Anyone who knows the history of Halo will tell you that the game and its dev team have gone through some massive changes over the years. The adventures of Master Chief were originally much different than the ones we got, and no one ever got to see the “original vision” as creator Bungie intended because of all the pivots they made. Granted, those pivots were beneficial, as the original trilogy still stands as one of the best gaming trilogies ever, but many are still curious about the past. That includes the current franchise developer, 343 Industries. How so? Because they’re making attempts to bring it all back.
As noted on the 343 Industries blog for the franchise, the team has been working with a modder group known as Digsite to go deep into the ancient files of Bungie to find all the content that they put on the “cutting room floor” and resurrect it for the Master Chief Collection over on PC:
“Of particular interest to us were design/production docs, Bungie feedback notes, tags, compiled maps, and source data for previously unseen multiplayer maps,” they noted.
Something you might not have known was that Bungie sourced out some multiplayer maps to be made by Gearbox Software! While they were built, they were never implemented:
“Gearbox had made a bunch of brand-new textures that were not being used whatsoever,” says Digsite team member Ludus. “I felt it would be a shame if these textures never got used, so I decided to remix Indoor into a brand-new map that could better utilize these newfound bitmaps.”
Another thing you can expect from this unique collaboration is that you’ll be able to play one of the original demos of the original game released on Mac back in 1999.
If you didn’t know, the franchise was originally to be a Mac exclusive and intended to be a third-person shooter at the time. You might have also recalled that the franchise was originally conceived as an RTS instead of an FPS. That’s true, and the Digsite team is also working to make that a reality too.
They’re diving deep into the files and models to recreate the original FTS premise for the franchise and deliver it to fans for the first time.
Does this do anything for the franchise as a whole? Probably not. But many will enjoy this deep dive into the past and then wonder what would’ve happened if this had been the path it continued on.
