WSTE" designation on one of the beta shotguns is the same as the Shotguns in Marathon 2 and Infinity. Also the "TOZT" designation for the flamethrower.) I have a feeling that they removed the grenade launcher from the AR because of what they learned from Marathon - the AR in Marathon 1 especially hogged a lot of the limelight because of how cramped those levels are, and grenades were basically essential on higher difficulties in Marathon 2 and Infinity. Really cool stuff - Great video!
Thank ya for lookin at this stuff, your presentation is always top tier. I realized when watching this, I haven't heard a peep about any cut Flood content as long as I've known about Halo 1999
Thank you very much. All I know of is concept art, some of which was repurposed in Halo Legends. I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s a weird quadrupedal thing but I have no idea if it ever went beyond the concept phase.
From a modder on Reddit on why mods aren’t on console, “Modder here, simple answer is the games were never designed with mods in mind. The longer answer is going to be a little more detail below. Basically, the way Halo works is it packs only what it needs in each individual scenario file. Each item is categorized as a "tag". These tags range across everything, from a weapon or vehicle, to the screen effect from an explosion. These are all built and compacted down to a simple little scenario file. If you use shared maps, from my understanding, it gathers tags that are used across all files and compacts them into one file, which those scenarios can quickly reference out to when needed. Now, to the best I can guess, this was done to heavily optimize the game. The one example I think of is, if you installed Halo 3 on your Xbox 360, it was around 3.5 GB. The entire tags directory is around 15 GB when you extract the mod tools. That means Bungie consolidated a lot, making the size negligible for the Xbox 360 to optimize it as much as possible. But how does this deal with mods? Well, it deals with mods because there's no simple way around it. Did you modify a Battle Rifle to shoot 4 shots instead of 3? If you want to use it on the entire campaign, you have to download the entire 3.5 GB of the campaign to use that one simple change. Bethesda designed mods to be dynamically implemented, so you can download a single sword and add a location in the map and it's a download in the scale of megabytes. Halo was designed, seemingly, around optimization for the Xbox/Xbox 360 with no intentions of ever really being mod-friendly, and instead focusing on how to best condense an entire campaign to the smallest levels (as opposed to allow simple additions of new content. This is why the GRD helmet couldn't come to Halo Reach until the last few years in MCC, it would have been an entire game re-download for Halo Reach on the Xbox 360, which was way too big of a patch at the time). This isn't a 343 issue. This is a design choice by Bungie from 2001 through 2010 that 343 needs to find a complex solution to. They could add mods to Xbox, but this would require them to make their own storage space for mods (like Steam offers with Steam Workshop). With mods this large, that would be an insane amount of data transfer on Microsoft servers. For example, a single scenario (like the level Sierra 117 on Halo 3) takes up around 716MB on my mod. If you only published that one mod, and assume you only have 100 people download it, that's roughly 71 GB of server transfer of data for one single level. My most popular mod has just under 66,000 downloads and is 8.171 GB according to Steam. This translates to 539,286,000 megabytes, or 539,286 Gigabytes, or 539.286 Terabytes of data that Steam has handled just for my mod. This doesn't include updates I've made where I had to rebuild the mod and people had to download a few GB of changes. Stretch that across the entire MCC mod collection and you will easily have petabytes of data for Microsoft's servers, it sounds like an absolute nightmare for something that doesn't add value to Xbox games (in terms of them profiting). Server space is expensive, and MCC mods will definitely utilize server space.”
This is all 100% true and mostly things I was already aware of. I’m sympathetic to the problem but it doesn’t change that JUST the digsite content should be added to MCC. I get a lack of total mod support but the cut stuff should be available to everyone
The WAST-M90 was taken from the Marathon 2 shotguns. Supposed to be a pun on "Waste'em". Same with the rocket launcher in the main game the "SPANKER" was taken from the Marathon games as a nod for nerds like me, lel. this is pretty cool though, I remember looking at images of the cut content from the games back in the mid 2000's wondering what the game would have been like if they had kept all that stuff. I really like that HE Pistol, looks way cooler than what we got in the final game. Plus it looks sorta like Robocops handgun a bit.
Interesting how many of these cut weapons end up re-appearing in some form later. That Concussion gun bears not just a name but mechanical similarities to Reach's concussion rifle, for instance.
What I find funny is that the concussion gun is essentially the official version of the Blunderbuss from InfernoPlus’ Cursed Halo Mod, as it affects vehicles, but most importantly, your self, it’s a jumping tool, and it’s fun to play around with.
Because UA-cam deleted this twice and I have no idea why I am going to just go ahead and preface this with a warning, I may have to use certain language incase UA-cam is deleting this because it's searching for certain words. 13:41 Fun Fact: The Fuel Rod in the campaign is actually gold but the shaders on it make it look purple unless you're shining a flashlight directly on it. So this version of the Fuel Rod isn't far off from what we got. But the Multiplayer Fuel Rod actually is just purple though, blame Gearbox for that. 17:43 I'm pretty sure a lot of the stuff from the Digsites made their way into canon or in the case of things like the Sun Devil already were canon. 18:26 It was originally known as the "Stealth Tank" before it was named and canonized as the M700 Viper. But it sadly doesn't have a manufacturer listed yet, meanwhile the JOV-99, the Kestrel that the Digsite Crew dug up, has Vestol listed as the manufacturer of it. 20:01 Apparently, according to the Digsite Crew in a video on Crash Site and Splash Site IIRC, there was a different decal that may or may not have been from an actual anime. So the decal here on the gun isn't "original" 20:51 It is also canon and has been since Halo Encyclopedia (2009 edition). 21:14 Both this Shadow and the Spectre are canonized as the Adsk-pattern Shadow (listed manufacturer is, to no surprise for a Covie vehicle, Assembly Forges) and Wuchek-pattern Patroller/Spectre (surprisingly no manufacturer for this one). 23:34 It's a nice design in my opinion... 23:57 I think that's for the "On fire" enemies after using the flamethrower on them. 25:51 Neo Te Aika and a few other members of the Digsite Crew go into how this mission was made including the music, Neo Te Aika has videos called "crash site - a couple of dev notes" and "Crash Site Dev Commentary (Ludus, Neo, Scruffy, Sean)" 29:06 Look familiar? If not watch the Mac World unveiling of Halo. 29:49 This is an *_I C O N I C_* shot. 30:33 This looks like an Old Republic era ship to me... Or something, either way I am reminded of KoTOR for some reason... 31:39 Oh this map is a gem, I can already tell. 32:19 Apparently, this level (B20) was supposed to be feature a "mysterious [k-word with an "er" because UA-cam doesn't like the full word] monster" the player was supposed to avoid in the center of the map and was set after the player removes a Covenant Prophet in the preceding level and an even earlier version of the level was actually supposed to BE the level where the player deals with a Prophet. 33:19 This is actually a Milestone map for Halo 2 but the version of the engine it was made on was closer to CE than release Halo 2 so it was backported. This level was to test mechanics like alert levels, stealth, stuff like that. The information for these Milestone maps is on the article Digsite Deep-Dive on Halo Waypoint. 33:35 That ship is probably a placeholder the "Command Shuttle" mentioned in the Digsite Deep-Dive article (in the article there's concept art for the final thing and it looks [Borderlands enemy type], I'm pretty sure the ship here is a placeholder using another old model like from the RTS days, could be wrong though), the article itself is a very interesting read. 34:10 This one was made to test stuff like Low Gravity example and a restoring power gameplay mechanic, it also was supposed to have "proto creatures" as a third-party enemy later in the level but they don't seem to have been Flood, which is interesting since that means wild animals would have been an enemy type at some point in this milestone mission. 35:19 Probably the eggs or whatever of the proto creatures. 35:51 This map was made to showcase and test the new AI system for Halo 2. 36:23 Reminds me of Half-Life's surface skybox... Wouldn't surprise me if it was the same image now that I think about it... _What are the odds it is?_ 36:38 This is the Digsite revamp of the cut Gearbox map Indoor. 37:16 This is the revamped and finished version made by Digsite, the original, Indoor, was already a near-finished map before being cut by Gearbox. 37:46 This is another revamp, the original map is Dusk and was apparently not close to content-complete and, according to Halopedia which IIRC is drawing from the article "Digsite Deliveries" on Halo Waypoint, "had a considerably less refined layout, with an inconsistent scale and a muddied centre layout resembling the map Rust from the Call of Duty franchise. As such, Digsite contributor Ludus used that as inspiration for his recreation of Dusk for the game's multiplayer, now-termed Abyss." so yeah, Dusk was apparently in a rather rough state, but hey it uses an old E3 2000 skybox. 38:41 This is map has less on Halopedia (and a rather sparse section on the Digsite Deliveries article) but according to the article it is a Gearbox made map and there's no mention of it being a revamp or revision so Swampthing here is probably almost all Gearbox made. The quote for the level is also no doubt referencing B20 and its [k-word with an "er" at the end] monster because of the similar theming, which is also cool. 39:03 Given that there's no mention of revamping or anything about the state it was found in I think we can assume this is just the way Gearbox made it. 39:18 Same, it's fine right now but a revamp or something would be awesome even if it's not done by the Digsite Crew. 40:17 This map actually has a really interesting history, it's from WAY early in Halo's development as an FPS and apparently it was originally scaled for smaller player models, the one shown here is actually the restored version the Digsite put some work into making feel right for release Halo CE such as scaling the map up by 1.5x., this map also has three versions with the one here being the first while the second is the map seen in the 1749 build of CE that is called "[The word that gets said a lot in KoTOR when trying and failing to open a door but it's the "ation" variant that I would love nothing more than to just flat out say for you but I don't know what's triggering UA-cam to delete my comments so I'll play it safe but it's the same name as the CE map taking place in a Covenant Hydro-Processing Center and was remade in Halo Reach for CEA as the map "Penance"]", there is also the map "Purgatory" which is based off Ruined Pain but made to be more in-line with Halo Reach. The other two versions are still being worked on. 40:37 It's as close to the original as possible while also being finished for multiplayer, also this map has a "chaotic" course for the Race gametype. 42:14 Nothing much to say, it's just Underground's past self before the Digsite gave it a revamp. 43:07 Yeah this is a bit rough... 43:44 This was probably made when Gearbox was getting used to working on Halo stuff for both the PC port and Custom Edition, it might be why the size is off.
I apologize if anyone has mentioned it already. On 23:55 I know from vengeful vadams vid over the CE 1749 build that any enemy this is killed with the flamethrower they’ll have that exact death animation. So maybe that animation got ported over?
That makes a lot of sense. I was using the microwave gun to trigger this, which I suppose you could argue is similar in that the target is basically being cooked. Perhaps that’s the explanation.
It’s interesting how many weapons were made for CE. A lot of them are definitely just there for testing, or variants of already existing guns. For Half-Life 2’s Beta the bloated weapon sandbox at least made sense since you would’ve lost your arsenal multiple times, and would need replacing. A lot of these are cool, but too similar to each other. Too bad Digsite weren’t able to add the weapon wheel back into CE for modding purposes. It’s definitely interesting thinking about how the game could’ve turned out if they kept the weapon wheel and alternate firing modes. The HUD was also different, with the health and mini map (later replaced by the motion tracker) being in the shape of the Marathon logo. This video would’ve been better if you included concept art, and mentioned the various Marathon influences present in the different weapons. The Drinols were copies of the Marathon Hulks. The Plasma Pistole functions like the Zeus Pistol where it has the normal energy projectile, and a charged shot. Early versions of the Assault Rifle functioned like the Marathon Assault Rifle where the ammo count was the same, and it had a grenade launcher alt fire. Also, the inside of the Macworld map’s structure looks like something you’d see in Marathon. It’s cool how the idea for the Excavator would later be reused as the Brute shotgun (can’t remember its name). Generalkidd has a video talking about that mission with the weird Covenant ship. It was supposed to be stealth based, and if the Covenant triggered an alarm you’d have to fight more of them later on.
I didn’t have time to include concept art and things for this video. I was already way behind schedule and had to work some rough hours to get this out for the weekend (and just barely at that). It’s something I’d consider doing in the future though EDIT: I also know nothing about Marathon and would need to do significantly more research to include anything about it. For this video, I really just wanted to outline what was released via digsite in an efficient and informative way that ACTUALLY showcases things instead of glossing over them
Makes sense (another similarity I forgot to mention is the Macworld armor looks like something a militarized version of the Marathon Cyborgs would potentially wear. It also gives the impression that a lot of the guns in CE were designed for super soldiers, rather than things a normal human would hold). The Marathon trilogy is currently free on Steam thanks for the work of the Aleph One community. I haven’t played them yet, but definitely need to. The storytelling is done through terminals like the ones in Halo 3. If you’re not really interested in playing the games you could always watch MandaloreGaming’s videos on the trilogy and the other pre Halo Bungie games. That series has an INSANE narrative. Modern Halo would’ve been so much cooler if they didn’t change Rampancy from Marathon’s version to being so dementia/schizophrenia (after playing the games or watching MandaloreGaming’s videos you’ll see why I say that). Theres also this interesting video by Fenrick called “How Marathon shaped Halo”. There’s a crazy amount of parallels between the games. I knew that both had a lot of shared concepts/lore, but I was unaware just how many there were.
I also forgot to mention that HiddenXperia has a video talking about the cut levels that were used as tests for Halo 2. He gets some of the information wrong, but people in the comments correct the record by mentioning things said by Digsite and Bungie devs about the cut missions/tests.
Regarding the flamethrower sound, that is the real/og sound for the flamethrower. It was later changed to the banshee sound. You can even hear the original banshee sound in the old playback banshee
The reason why the flamethrower sounds like the Banshee is because Bungie reused its sound for the flamethrower. I’m glad the Banshee has that weird noice because it makes the craft feel more alien (in the Macworld demo those tail fins/rudders on the Banshee actually swayed back and forth as it turned. Why this didn’t make it into CE, but was later reused in future Halos is beyond me). I really wish we could’ve gotten the flamethrower. It would’ve been a GREAT weapon to use against the Flood. Did you ever have any of those new Hyperkin original Xbox controllers like the Halo 20th anniversary one, or the purple Cortana one? I really like how the button in the middle is animated and plays the original Xbox intro when you boot it up. I wish I knew about that thing a few years ago. It would be nice to see those return as wireless controllers with the sticks that don’t drift.
I wanted to get the official one they released a few years back but never got around to it. Would love to own them. I had no idea they had animated bits on them. That’s sick
@@shreksnow1918 yeah it was definitely a placeholder, lots of games uses placeholders until the asset in question isn’t completed yet. Twisted Metal 3 a dev actually revealed a special effect in the game was actually a placeholder that simply wasn’t changed.
@Woodyisasexybeast The purple Cortana controller that’s semi transparent has a Cortana montage for it’s start up intro. One of my favorite things about the original Xbox controllers are how unnecessary big they are. It’s too bad the Duke controller didn’t continue for very long. I also like how the original Xbox and 360 buttons had different colors. Too bad newer controllers have been phasing out this design. It’s also too bad that the current Xbox UI is pretty sterile, while the original Xbox’s UI was this weird green and black cybernetic layout. Recently I’ve watched several videos showing off what a modded 360 and original Xbox are capable of. It’s definitely very interesting. Too bad you need to take it apart and solder certain parts/chips into place. If it was easier I’d probably mod my 360. Especially, since the store is gone (good thing original Xbox/369 emulation has been progressing rapidly. That way games locked to those systems can be preserved).
I know that the "Gravity Wrench" behaves more like a Concussion Launcher, but...come on, the nickname "Gravity Wrench" is just *BEGGING* for a Half-Life crossover mod.
The pistols in Halo look like they may have some kind of bullpup mechanism going on. You can look at guns like the Boberg XR9 or Bond Arms Bullpup for an example of this. This is just my own headcanon though. The HE Pistol having a toggle lock mechanism is also very cool to see.
I really wish that they also released the other maps we saw in the prototype footage. I really think it's a seriously missed opportunity to do so and it would be a dream come true to at least experience those places Bungie originally intended to be in the game, especially see and experience the environments and wildlife we see there.
7:19 Probably means it was supposed to be a "High-Explosive Pistol" or "Heavy Pistol" at some point in development but honestly I prefer the name "Space Luger" that one of the Digsite Crew called it...
26:36 music sounds oddly familiar, starting to think that's where Halo 3 got its song from (prologue scene when Johnson and the troops rescue masterchief)
As other commenters have pointed out, the Halo cut/early content is interesting to compare with Marathon as if you've played it you can quite clearly see the design lineage here from it to Halo. Like for example how so many early weapons had alternate fire modes, since every single weapon in Marathon did. When ported to the XBox they probably decided to drop the feature entirely as controller real-estate is premium, and some weapons just didn't need it (like the flashlight "alternate fire" lol).
There’s also some versions of the missions in 2, and others in CE. It’s definitely interesting comparing how they play in each iteration of BLAM. Too bad we can’t play them in the “Halo 1.5 engine” that Digsite extracted all the content from.
23:54 that is the "on fire death" action, no idea why it occurs in response to a chaingun. It is similar to the "stuck with plasma grenade" or "infection form attack" deaths
25:29 from what i heard, CRASH SITE does not make use of any cut dialogue, it is a unique mission made by Digsite and is not directly inspired by any cut CE missions. Members of Digsite voiced the Marines in the mission, Neo Te Aika did the music and the custom sounds even for the cut content, also some weapons in this mission have FP animations, like the Bolt-Action Sniper and the Harpoon, the animators for the aforementioned weapons are not affiliated with digsite, hence why their animations are only used in Crash Site and not found in the Digsite releases. Just adding onto this, the MA5/GL, M99 PARA SMG, and several other RTS - Third Person Era weapons first person variants are custom made by Digsite. Including animations.
26:55 iTristan was a well known halo community member a few years ago, it was only with Crash Sites release that I learned he had passed away, (in a vehicle accident if I recall correctly)
33:38 that is the CE rendition of the Covenant Command Shuttle, Halo 2 also had its own Command Shuttle, most infamously used to transport Arbiter and Rtas's troops to the Gasgiant Facility. The Lich would probably be the closest retail counterpart to the command shuttles
@Woodyisasexybeast It's something most people wouldn't probably notice because the only time you'll see it is when you're shooting at something and chances are _you are being shot at so you probably can't consciously pay attention to a firing animation._ But yeah, the toggle-lock action is just really neat especially for a sci-fi firearm to have.
Also, the action on the HE pistol is not as dramatic as say a P08's or, for those fellow Medics who have it in BF1, Selbstlader 1906's toggle-lock is, there's also the fact that it's almost too fast so it's already hard enough to notice without something shooting at you and I only noticed because I was already looking for it.
A lot of this should have been added to Halo CE via a DLC update disc. Like a Halo CE multiplayer map pack in say 2002-2003. Ruin pain looks like the UNSC base of operations on the Halo ring.
It’s sad console players can’t enjoy any of this (even though they built this franchise?) but I think it’s probably because it’s all unpolished content so they just dump it onto the PC instead. 13:38 I love how Bungie originally made the Fuel Rod Gun gold but changed it purple for launch then in Halo 2 it was gold again with no explanation it shows that Bungie consistently sat together maybe flip flopping on some suggestions but eventually those ideas would be solidified in later games. 26:20 This is basically the single unique variant weapon idea that was later done terribly in Halo 5 where it was some sort of stupid easter eggs whereas this version seems way more organic and story driven with that idea being that each weapon might’ve been “different stages of development” but I like the idea that each version even some that seem like repetitive weapons were probably a character centric weapon like finding “Sergeant Johnson’s Bolt-Action Sniper Rifle” next to a marine who in his last moments managed to take on a ton of enemies but was clearly overwhelmed? Even Triston’s Pistol has a whole freaking sniper scope on it and says “Mega Class” on the suppressor and the gun looks closest to the 50 Magnum Mega Class M4A so it’s probably one those just heavily modified and he added a whole sniper scope to be cool makes his anticlimactic fate even more funnier. 6:39 the “pistol” variant probably was added in to make sure that people stopped getting confused from interacting with the PDWS Pistol which looks pretty similar to the regular 50 Magnum Mega Class probably during play testing the similar designs lead to thinking you already have one or the other so they probably made the “Pistol” to replace the PDWS Pistol? afterwards I imagine Spartans use the “Pistol” and Marines get the 50 Magnum Mega Class and one unlucky marine had a special modified pistol? Probably once the game was going to be console exclusive they scrapped the unique variant weapons idea instead leaning towards carbon copy Halo 2’s they got alien guns equivalent to each of our human guns.
I don’t feel like “unpolished” is a good enough reason. They’ve shown that they have no issues releasing unpolished content into MCC. There’s even warnings when using Halo 4’s campaign theater and when enabling certain skulls in games they may not work with. Not sure what you’re referring to at 26:20?
@@Woodyisasexybeast nornfang rifle is one which was like a op sniper rifle? It was used by one of those spartans of the blue or noble teams in Halo 5 I don’t remember they were eventually released in the multiplayer which is why Halo 5’s multiplayer is garbage? But in the campaign in certain areas you could find like a shotgun on a cliff “it’s just a shotgun?!?” But wait this one has a little colorful design on the side to let you know it’s special and deals slightly more damage Edit: Just googled that boring rifle and it has 80 designations so it took me a second but I guess the proper technical terminology is “Mythic Weapons” which were the exact wrong way to do that idea
@ehhhwhatever202 oh really? All of the weapons variants were one of my favorite aspects of Halo 5. Using the Nornfang was a lot of fun to me. Personally, I think H5’s multiplayer is decent. Even if there was a lot of overlapping similarities between guns, I thought it was neat to experiment with the different properties. I almost mentioned the binary rifle because it has a very similar usage. Less ammo but one shot kill
@@Woodyisasexybeast I was referring to doing variations but having them be mission exclusive absolutely no overlap with each other I would still allow you to use them in Custom and Forge but matchmaking isn’t somewhere you would want imbalances because it might be fun to get killed the first time but after a couple times and feeling like the game itself is almost against you and that’s frustrating for players leading to people losing interest but I think people could go on for centuries about that decade long blunder but I think the variation system with limitations where you could still easily memorize your favorite weapon variants without the Halo 5 effect where you have way too many variations and no focus or drive a far cry from the “just give me a weapon” gameplay of Bungie
@ehhhwhatever202 the easy solution is just different modes. Which they did. Certain game types had only regular weapons and no variations so you could always just choose to avoid them entirely. The ones hidden in campaign didn’t even have all of the same properties. The campaign nornfang, at least as far as I know, doesn’t behave any differently than the regular sniper. I guess they just wanted to include them as Easter eggs 🤷♂️
It’s stuff like this that makes sense to remake the first game. There no real downside to doing so, as long as Combat Evolved is still available to purchase. Don’t just do Last of Us Part 1. Do it like Mafia Definitive Edition or Dead Space Remake.
There could totally be a downside. Full on reboot is a scary concept. As long as it was faithful and they used Dead Space as a blueprint, it would be interesting
As @mesagamin6914 pointed out, the Leech actually is drivable. It’s absolutely TERRIBLE to control though
You can definitely see the old Marathon genes carried over a lot during early development, what with the Assault Rifle having a grenade launcher and one of the Magnums having the "Mega-Class" designation just like in the Marathon Trilogy. (EDIT: The "WSTE" designation on one of the beta shotguns is the same as the Shotguns in Marathon 2 and Infinity. Also the "TOZT" designation for the flamethrower.) I have a feeling that they removed the grenade launcher from the AR because of what they learned from Marathon - the AR in Marathon 1 especially hogged a lot of the limelight because of how cramped those levels are, and grenades were basically essential on higher difficulties in Marathon 2 and Infinity.
Really cool stuff - Great video!
Thank ya for lookin at this stuff, your presentation is always top tier.
I realized when watching this, I haven't heard a peep about any cut Flood content as long as I've known about Halo 1999
Thank you very much.
All I know of is concept art, some of which was repurposed in Halo Legends. I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s a weird quadrupedal thing but I have no idea if it ever went beyond the concept phase.
From a modder on Reddit on why mods aren’t on console,
“Modder here, simple answer is the games were never designed with mods in mind.
The longer answer is going to be a little more detail below.
Basically, the way Halo works is it packs only what it needs in each individual scenario file. Each item is categorized as a "tag". These tags range across everything, from a weapon or vehicle, to the screen effect from an explosion. These are all built and compacted down to a simple little scenario file. If you use shared maps, from my understanding, it gathers tags that are used across all files and compacts them into one file, which those scenarios can quickly reference out to when needed.
Now, to the best I can guess, this was done to heavily optimize the game. The one example I think of is, if you installed Halo 3 on your Xbox 360, it was around 3.5 GB. The entire tags directory is around 15 GB when you extract the mod tools. That means Bungie consolidated a lot, making the size negligible for the Xbox 360 to optimize it as much as possible.
But how does this deal with mods? Well, it deals with mods because there's no simple way around it. Did you modify a Battle Rifle to shoot 4 shots instead of 3? If you want to use it on the entire campaign, you have to download the entire 3.5 GB of the campaign to use that one simple change. Bethesda designed mods to be dynamically implemented, so you can download a single sword and add a location in the map and it's a download in the scale of megabytes. Halo was designed, seemingly, around optimization for the Xbox/Xbox 360 with no intentions of ever really being mod-friendly, and instead focusing on how to best condense an entire campaign to the smallest levels (as opposed to allow simple additions of new content. This is why the GRD helmet couldn't come to Halo Reach until the last few years in MCC, it would have been an entire game re-download for Halo Reach on the Xbox 360, which was way too big of a patch at the time).
This isn't a 343 issue. This is a design choice by Bungie from 2001 through 2010 that 343 needs to find a complex solution to. They could add mods to Xbox, but this would require them to make their own storage space for mods (like Steam offers with Steam Workshop). With mods this large, that would be an insane amount of data transfer on Microsoft servers.
For example, a single scenario (like the level Sierra 117 on Halo 3) takes up around 716MB on my mod. If you only published that one mod, and assume you only have 100 people download it, that's roughly 71 GB of server transfer of data for one single level. My most popular mod has just under 66,000 downloads and is 8.171 GB according to Steam. This translates to 539,286,000 megabytes, or 539,286 Gigabytes, or 539.286 Terabytes of data that Steam has handled just for my mod. This doesn't include updates I've made where I had to rebuild the mod and people had to download a few GB of changes.
Stretch that across the entire MCC mod collection and you will easily have petabytes of data for Microsoft's servers, it sounds like an absolute nightmare for something that doesn't add value to Xbox games (in terms of them profiting). Server space is expensive, and MCC mods will definitely utilize server space.”
This is all 100% true and mostly things I was already aware of. I’m sympathetic to the problem but it doesn’t change that JUST the digsite content should be added to MCC. I get a lack of total mod support but the cut stuff should be available to everyone
PC won
@@richardbarrett4488 yeah this method is also why the battlefront Classic collection has much bigger file size compared to the OG.
The WAST-M90 was taken from the Marathon 2 shotguns. Supposed to be a pun on "Waste'em". Same with the rocket launcher in the main game the "SPANKER" was taken from the Marathon games as a nod for nerds like me, lel.
this is pretty cool though, I remember looking at images of the cut content from the games back in the mid 2000's wondering what the game would have been like if they had kept all that stuff. I really like that HE Pistol, looks way cooler than what we got in the final game. Plus it looks sorta like Robocops handgun a bit.
This is very Nostalgic. I wish that we could have experienced this long ago.
The Lampray Sub-ed sounds sorta like a proto-needler, sticking into targets and exploding
From what I’ve heard the idea actually morphed into the plasma grenade.
@shreksnow1918 Ah of course. Duh.
And if headshoted it can kill before exploding
We got nukes, we got knives, sharp-sticks… we got sonic, e-lectronic ball breakers! Whoo..!!!
fun fact: “Plasma Rifle B” is actually in a build of Halo CE we have access to, 1749, it uses “Plasma Rifle B” instead of the final version
I downloaded a mcc mod that uses a lot of these cut assets. So cool seeing what the game could of been.
Interesting how many of these cut weapons end up re-appearing in some form later. That Concussion gun bears not just a name but mechanical similarities to Reach's concussion rifle, for instance.
What I find funny is that the concussion gun is essentially the official version of the Blunderbuss from InfernoPlus’ Cursed Halo Mod, as it affects vehicles, but most importantly, your self, it’s a jumping tool, and it’s fun to play around with.
I didn’t even think to try shooting at the ground. Dammit
Because UA-cam deleted this twice and I have no idea why I am going to just go ahead and preface this with a warning, I may have to use certain language incase UA-cam is deleting this because it's searching for certain words.
13:41 Fun Fact: The Fuel Rod in the campaign is actually gold but the shaders on it make it look purple unless you're shining a flashlight directly on it. So this version of the Fuel Rod isn't far off from what we got. But the Multiplayer Fuel Rod actually is just purple though, blame Gearbox for that.
17:43 I'm pretty sure a lot of the stuff from the Digsites made their way into canon or in the case of things like the Sun Devil already were canon.
18:26 It was originally known as the "Stealth Tank" before it was named and canonized as the M700 Viper. But it sadly doesn't have a manufacturer listed yet, meanwhile the JOV-99, the Kestrel that the Digsite Crew dug up, has Vestol listed as the manufacturer of it.
20:01 Apparently, according to the Digsite Crew in a video on Crash Site and Splash Site IIRC, there was a different decal that may or may not have been from an actual anime. So the decal here on the gun isn't "original"
20:51 It is also canon and has been since Halo Encyclopedia (2009 edition).
21:14 Both this Shadow and the Spectre are canonized as the Adsk-pattern Shadow (listed manufacturer is, to no surprise for a Covie vehicle, Assembly Forges) and Wuchek-pattern Patroller/Spectre (surprisingly no manufacturer for this one).
23:34 It's a nice design in my opinion...
23:57 I think that's for the "On fire" enemies after using the flamethrower on them.
25:51 Neo Te Aika and a few other members of the Digsite Crew go into how this mission was made including the music, Neo Te Aika has videos called "crash site - a couple of dev notes" and "Crash Site Dev Commentary (Ludus, Neo, Scruffy, Sean)"
29:06 Look familiar? If not watch the Mac World unveiling of Halo.
29:49 This is an *_I C O N I C_* shot.
30:33 This looks like an Old Republic era ship to me... Or something, either way I am reminded of KoTOR for some reason...
31:39 Oh this map is a gem, I can already tell.
32:19 Apparently, this level (B20) was supposed to be feature a "mysterious [k-word with an "er" because UA-cam doesn't like the full word] monster" the player was supposed to avoid in the center of the map and was set after the player removes a Covenant Prophet in the preceding level and an even earlier version of the level was actually supposed to BE the level where the player deals with a Prophet.
33:19 This is actually a Milestone map for Halo 2 but the version of the engine it was made on was closer to CE than release Halo 2 so it was backported. This level was to test mechanics like alert levels, stealth, stuff like that. The information for these Milestone maps is on the article Digsite Deep-Dive on Halo Waypoint.
33:35 That ship is probably a placeholder the "Command Shuttle" mentioned in the Digsite Deep-Dive article (in the article there's concept art for the final thing and it looks [Borderlands enemy type], I'm pretty sure the ship here is a placeholder using another old model like from the RTS days, could be wrong though), the article itself is a very interesting read.
34:10 This one was made to test stuff like Low Gravity example and a restoring power gameplay mechanic, it also was supposed to have "proto creatures" as a third-party enemy later in the level but they don't seem to have been Flood, which is interesting since that means wild animals would have been an enemy type at some point in this milestone mission.
35:19 Probably the eggs or whatever of the proto creatures.
35:51 This map was made to showcase and test the new AI system for Halo 2.
36:23 Reminds me of Half-Life's surface skybox... Wouldn't surprise me if it was the same image now that I think about it... _What are the odds it is?_
36:38 This is the Digsite revamp of the cut Gearbox map Indoor.
37:16 This is the revamped and finished version made by Digsite, the original, Indoor, was already a near-finished map before being cut by Gearbox.
37:46 This is another revamp, the original map is Dusk and was apparently not close to content-complete and, according to Halopedia which IIRC is drawing from the article "Digsite Deliveries" on Halo Waypoint, "had a considerably less refined layout, with an inconsistent scale and a muddied centre layout resembling the map Rust from the Call of Duty franchise. As such, Digsite contributor Ludus used that as inspiration for his recreation of Dusk for the game's multiplayer, now-termed Abyss." so yeah, Dusk was apparently in a rather rough state, but hey it uses an old E3 2000 skybox.
38:41 This is map has less on Halopedia (and a rather sparse section on the Digsite Deliveries article) but according to the article it is a Gearbox made map and there's no mention of it being a revamp or revision so Swampthing here is probably almost all Gearbox made. The quote for the level is also no doubt referencing B20 and its [k-word with an "er" at the end] monster because of the similar theming, which is also cool.
39:03 Given that there's no mention of revamping or anything about the state it was found in I think we can assume this is just the way Gearbox made it.
39:18 Same, it's fine right now but a revamp or something would be awesome even if it's not done by the Digsite Crew.
40:17 This map actually has a really interesting history, it's from WAY early in Halo's development as an FPS and apparently it was originally scaled for smaller player models, the one shown here is actually the restored version the Digsite put some work into making feel right for release Halo CE such as scaling the map up by 1.5x., this map also has three versions with the one here being the first while the second is the map seen in the 1749 build of CE that is called "[The word that gets said a lot in KoTOR when trying and failing to open a door but it's the "ation" variant that I would love nothing more than to just flat out say for you but I don't know what's triggering UA-cam to delete my comments so I'll play it safe but it's the same name as the CE map taking place in a Covenant Hydro-Processing Center and was remade in Halo Reach for CEA as the map "Penance"]", there is also the map "Purgatory" which is based off Ruined Pain but made to be more in-line with Halo Reach. The other two versions are still being worked on.
40:37 It's as close to the original as possible while also being finished for multiplayer, also this map has a "chaotic" course for the Race gametype.
42:14 Nothing much to say, it's just Underground's past self before the Digsite gave it a revamp.
43:07 Yeah this is a bit rough...
43:44 This was probably made when Gearbox was getting used to working on Halo stuff for both the PC port and Custom Edition, it might be why the size is off.
I apologize if anyone has mentioned it already. On 23:55 I know from vengeful vadams vid over the CE 1749 build that any enemy this is killed with the flamethrower they’ll have that exact death animation. So maybe that animation got ported over?
That makes a lot of sense. I was using the microwave gun to trigger this, which I suppose you could argue is similar in that the target is basically being cooked. Perhaps that’s the explanation.
@@Woodyisasexybeast that could be true. Maybe someone could look into the code at some point.
It’s interesting how many weapons were made for CE. A lot of them are definitely just there for testing, or variants of already existing guns. For Half-Life 2’s Beta the bloated weapon sandbox at least made sense since you would’ve lost your arsenal multiple times, and would need replacing. A lot of these are cool, but too similar to each other.
Too bad Digsite weren’t able to add the weapon wheel back into CE for modding purposes. It’s definitely interesting thinking about how the game could’ve turned out if they kept the weapon wheel and alternate firing modes. The HUD was also different, with the health and mini map (later replaced by the motion tracker) being in the shape of the Marathon logo.
This video would’ve been better if you included concept art, and mentioned the various Marathon influences present in the different weapons. The Drinols were copies of the Marathon Hulks. The Plasma Pistole functions like the Zeus Pistol where it has the normal energy projectile, and a charged shot. Early versions of the Assault Rifle functioned like the Marathon Assault Rifle where the ammo count was the same, and it had a grenade launcher alt fire. Also, the inside of the Macworld map’s structure looks like something you’d see in Marathon.
It’s cool how the idea for the Excavator would later be reused as the Brute shotgun (can’t remember its name).
Generalkidd has a video talking about that mission with the weird Covenant ship. It was supposed to be stealth based, and if the Covenant triggered an alarm you’d have to fight more of them later on.
agreed
I didn’t have time to include concept art and things for this video. I was already way behind schedule and had to work some rough hours to get this out for the weekend (and just barely at that). It’s something I’d consider doing in the future though
EDIT: I also know nothing about Marathon and would need to do significantly more research to include anything about it. For this video, I really just wanted to outline what was released via digsite in an efficient and informative way that ACTUALLY showcases things instead of glossing over them
Makes sense (another similarity I forgot to mention is the Macworld armor looks like something a militarized version of the Marathon Cyborgs would potentially wear. It also gives the impression that a lot of the guns in CE were designed for super soldiers, rather than things a normal human would hold). The Marathon trilogy is currently free on Steam thanks for the work of the Aleph One community. I haven’t played them yet, but definitely need to. The storytelling is done through terminals like the ones in Halo 3.
If you’re not really interested in playing the games you could always watch MandaloreGaming’s videos on the trilogy and the other pre Halo Bungie games. That series has an INSANE narrative. Modern Halo would’ve been so much cooler if they didn’t change Rampancy from Marathon’s version to being so dementia/schizophrenia (after playing the games or watching MandaloreGaming’s videos you’ll see why I say that). Theres also this interesting video by Fenrick called “How Marathon shaped Halo”. There’s a crazy amount of parallels between the games. I knew that both had a lot of shared concepts/lore, but I was unaware just how many there were.
I also forgot to mention that HiddenXperia has a video talking about the cut levels that were used as tests for Halo 2. He gets some of the information wrong, but people in the comments correct the record by mentioning things said by Digsite and Bungie devs about the cut missions/tests.
fun fact about the halo 3 Mauler (Brute Shotgun), its tag name is still Excavator, and the vehicle: Prowlers tag name is actually Mauler.
Regarding the flamethrower sound, that is the real/og sound for the flamethrower. It was later changed to the banshee sound. You can even hear the original banshee sound in the old playback banshee
The reason why the flamethrower sounds like the Banshee is because Bungie reused its sound for the flamethrower. I’m glad the Banshee has that weird noice because it makes the craft feel more alien (in the Macworld demo those tail fins/rudders on the Banshee actually swayed back and forth as it turned. Why this didn’t make it into CE, but was later reused in future Halos is beyond me). I really wish we could’ve gotten the flamethrower. It would’ve been a GREAT weapon to use against the Flood.
Did you ever have any of those new Hyperkin original Xbox controllers like the Halo 20th anniversary one, or the purple Cortana one? I really like how the button in the middle is animated and plays the original Xbox intro when you boot it up. I wish I knew about that thing a few years ago. It would be nice to see those return as wireless controllers with the sticks that don’t drift.
I wanted to get the official one they released a few years back but never got around to it. Would love to own them. I had no idea they had animated bits on them. That’s sick
@@shreksnow1918 yeah it was definitely a placeholder, lots of games uses placeholders until the asset in question isn’t completed yet.
Twisted Metal 3 a dev actually revealed a special effect in the game was actually a placeholder that simply wasn’t changed.
@Woodyisasexybeast The purple Cortana controller that’s semi transparent has a Cortana montage for it’s start up intro.
One of my favorite things about the original Xbox controllers are how unnecessary big they are. It’s too bad the Duke controller didn’t continue for very long. I also like how the original Xbox and 360 buttons had different colors. Too bad newer controllers have been phasing out this design. It’s also too bad that the current Xbox UI is pretty sterile, while the original Xbox’s UI was this weird green and black cybernetic layout.
Recently I’ve watched several videos showing off what a modded 360 and original Xbox are capable of. It’s definitely very interesting. Too bad you need to take it apart and solder certain parts/chips into place. If it was easier I’d probably mod my 360. Especially, since the store is gone (good thing original Xbox/369 emulation has been progressing rapidly. That way games locked to those systems can be preserved).
We halo mcc full campaign + mp mod with all cut content fr
definitely make that halo 2 episode please
I know that the "Gravity Wrench" behaves more like a Concussion Launcher, but...come on, the nickname "Gravity Wrench" is just *BEGGING* for a Half-Life crossover mod.
The pistols in Halo look like they may have some kind of bullpup mechanism going on. You can look at guns like the Boberg XR9 or Bond Arms Bullpup for an example of this. This is just my own headcanon though. The HE Pistol having a toggle lock mechanism is also very cool to see.
I really wish that they also released the other maps we saw in the prototype footage. I really think it's a seriously missed opportunity to do so and it would be a dream come true to at least experience those places Bungie originally intended to be in the game, especially see and experience the environments and wildlife we see there.
I imagine they’re still working on it considering the E3 demo is finally releasing. They’ve been silently tooling away.
@@Woodyisasexybeast I really hope you are right.
7:19 Probably means it was supposed to be a "High-Explosive Pistol" or "Heavy Pistol" at some point in development but honestly I prefer the name "Space Luger" that one of the Digsite Crew called it...
26:36 music sounds oddly familiar, starting to think that's where Halo 3 got its song from (prologue scene when Johnson and the troops rescue masterchief)
Maybe some of these cut (yet canon) content were on the CE Ring. Just far away, minding their own business while Chief does his own thing.
As other commenters have pointed out, the Halo cut/early content is interesting to compare with Marathon as if you've played it you can quite clearly see the design lineage here from it to Halo. Like for example how so many early weapons had alternate fire modes, since every single weapon in Marathon did. When ported to the XBox they probably decided to drop the feature entirely as controller real-estate is premium, and some weapons just didn't need it (like the flashlight "alternate fire" lol).
Some of this was ment for halo 2, but was in ce as a engine test, to get things preped, such as the mongoose, and moonbase
Ahhh. I suspected as much. That explains why the M1 environments were built for both CE and 2
There’s also some versions of the missions in 2, and others in CE. It’s definitely interesting comparing how they play in each iteration of BLAM. Too bad we can’t play them in the “Halo 1.5 engine” that Digsite extracted all the content from.
Ja, very true
22:24 that detail exists on the retail CE Spirit too, but it has not reappeared in the Reach model, (and probably the h5 one too)
23:54 that is the "on fire death" action, no idea why it occurs in response to a chaingun. It is similar to the "stuck with plasma grenade" or "infection form attack" deaths
25:29 from what i heard, CRASH SITE does not make use of any cut dialogue, it is a unique mission made by Digsite and is not directly inspired by any cut CE missions. Members of Digsite voiced the Marines in the mission, Neo Te Aika did the music and the custom sounds even for the cut content, also some weapons in this mission have FP animations, like the Bolt-Action Sniper and the Harpoon, the animators for the aforementioned weapons are not affiliated with digsite, hence why their animations are only used in Crash Site and not found in the Digsite releases.
Just adding onto this, the MA5/GL, M99 PARA SMG, and several other RTS - Third Person Era weapons first person variants are custom made by Digsite. Including animations.
26:55 iTristan was a well known halo community member a few years ago, it was only with Crash Sites release that I learned he had passed away, (in a vehicle accident if I recall correctly)
33:38 that is the CE rendition of the Covenant Command Shuttle, Halo 2 also had its own Command Shuttle, most infamously used to transport Arbiter and Rtas's troops to the Gasgiant Facility. The Lich would probably be the closest retail counterpart to the command shuttles
Wow, the dialogue they added is extremely convincing. I thought for sure it was from the game, it sounds just like the marines in CE.
7:39 Don't forget that the toggle-lock is animated too during the firing animation.
I totally missed that
@Woodyisasexybeast It's something most people wouldn't probably notice because the only time you'll see it is when you're shooting at something and chances are _you are being shot at so you probably can't consciously pay attention to a firing animation._
But yeah, the toggle-lock action is just really neat especially for a sci-fi firearm to have.
Also, the action on the HE pistol is not as dramatic as say a P08's or, for those fellow Medics who have it in BF1, Selbstlader 1906's toggle-lock is, there's also the fact that it's almost too fast so it's already hard enough to notice without something shooting at you and I only noticed because I was already looking for it.
A lot of this should have been added to Halo CE via a DLC update disc. Like a Halo CE multiplayer map pack in say 2002-2003. Ruin pain looks like the UNSC base of operations on the Halo ring.
It's not "he pistol" as in "he man", it's HE pistol as in High Explosive rounds. Hence why it does more damage.
If it was capitalized, that would’ve been much more clear. Otherwise it just sounds goofy
@@Woodyisasexybeast I suppose. but it was never finished of course.
It’s sad console players can’t enjoy any of this (even though they built this franchise?) but I think it’s probably because it’s all unpolished content so they just dump it onto the PC instead. 13:38 I love how Bungie originally made the Fuel Rod Gun gold but changed it purple for launch then in Halo 2 it was gold again with no explanation it shows that Bungie consistently sat together maybe flip flopping on some suggestions but eventually those ideas would be solidified in later games. 26:20 This is basically the single unique variant weapon idea that was later done terribly in Halo 5 where it was some sort of stupid easter eggs whereas this version seems way more organic and story driven with that idea being that each weapon might’ve been “different stages of development” but I like the idea that each version even some that seem like repetitive weapons were probably a character centric weapon like finding “Sergeant Johnson’s Bolt-Action Sniper Rifle” next to a marine who in his last moments managed to take on a ton of enemies but was clearly overwhelmed? Even Triston’s Pistol has a whole freaking sniper scope on it and says “Mega Class” on the suppressor and the gun looks closest to the 50 Magnum Mega Class M4A so it’s probably one those just heavily modified and he added a whole sniper scope to be cool makes his anticlimactic fate even more funnier. 6:39 the “pistol” variant probably was added in to make sure that people stopped getting confused from interacting with the PDWS Pistol which looks pretty similar to the regular 50 Magnum Mega Class probably during play testing the similar designs lead to thinking you already have one or the other so they probably made the “Pistol” to replace the PDWS Pistol? afterwards I imagine Spartans use the “Pistol” and Marines get the 50 Magnum Mega Class and one unlucky marine had a special modified pistol? Probably once the game was going to be console exclusive they scrapped the unique variant weapons idea instead leaning towards carbon copy Halo 2’s they got alien guns equivalent to each of our human guns.
I don’t feel like “unpolished” is a good enough reason. They’ve shown that they have no issues releasing unpolished content into MCC. There’s even warnings when using Halo 4’s campaign theater and when enabling certain skulls in games they may not work with.
Not sure what you’re referring to at 26:20?
@@Woodyisasexybeast nornfang rifle is one which was like a op sniper rifle? It was used by one of those spartans of the blue or noble teams in Halo 5 I don’t remember they were eventually released in the multiplayer which is why Halo 5’s multiplayer is garbage? But in the campaign in certain areas you could find like a shotgun on a cliff “it’s just a shotgun?!?” But wait this one has a little colorful design on the side to let you know it’s special and deals slightly more damage
Edit: Just googled that boring rifle and it has 80 designations so it took me a second but I guess the proper technical terminology is “Mythic Weapons” which were the exact wrong way to do that idea
@ehhhwhatever202 oh really? All of the weapons variants were one of my favorite aspects of Halo 5. Using the Nornfang was a lot of fun to me. Personally, I think H5’s multiplayer is decent. Even if there was a lot of overlapping similarities between guns, I thought it was neat to experiment with the different properties.
I almost mentioned the binary rifle because it has a very similar usage. Less ammo but one shot kill
@@Woodyisasexybeast I was referring to doing variations but having them be mission exclusive absolutely no overlap with each other I would still allow you to use them in Custom and Forge but matchmaking isn’t somewhere you would want imbalances because it might be fun to get killed the first time but after a couple times and feeling like the game itself is almost against you and that’s frustrating for players leading to people losing interest but I think people could go on for centuries about that decade long blunder but I think the variation system with limitations where you could still easily memorize your favorite weapon variants without the Halo 5 effect where you have way too many variations and no focus or drive a far cry from the “just give me a weapon” gameplay of Bungie
@ehhhwhatever202 the easy solution is just different modes. Which they did. Certain game types had only regular weapons and no variations so you could always just choose to avoid them entirely. The ones hidden in campaign didn’t even have all of the same properties. The campaign nornfang, at least as far as I know, doesn’t behave any differently than the regular sniper. I guess they just wanted to include them as Easter eggs 🤷♂️
1:59 Like Myth, and if you listen to Myth II's soundtrack you can see where the DNA of Myth never really left Halo.
This is a quality video, great content!
WSTE-M can be pronounced "Waste-em". Very Bungie.
The HE pistol's barrel looks a lot like Hawkmoon's from Destiny
Huh. Interesting how that concept took that long to gestate
you can pilot the leech, just need to hold interact while hopping around near the cabin.
6:40 Okay yeah these are definitely based off the Marathon pistols.
The sharkoi looks like something straight out of half-life
They remind me of Quake’s Shamblers
The sniper rod is leftover in the final games files
Interesting
It’s stuff like this that makes sense to remake the first game. There no real downside to doing so, as long as Combat Evolved is still available to purchase.
Don’t just do Last of Us Part 1. Do it like Mafia Definitive Edition or Dead Space Remake.
There could totally be a downside. Full on reboot is a scary concept. As long as it was faithful and they used Dead Space as a blueprint, it would be interesting
great video
36:25 How did you find that!
I like flying outside of maps 🤷♂️
haha yeah i was blown away too
I really hope the anime decals are not going to be canonized by Halo Studios and were just added by the mod devs as a "screw it sounds funny" moment.
It was actually different anime decals originally. But anime nonetheless
Wasnt Moon base gonna be a mission in halo 2?
Not sure. All I know is that it was built in “Halo 1.5” and available for both CE and 2 as a result
Why did they remove so many weapons?... budget issues?
Lowered Crosshair in CE 😔
Default is best.
14:33. No weapon in halo is hitscan