Jul 14, 2023

Halo: The Master Chief Collection - misplacedyank

Welcome to our second-part breakdown of the Digsite crew’s excavations of old cutting room floor content from previous Halo games.

For those of you who may just be joining us: an intrepid team of modders, in partnership with us here at 343 Industries, have been working to restore some old cut content (weapons, vehicles, creatures, maps, levels, and more) so that you can experience it for yourself in Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC.

The latest content update for MCC went live earlier this week on July 12, which included our first delivery of Digsite content on PC. You can read the full breakdown in the links below:

DIGSITE DELIVERIES – Learn more about the Digsite content on PC that has arrived with the latest MCC update
MCC UPDATE: JULY 2023 – Get the full debrief on MCC’s July 12 content update

Let’s catch up with Kenneth Peters, Senior Franchise Writer, and the fine folks of the Digsite team to learn more about some of the most coveted aspects of Halo’s cut content that the Digsite team are working on for the future – the E3 2003 demo for Halo 2, the Guardians from Halo 3, old Promethean Knight models from Halo 4, and much (much) more!

The Great Journey

The Digsite team was not idle while Release 1 was being prepared and integrated into the MCC Editing Kit update. When the Github repository becomes public you will see brand new content, and new material will be flowing to it for testing, evaluation, and use by the Halo community.

I want to stress that this material still falls under the MCC EULA, so please don’t tempt legal fate and use the assets for mods in Unreal, ARMA, Fortnite, and so on (see MCC EULA: THE FAQ).

Now then, let’s look at some Halo 2 content in the process of restoration…

The Halo 2 AA Wraith, with fixed textures and UI by General_101. Recently submitted for integration with the public Digsite git.

The original Sun Devil! Heavily updated to be game-ready from Halo 2 development files. An “early access” version with baseline playtesting will be on the Digsite git for public evaluation. There’s also a missile launcher version of the Scorpion, but that still needs work. Tags are completely original and subject to playtesting change, as none were found with the model.

Prototype Brute Grenades from Halo 2, updated to work in retail. They are an interesting example of a concept in flux and evolution while the Halo 2 team were figuring out what worked, what didn’t, and what could be revisited later!

Halo 2 Dev Maps

General’s project to update the Halo 2 E3 demo from 2003 was featured in our announcement last year, and it certainly got an outsized focus in media coverage of Digsite!

This scenario is not in our Release 1, as a) it’s been continually refined to be as close to the original setup as is humanly possible, and b) it’s pretty much just one person doing it all.

Reconstructed Halo 2 E3 skybox using original bitmaps and converted shaders.

You won’t be waiting that long to get hold of the MCC remake, but I want to note that this effort was partly to prove out concepts and create tooling that the team can now use to semi-automatically port maps from engine revisions and content formatting changes.

The team also made great strides over the last year to recover very dodgy early builds and ways of extracting data from them – something which was necessary to do a complete build of the map, as not every E3 asset survived into the later Bungie depots!

Example of a recent find and rebuild: prototype Brutes in rough order of development (left to right). You may notice one being from the E3 demo. They got more shaven as development went on, probably for performance reasons.

The E3 Phantom, complete with animated landing gear and side guns! It differs in other ways from the Phantom we know and love from retail Halo 2, but you’ll soon see that for yourself.

Among the most exciting elements of this work is that it lays the groundwork for bringing some of the earliest – and arguably most interesting – Halo 2 maps back to life: the Milestone 1 tests.

Known about in roundabout ways from very early behind-closed-doors demos, M1 Defensive, M1 Exploration, and M1 Offensive were major efforts to explore different gameplay possibilities and scenarios. None survived into the retail environment, and not all of their gameplay can even be replicated now, but they are fascinating and important waypoints in the history of Halo as a game and franchise.

M1 Defensive is probably the most well-known in general, as early press visits mention it, and the shield ship was a central element. This map was designed to be a 20-minute-long experience, with lots of AI on both sides to help and hinder the player in their mission. This was ambitious, probably too ambitious for the OG Xbox.

M1 Exploration, known alternately as “Moonbase” or “Fool Moon” is currently the farthest in (re)development, using tooling from Zeddikins that converts the Halo: CE-style recorded animations into something we can make use of in Halo 2\Blender, and General’s incredible “up-porting” tools to automate much of the scenario conversion work (e.g. squad placement, decorators, etc).

These maps were never entirely finished by Bungie, but we want to make a stab at it! We are lucky to have an old Xbox build of the map that we can play and compare our port effort to!

M1 Offensive is the one we are having some issues with, but is arguably the most straightforward in terms of scenario setup. You are dropped behind enemy lines and must wipe out all resistance at a Covenant camp. This is one of the maps where we found the long-lost Covenant Command Shuttle model, as well as a blockout of the Covenant “airbus” bridge-ship seen in the first Halo art book.

A Blender render of the M1 Exploration moonbase.

Dropship path converted into a spline from the CE-style recording used in the original test scenario. We can then use this to generate waypoints and animations compatible with retail Halo 2. The tool will also be a way of converting other CE-recorded animations into formats usable in later Halo games.

Early work fixing up M1 Defensive by Sean. These were made in what we call the “Halo 1.5” engine, so some fixing was tested in Halo: CE, but we want to ship these as Halo 2 scenarios.

Concept model of a Forerunner tower used on M1 Offensive.

Finishing Touches

Let’s hear directly from our Digsite members as they share some of the additional things they’ve been up to.

Zeddikins

My hand in Digsite happenings has largely been from the shadows, but this time around I do have an interesting nugget to share with everyone.

During some digging, a set of cache files for a Halo 2 Multiplayer Delta came up. The included maps are dated about a month before the release maps, and from a data standpoint don’t seem too remarkable. What is remarkable, however, is the main menu.

While currently unknown if this was the working concept before being scrapped for what Halo 2 ultimately shipped with, the Delta menu changes the background scene depending on your campaign progress.

If this sounds familiar, it’s probably because you Remember Reach, which would do this eight years later.

I eventually got the scenario recreated and running in Tag Test, though using the existing release assets instead of the early ones from the delta for convenience. This meant that some fixes and small creative liberties had to be made. For example, a space skybox was added as the original BSP was just a black shader.

Likewise, the main menu is a bit of a special case for the Blam engine. You are only meant to have one, at a fixed path, and MCC doesn’t even use them. For these reasons, I opted against including it with this initial content drop. But don’t fret, I do intend to get it released in the future through Github, for those wanting to check it out for themselves.

A closing fun fact: the camera points for these scenes never got removed from the release main menu scenario, solving a mystery I’m not sure anybody was even looking for.

Krevil

As one of the newest members of the Digsite team, the majority of my work so far has been on Halo 3’s cut content. It’s still a long road before any of it will be included in a release, but I thought I would include some insights into what I’ve been up to – and a little sneak peek into the future.

The Guardian(s)

Of all the Halo 3 content lost to the void, the Guardian is perhaps the most well-known, despite only being seen as a hologram on the multiplayer map Epitaph and as a feature seen on Zeta Halo in Halo Infinite.

Halo 3′s Guardian was a form of Sentinel that was designed to be an even more formidable encounter than Halo 2‘s Enforcer. Armed with a decimating red energy beam, phase teleportation to quickly relocate, and a surging pulse which would send players flying away, the Guardian could easily dispatch any intruders who dared to trespass into their forest.

But, if players could overcome the challenge of the Guardian, it was not without reward: After dismantling the frightful Forerunner construct, the Guardian’s eye could be wielded for players to use against other foes, or perhaps even give the Guardians a taste of their own burning medicine. Though, the challenges were not only for the players, as bringing the Guardian back from the depths has also been a considerable task.

When work first began on Halo 3’s Guardian, we had only a single model file to work with and we were missing any MCC-compatible tags, though tantalizing clues remained to show that some did exist at one point. Luckily, thanks to Christopher Barrett, Paul Russel, and Marcus Lehto we were able to recover additional source files and – most importantly – development insight into the way they were supposed to work in-game.

With so many more resources to work with, the team has now begun to piece back together the Guardian, working to integrate design ideas into the game in ways that both function and fit within the game’s retail sandbox.

E3 2006

It can often be hard to believe that 2006 was seventeen years ago. It was an incredible time to be a Halo fan, the excitement for the third game in the series rising higher with each article, trailer, and promotion.

I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I watched the E3 trailer again and again whilst waiting for the game to release, so when the opportunity to work on restoring the actual scenario used for the trailer presented itself, I knew it was something I absolutely had to do. It hasn’t been an easy road to walk down though, many challenges block the path to the scenario playing like it did in 2006.

The largest obstacle to getting the scenario running again has been scripting. The scripts for the scenario were written during an earlier development phase of Halo 3 and as such, much of the functionality has been changed. Notably, Halo 3 switched to a different cinematic system than Halo 2, using data files and tags to automatically create scripting for cinematics. The trailer dates back to before these systems were in place, using script functions that are now long gone.

Additionally, many assets used in the trailer evolved in the production that followed after. An example of this is that the trailer used an earlier skeleton for the Banshees and Phantoms, so applying the cinematic animations to the retail models results in errors that causes the vehicles to hover in place instead of zooming off towards the portal.

The bright side is that despite all of the challenges involved, the scenario can now be played from start to finish – it just needs a little more time and effort so it can once again shine like it did in 2006.

Ludus/Neo

For those of you who read last year’s Digsite article Cutting Room Corps, you may remember the notorious Space Luger.

In the time since that article’s publication, we have found the necessary associated data to fully rebuild and polish the silver finish down to a sheen fit for active duty.

Ludus: I’m proud to say I was able to squeeze in an art pass for this at the last second. I won’t gush over how much I adore this gun, but it was really delightful to get to bring forward the effective predecessor to Halo 3: ODST’s signature M6C/SOCOM, from long before that game was ever conceived.

Neo: Our revamp features new details, animations and audio that plays into a feeling of eloquent decision, a native extension to Halo: CE’s existing sandbox that never left your side!

Built to naturally match the internal suppressor, a compound of stab-attack-long-release compression slams gunfire of a similar caliber to that used in Marathon’s .45 Magnum Mega Class into the delivery system, the time is short, the sound lean, and the effect very mean.

A trusty companion to the classic Magnum, and the perfect choice for a recon op. Keep it clean.

Sean T

As work on Digsite R1 has winded down, it’s been fun to start looking into what comes next. The majority of my recent work focused on polishing up models and animation work, but as we move forward into newer titles, my focus is expanding to new skills beyond my previous areas of expertise (map and tag development).

One smaller project we’re working on is anchored on Halo 3 pre-production level design. Many of you have probably seen the tweets from Max Hoberman showcasing several of these maps, and we are happy to say that we have a lot of them in our possession, with the potential to compile a map pack for Halo 2.

For now, we can share a look at Snowbound, as well as a peek at an alternate mix of Construct.

Snowbound, for the most part, is very similar to what players experienced in 2007. However, there are some small layout changes, the two biggest being the size of the map and the center bunker. The transparent glass for the bases has also led to some funny encounters in early playtests.

This version of Construct is a little different from the one recently shown on Twitter. It will be a unique scenario to see how Construct’s vertical gameplay adapts into Halo 2 once the scenario is fully complete.

There’s much more work and excavation remaining on this endeavor, but our hope is that this project will not only introduce classic maps in a new dimension, but serve as interesting templates for mod authors to expand with new art or gameplay features.

There is also one additional new map in the oven. Fans of Halo 2 may know that there was an additional map that did not make it into the Blastacular Map Pack. Only the legendary Max Hoberman knows all the details, but we’ve excavated some interesting bits to flesh out a fascinating chapter of Halo’s long history.

We’re only providing a small look at this map today, as it has a bit more work needed before it’s ready to be shown in game, but it’s cool to finally be able to show what once was lost – and it’ll be exciting to get this into players hands.

This map, “Permafrost”, is a BTB design in a similar manner to Halo 3’s High Ground. Light bridges also appeared as an interactive element. My favorite little detail of this map though is the sword spawn dug into a rock, excalibur style!

General_101/Scruffy

This release has been quite the effort for everyone involved in Digsite. Lots of unknown data formats had to be researched, lots of blanks filled by our talented content dev team. I’d like to speak on some of the aspects of this release that I’ve had a hand in.

Marine Mover

The early Halo 2 Troop Transport Warthog was an amazing – and recent – find. This piece was found in an old map file that required our tools to be upgraded to retrieve the data for all of you. Unfortunately, we still have had no luck with locating the jungle and snow variant of the Halo 2 Warthog.

The first thing I noticed is that the backside of the troop hog wasn’t complete. The texture wasn’t set up at all, and the transport section of the hog was very under-detailed. The second issue we noticed is that the Warthog texture didn’t really work. There were places where the texture space wasn’t being used correctly. For such a cool piece I decided it would be a good idea to take it to its logical conclusion and complete the job that Bungie started.

I went ahead and modeled a new backside for the troop transport, borrowing textures from the Pelican and adding more detail. Ludus assisted with redoing the UV map to tie it all together nicely. We will be providing the original unedited data, but I hope this edit is something that everyone along with the original artist can enjoy.

Hitch a Ride!

When changes were being made to the games to support biped seats, we had to scan the tags for sleeping giants.

It’s at this point that we noticed the Hunter had a leftover seat for boarding at some point. While we aren’t sure how far this got in a real dev environment, it was simply too cool to pass on. I went ahead and made changes necessary to the existing Hunter tags in Halo 2 so players on PC and Xbox will be able to board the back of a Hunter.

You’ll be able to plant grenades or melee a Hunter, as seen in what was also cut for Halo: Reach. HUD string text was required as well, and we luckily had additional help from General Heed for HUD translations. I can’t thank everyone enough on the MCC team and our fellow Reclaimers for helping on this project. I hope people enjoy side stepping and bashing Hunters into the ground.

General Purpose Explosions

The grenade launcher and machine gun combo have been recovered and updated for retail MCC.

Originally this was only ever seen as an attachment to the GPMG on the Pelican rear turret from media in The Art of Halo. It wasn’t usable in the state it was in since it was basically just a prop with no gameplay functionality, but I thought people would appreciate having a proper turret.

I got to work using various sources I had on-hand, including a model file named h_turret_ap.max which had the grenade launcher still included (albeit hidden and referencing an older version of the weapon texture). A version of the diffuse was found with double the resolution and adds a nice bit of detail absent in the lower resolution image.

It works well and is really only missing a custom asset for the grenade launcher projectile along with some gameplay balancing. I hope to have this out for you guys shortly after the R1 release. Oh, and for the lore folks: the model refers to it as a 20mm grenade launcher.

The Cartographer

I worked on most of the Halo 2 maps, but the one I enjoyed the most was Rodentia, the remake of Rat Race from Halo: CE. When we found it, we didn’t have source files for it. All we had was a map file for Vista at the time. The map itself was great. It had some minor art issues but otherwise was very playable.

We had some pretty big wants for this map but ultimately decided to try to fix the remaining art issues and have it shipped as a Digsite release. It was really cathartic to fix all the import errors the map had. I fixed a ton of UV, open edges, and other nasty import errors. My favorite fix was making sure you could see the outside from the windows in the interior. A portal issue in the original map would occlude the geometry when it shouldn’t have.

Would be great to see this in matchmaking proper one day, but I’ll settle for duking it out with others on custom games every now and then. Whoever the original artist for this one was, I hope they enjoy seeing their creation out for people to try out.

Small Arms Repair

Did a lot of minor stuff for weapons in this R1 pack. If you wield one of the third-person weapons, you’ll probably see an animation I ported or made such as the spear gun reload or the microwave gun animations.

I did a couple of things for first-person as well, like the Luger reload animations. Really enjoyed helping out there. Wish we could have done more first-person weapon models, but I think we did pretty good with the resources and time we had.

Scruffy: I just wanted to quickly add to that statement and thank the whole team. If it weren’t for these talented programmers, artists, animators, and audio engineers, all of my work involving number crunching the weapon, vehicle, and character/AI stats in the spreadsheet dungeons would have meant nothing, so thanks again for making this project what it is.

Beast Tamer

The Slugman and Drinol were fun to get into the game. The Drinol only had a few animations and the Slugman had none at all. I had to retarget animations from the Hunter and Jackal respectively to fill in the needed animations. Some animations were then touched up or redone entirely, such as death animations for the Drinol.

Once the art was more or less final Scruffy came in and gave them AI. It’s pretty wild to get one-hit KO’d by a Drinol or sniped from a distance by a Slugman. Hoping people have as much fun fighting them as we did bringing them in!

Scruffy: Don’t worry, they aren’t Halo 2 Jackal snipers. I did my best to reference Halo: CE’s existing AI, such as plasma rifle Elites and sniper rifle Marines, to come up with a happy mix where they can engage you at range but still have the potential to miss. If you don’t take them out quick enough, then they will stop missing after a while. It’ll be fun to design missions now that the Covenant has a unit that isn’t restricted to close-medium range weapons.

Crisp

Digsite leaves no stone unturned, so it was only right that we looked forward to some of the games that fall outside of the original trilogy. Halo: Reach and Halo 4 are both entries which tried a lot of new ideas, many of which did not make it to release.

Head over to Halo Waypoint to read the rest from Crisp, and other work being done to bring additional content to MCC!

Across the Street, Download

The question of the day is where and when? The answer is here and now!

Halo: CE and Halo 2 content for Release 1 featured in this article is available at the links below. The tags and select source data are maintained at an active resource where you can always find the latest released Digsite content, and any related content fixes or updates.

A “1.0” release is now part of the core files included in the Halo: CE and Halo 2 Mod Tools, but for ongoing support, GitHub will be the one-stop-shop for updated resources as we uncover more content.

To our community modders: be sure to keep the GitHub repository bookmarked for further updates to Digsite, so you’ll always have the latest and greatest.

Many additions in this Digsite release were made possible from new updates to both Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and the Halo Mod Tools. For more details on what was added under the hood, have a look at this companion article regarding the update along with the patch notes.

Check out the following links for players on PC seeking an immediate demonstration of today’s content, available right now!

Digsite – Release 1, via GitHub (Coming soon)
The Excavated Map Pack (Halo: CE), via Steam Workshop
The Digtacular Map Pack (Halo 2), via Steam Workshop
Crash Site, via Steam Workshop

(If you have MCC for PC installed via the Microsoft Store or Xbox Game Pass, the Steam Workshop page for Crash Site also includes instructions on how non-Steam PC players can install and play Crash Site manually.)

With this, we’ve reached the complete first release of Digsite content.

We’re excited to uncover more on this Great Journey in the future, and if you’d like to follow public developments, you can scope the latest at our dedicated spaces, courtesy of YouTube, Halo Modding Reclaimers, and Halo Mods. Until next time!

Oh, and for the fiction fans out there, our next Canon Fodder issue will indeed concern elements of this excavated material and how it exists within the Halo universe. Stay tuned!

Don't forget to head to Halo Waypoint to read the full Digsite Discoveries article!

Jul 10, 2023

July Update

Halo: The Master Chief Collection - misplacedyank

It’s hard to believe that it has been over six months since the previous MCC CU. A lot has happened in that time. The march towards shipping this CU was quite different than most of its predecessors – after all, we were not updating the games for new platform features, not porting the games to PC, and all the mod tools were out in the wild with Plug-n-Play support. This meant there was more bandwidth to finish some fights. Fights on the schedule front, and fights on the passion front.

This update arrives on July 12 and brings a ton of great new content, some quality-of-life adjustments, some modding improvements, and much more. Let’s jump right in and see what’s coming…

Feet First Into Firefight

You, your friends, and your wits versus the enemy. How long can you survive? Can you outsmart your opponent? To some, this is the quintessential late-night grind, and soon there’ll be even more ways to experience that with MCC.

Dana “The Psycho Duck” Jerpbak, Software Engineer, has worked his magic once again so let’s see what he’s got to say!

Firefight was a relatively late addition to MCC, arriving for Halo: Reach in the collection in 2019, and for ODST the following year. Since then, we've made numerous improvements to the Firefight experience, such as the use of the distributed networking model (which was formerly available only in standard multiplayer) and the introduction of game variants with templatized waves (including Flood!) to ODST.

One thing we’ve wanted to do for a while is provide a more seamless drop-in-drop-out (insert feet first into Hell reference here) experience with Firefight, and we’ve finally achieved that with this update!

Firefight’s simulation is more complex than standard multiplayer due to the inclusion of AI-controlled units, as well as various systems which were not originally intended to be networked. As such, we weren’t historically able to support join-in-progress (JIP) for the mode. That’s no longer the case!

In addition to the ability to JIP into regular Firefight custom games, this also means that you can now use our match rejoin feature in Firefight matchmade games! Firefight matches tend to last longer than multiplayer matches and now if you experience a connection hiccup during the match, you can seamlessly rejoin.

JIP also opens the door for Firefight’s debut in the Custom Games Browser. You can now create, browse for, and match into Firefight CGB sessions just like you can with multiplayer sessions! Both modes are included in the same session list, but you can use filters to narrow your choices down as you please.

With Firefight’s inclusion in CGB, we also invested in increasing its max player count from four to eight. To set expectations, the enemy count and difficulty do not scale with the player count in Firefight (though we think Legendary eight-player Flood Firefight is a blast) and we don’t expect to change the player counts in our Firefight matchmaking playlists at this time. This simply provides more flexibility for custom Firefight games and we hope to see some awesome modded Firefight maps that really take advantage of the expanded player count too!

In Firefight, players who join in progress enter observer mode (where they can spectate living players or use the flying camera) until a new wave begins (so you won’t be exploiting rejoins while out of lives). In variants with infinite lives enabled, JIP players may spawn immediately. In the CGB sessions, Firefight’s pre-game warmup phase is more seamless than multiplayer’s. A new set will only begin once the minimum player count is met, but players are free to explore the map and scavenge weapons and ammo during this period.

Long-time Firefight fans may recall the “Network Test 1” PvP Generator Defense experience from the original Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta. This was a 3v3 Firefight experience with waves disabled which was not possible to recreate in the full game or its MCC release... until now!

We’ve added a new game variant option to Reach Firefight which disables enemy waves and enables legacy behavior from the Beta. Now you can play the original PvP Generator Defense with up to eight players on the modern distributed networking model. Happy Firefighting!

With the introduction of JIP support to Firefight, we’ve also made a global change to saved films across all games which support Theater in MCC. Previously in Halo 3 and ODST, only the film from the first instance of joining a game was retained. Meanwhile in Reach, Halo 4, and Halo 2: Anniversary, each rejoin would overwrite the previous film recorded from that game. Now, each join will retain its own film, so you won’t lose any cool clips you captured before leaving and rejoining a game.

Survival. Evasion. Resistance. Escape.

(Let’s get the scoop from Sean “Scoops” Cooper, Senior Software Engineer, for some further insight into development and improvements to Firefight.)

Before we even greenlit ODST Firefight for MCC or replaced our frontend with UE4, I was experimenting with changes that would eventually add MP support to ODST as a pie in the sky side project. Some of the changes involved ended up helping with this CU’s 8-player support for ODST FF.

When ODST was forked from the Halo 3 source, there were changes to the maximum number of players from 16 to 4. A couple of years ago, before we released ODST on PC, I did some work to bump the maximum players back to 16 (doing it in such a way that would also make potentially adding >16 support more straightforward too).

When Halo 3 got Forge improvements back in 2020, I spent time ensuring those changes were integrated into ODST, in the hopes that one day things would pan out. The content and code fixups involved in ensuring that MP and Forge “Just Worked” ended up being far more work than I realized in 2018, but it was worth it to see it come together and open another area for modders to tinker. Our early access modding group was critical in getting the MP support to the state it is today, as well as providing feedback on where new hooks and changes were needed to more easily support MP while not stomping on campaign and Firefight.

Trivia: when I first started prototyping the support for MP, I codenamed it SERE. This was a nod to ODST first adding Firefight, which was internally called Survival. ‘SERE’ being an acronym for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape.

Additionally, since ODST was forked from Halo 3 at some point after some of the DLC maps were worked on, ODST’s content also contained a few unreleased DLC maps that were explored for Halo 3. I included these in this CU’s release of the ODST mod tools.

Beachhead would end up making its way into Reach as Tempest. I remember seeing the early development of this map in October 2007 when I first got to visit Bungie (when they were still located in Kirkland at the now-demolished 434 office, RIP).

Halo 4 Campaign & Spartan Ops Theater

Since Halo 3, Theater mode has been a feature that the community has used to bolster their creativity through clips, screenshots, and machinima, but it has also been a great way to explore the details of various level spaces, environments, and character models that you don’t always get to fully appreciate while otherwise engaged in combat.

For Halo 4’s tenth anniversary in November last year, we announced that we were looking at getting Theater mode operational for both Halo 4's campaign and Spartan Ops, as the game did not ship with this feature (except for multiplayer).

Those efforts have at last come to fruition.

From the aft of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn, to the mysterious shores of Requiem, to the doomed Ivanoff Station and the trenches of the Mantle’s Approach – this update brings the ability to explore all of Halo 4’s campaign and Spartan Ops missions in Theater.

NOTE: Because this feature has some quirks from legacy code in its original incarnation before it was cut from Halo 4’s retail release, unexpected playback issues may be experienced.

A Feast of Features

With so many titles under one roof, it’s only natural if you find yourself accidentally throwing a Power Drain at your teammates when you meant to reload. (I know I’m not the only one this has happened to…right?)

With this upcoming update, you’ll be able to custom map your controller for the full suite of games and, if you find yourself confused between MCC and Halo Infinite, you are in good hands because there’s a control scheme for that.

As if that wasn’t exciting enough, Halo 3 is getting a brand new (to Halo 3) gametype, Escalation Slayer. It’s a race to the top to prove that you can be the best, no matter the weapon(s). Read on to learn more about it all!

Custom Gamepad Remapping

If you’ve frequented MCC dev blogs in the past, you’ve probably seen “controller remapping” listed as a planned feature for a while now. It’s finally here! This feature was the first time we were able to look back at something introduced in Halo Infinite for reference when designing the version in MCC. Players who have used this feature in Infinite should find its MCC implementation familiar, but with a few MCC-specific features.

In MCC, you are now allotted a single custom preset for each game. You can start with any built-in preset from that game as a base and modify it to your heart’s content and save as your custom preset.

Like with our key bindings, you can customize on-foot and vehicle mappings, as well as Forge and Theater mappings. You can also map actions that were historically grouped together (‘reload’ and ‘primary action’, for example) independently of one another. This provides a lot of new flexibility when it comes to vehicle and Forge actions in particular.

Actions may overlap onto the same button where it makes sense (‘throw grenade’ and ‘secondary fire’ can overlap, but ‘throw grenade’ and ‘primary fire’ cannot). One thing that was really important to us was ensuring there were no cases where you unmapped an action and couldn’t map it back to its original button. All built-in presets therefore follow the same action exclusivity rules that the player is bound to, meaning that you can recreate any of the built-in presets if you wish.

As with all things in MCC, each Halo game has some unique actions and control behavior. For example, Halo: CE historically provided movement actions on the d-pad and Halo 3 (in MCC) allowed for thumbstick or button-activated altitude control for the Hornet. All of this behavior has been preserved and can be remapped or toggled independently of your selected preset.

In addition to the new custom preset, we’ve also added an “Infinite” preset for each game. This mimics (as closely as possible, given the differences in which actions are available between games) Halo Infinite’s default control scheme within each game in MCC. This even includes approximations of Halo Infinite’s Forge controls.

We hope this makes the experience of jumping between MCC and Infinite more seamless for players. Like with the other built-in presets, the Infinite preset can be used as a base to customize as you see fit.

In addition to the control customization within MCC’s settings menu, we are also introducing support for controller mods! Whether you just want to create more custom presets, or you want to tailor a preset to your mod, you can create control mods in Excession and share them on the Steam Workshop!

Modded presets are subject to the same button exclusivity rules as the ones you configure in-game, but allow you to customize actions not typically available outside of modded scenarios (equipment and dual-wielding in ODST anyone?) Unlike most other mod types, control mods are fully available with EAC enabled, so you can bring your modded presets into matchmaking and the Custom Games Browser.

Halo 3 Escalation Slayer

When we introduced Escalation Slayer to Halo: Reach, Halo 4, and Halo 2: Anniversary in 2021, we did so using those games’ Megalo engine. The Megalo engine allows for rapid prototyping and iteration of gametypes (we had our first Escalation Slayer playtest the day after we started prototyping it) and provides a lot of flexibility (and is also fully open to modders), but these variants were ultimately somewhat rudimentary. We were limited in terms of the game options we could provide (constrained to offering weapon sets rather than full tier customization) and what sorts of HUD support we could offer.

We’ve wanted to bring this gametype to other Halo games ever since (as seen with its debut in Season 3 of Halo Infinite), and Halo 3 was an obvious choice given the richness of its sandbox.

Unlike its Megalo predecessors, Halo 3’s Escalation Slayer is a full multiplayer engine of its own standing alongside Halo 3's legacy multiplayer engines (Slayer, Capture the Flag, Infection, etc.). This allowed us to create an experience which is both more polished and much more customizable. The core experience is comparable to that of its existing MCC counterparts with a few additions.

First, H3 Escalation Slayer has better HUD support for conveying the progress to the next tier, the contents of the next tier, and events like players being downgraded. Like in H2A, some tiers contain dual-wielding. Some tiers include support weapons like the Missile Pod and Machine Gun Turret. Each tier includes a Spike Grenade which can be used for downgrading opponents, and the final tier is the Golf Club. In the default team Escalation Slayer variant, all members of a team are synced to the same tier and the team must collectively earn three kills to progress to the next.

Our other main built-in Escalation Slayer experience is something we’ve dubbed “Fiescalation.” These variants consist of 32 tiers, each with a random primary, secondary, backpack weapon, and a random equipment item. These random items are selected globally, and all players are synced to the same tier and move to the next every 30 seconds. In other words, it’s all the chaos of Fiesta (and then some), but fair; you won’t have to worry about spawning with a Pistol when your opponent has a Sniper Rifle and Rocket Launcher.

Fiescalation has been a favorite in playtests as some truly absurd combinations of weapons and equipment have emerged. When players move up to a new tier and suddenly each have a deployable Grav Lift in their back pocket, hilarity ensues.

Speaking of equipment, we’ve taken the opportunity to add three equipment items which were formerly available only in Halo 3’s campaign to multiplayer. These are available in the Escalation Slayer tier settings as well as in the Forge palettes across all maps. These are the Invincibility, Active Camo, and Auto Turret equipment. We think the Active Camo equipment in particular has some serious potential in more competitive scenarios as it functions similarly to Halo Infinite’s on-demand style of power-ups.

The Escalation Slayer experiences we’ve described above are all fully customizable with 32 configurable tiers (each with primary, secondary, and backpack weapons, equipment, and grenades), kill behavior settings (like upgrading the killer, downgrading the killer, or both) for grenade sticks, assassinations, and melees, a suite of player trait sets, tier-sharing options, and more. As Escalation Slayer is the first time players have had the option to spawn with secondary (dual-wielded) weapons in Halo 3, we’ve also used it to improve our Slayer Duals variants where players will now spawn with dual SMGs.

We hope you’ll have as much fun playing and customizing Escalation Slayer as we had making it. H3 Escalation Slayer is also available with full feature parity to modders in Halo 3: ODST. More on that below!

Background Video Selection

In our previous MCC update, we released an early version of our background video selection feature. The full feature is online with this update, including mod support (and yes, the bug where your selections could be reset when relaunching the game is fixed). Like with controller mods, background video mods are fully available when EAC is enabled!

Moa Madness

The Great Journey to find the golden moa statues comes to Halo 2!

With each MCC update, we’ve added these collectibles to each campaign and we’re rounding out the collection with Halo 2. You know the drill: three levels will have a golden moa statue each week, go hunt ‘em down!

Boots Off the Ground

The Acrophobia skull has been added to Halo: Combat Evolved!

Like the moa statues, we have been adding this skull to each game in the MCC, allowing the player character to fly around campaign levels. Paired with the Blind skull, which disables the HUD and weapon model, you can effectively become a flying camera to take screenshots in the pre-Theater games – Halo: CE and Halo 2.

Mod Mayhem

All kinds of lost content from Halo: CE and Halo 2 are coming to MCC on PC through modding thanks to our partnership with the Digsite group.

If you missed the recent Digsite Deliveries blog from just a few days ago, be sure to check it out for some really great information on the MCC mod efforts.

But that’s not all we’ve got for you, mod-wise. Some new Plug ‘n’ Play features, FMOD soundbank support, and more will arrive with this update.

Let’s see what else Scoops has been up to!

Override Overdrive

When we shipped the December 2022 CU, it added Steam Workshop and Plug-n-Play mod support. This was long overdue but not the entire piece of the modding puzzle, as we also needed to better support mods overriding files that are in the base game. A mod should be self-contained, requiring you to not directly or manually replace any files as a consumer of the mod.

The last CU still had some kinks in the armor to buff out, so to speak, so things like custom FMOD sound banks in Halo 3 required manually replacing the content that lives in MCC’s install folder. With this CU, however, it is no longer the case.

Maptastic

Back in early 2019, I had explored adding various unreleased maps from Halo 2 Vista’s development to our Halo 2 in MCC. These were all in various stages of development – some of the maps we had early source files for, a few maps we only had final .map files for (e.g., Rodentia, the remake of Halo: CE’s Rat Race). It wouldn’t be until later, with the Digsite crew’s effort, that usable files were reconstructed from the .map files so that they could be included in the mod tools.

Before the Digsite effort though, a few maps were evaluated and touched up by Cliff Schuldt. There were graphical issues on Convict (a remake of Halo: CE’s Prisoner) and graphical/playability issues on Artery which he spent some time fixing, to name a few.

There is a lot of potential with these unreleased maps. We hope to see some pioneering people put the essence of these maps through more rigorous playtesting (which we never had the bandwidth to do) and upload them to Steam Workshop!

Party Time

Back in 2018, I stumbled across a fork of Halo 2 which was code named “MP_partygame_prototype.” The source of the fork was captured, but the content that went into the prototype was only a partial capture. This prototype included some very rough support for what would end up shipping as VIP and Infection in Halo 3.

Last year, I integrated some early support for the multiplayer modes from that prototype to MCC’s Halo 2, but some of them didn’t work out of the box. As in, they straight up crashed. For this CU they are still not feature complete, but they should all be in a state which at least shouldn’t crash trying to tinker with them in the mod tools.

But Wait, There's More

Those are just some of the things that were top of mind, along with historical background. There’s more in this CU, which you will find out from the Digsite crew in their dedicated blogs.

DIGSITE DELIVERIES: Dig deep into the archived catacombs of Halo's cutting room floor and learn about the treasure trove of creatures, weapons, vehicles, maps, and other lost goodies available for restoration in this MCC update.
DIGSITE DISCOVERIES: Learn more about what else the Digsite crew are working on for future deliveries. (COMING JULY 14)

MCC has been a true labor of love and has received a great many updates over the years, and we’re super excited to get this one into your hands.

Jump into H3 Escalation Slayer and see what fun weapon combinations you get; take another trip into Halo 4’s campaign and Spartan Ops to explore Requiem like never before with Theater mode; party with your friends like it’s May 2010 by hopping into Generator Defense in Reach’s Firefight; or delve into the depths of Halo’s cutting room floor and mod in historic slices of ancient content...

We’ll see you Wednesday, July 12!

Jul 7, 2023

Digsite Deliveries

Halo: The Master Chief Collection - misplacedyank

Last year, we released a three-part blog series exploring the cutting room floor of Halo, reaching all the way back to not just the E3 2003 demo of Halo 2, but even further back to the 1999 Macworld demo for Halo: Combat Evolved.

We announced that an intrepid team of modders, in partnership with us here at 343 Industries, have been working to restore some of this old content so that you can experience it for yourself in Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC.

After going dark for a year, heads down as we entered the darkest depths of ancient folders and shone a light into the deepest corners of Halo history, delving into that secret tenth circle of Hell (the cutting room floor of game development), the time has now come to reveal what you’ll be able to get your hands on through modding when the next MCC update drops soon.

So, let’s hand it over to Kenneth Peters, Senior Franchise Writer, and the Digsite team themselves to bring you a new two-part exploration of what’s on the way.

Sitrep

Blam Magazine – Collage by Neo.

Today is a jam-packed article, written directly by the Digsite team! We’ve squeezed in as much as we could fit, you’ll find the full low-down on anything and everything about our first release.

Short of the mythical Forerunner Bench and Forerunner Train, we’ll be diving into a look at what you can find, meeting new friends involved in this project, and discussing old and new surprises alike.

While the wait was a big one, we all greatly look forward to seeing these restored works go out into the wild, and how the community will use and iterate on our released resources in new and exciting ways. We’re going right into the thick of it, so buckle up and read on!

New Teammates

Since our previous Waypoint article, the crew has expanded with new members from the modding community to bolster our efforts across the board, from giving weapons a bigger boom, to uncovering the long-famed mysteries of the Guardians…

If this is your introduction to our project, we invite you to meet the existing team progress in these three articles from 2022:

Cutting Room Floor | Cutting Room Corps | Cutting Room Lore

A journey to the past…

Crisp

Hey all, you may know me for my Zombies inspired mod for Halo 3. Since then, I’ve been focused on community tools for working with the Halo Editing Kits. My latest project has been Foundry, a solution for turning Blender models into game assets for Halo: Reach+. I’ve joined Digsite to assist getting cut content for Halo: Reach and Halo 4 in-engine.

Killzone64

Hello, I’m Killzone64. You may know me from projects such as Dynamis, Halo CE+, and as a/ longtime member of VKMT. I have been modding various Halo games since 2009, specializing in 3D modeling and level design. I recently joined Digsite to assist with fixing up any cut maps that we find for release across various games.

Krevil

Hello, I’m Krevil, you might recognize me from the Halo Mods Discord or from my work on mods such as the Multiplayer Characters in Campaign series. I was brought on to research enemy behaviors and restore Halo 3 assets like characters and scenarios. Since joining the Digsite team, I’ve been using my skills in reverse engineering to get a low-level look at what makes Halo 3’s AI tick so that I can bring cut characters such as the Guardian back to life.

Neo Te Aika

Kia ora! I’m Neo. I joined the team last year, aiding in dev shenanigans from analyzing ~30-year-old file formats, to the production of our new audio assets (occasionally of the musical variety). My community projects include VKMT and Odyssey, reconstructing Halo music with the original gear. Alongside gamedev, I’m a musician and sound engineer. I also like takoyaki!

What's in the Box?

A (Bigger) Box

The PC release of Halo introduced the series’ online big team battle experience, jam-packed with new weapons and maps. Even more content was once in concept, though their production was cut early, and their archived iterations remained incomplete from a design standpoint, until now.

For Digsite, we went deep into the archives and uncovered Milestone builds of Halo PC which had material that never made it to the retail release. Of particular interest to us were design/production docs, Bungie feedback notes, tags, compiled maps, and source data for previously unseen multiplayer maps.

Some of these were cut before they even had a name more evocative than gbx_map#. Nevertheless, two were interesting enough to playtest and bring over the finish line within MCC:

Indoor/Underground

Imagine the smell. 4-8 players.

Ludus: Indoor was the most complete of the cut Gearbox Software maps. It was interesting to explore what was there because it wasn’t visually far off from any of the maps released with the original Halo: CE. Unlike the other maps Gearbox ended up shipping with Halo PC (Infinity, Death Island, etc.) Indoor stood out as a close-quarters map set entirely indoors (pun intended).

While it was pretty far along, much of the map flow was still a bit messy and spawns for players and weapons still needed to be done. I was considering just tidying it up with a complete scenario but inspiration struck when I was digging through the files of the map and found a treasure trove.

To my surprise, Gearbox had made a bunch of brand-new textures that were not being used whatsoever. 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.

The result of that is the new map I made: Underground.

Check your corners.

I wanted to showcase this map as a demonstration of what the community can do just with a few extra textures at their disposal. Halo: CE especially doesn’t have many human environments outside the Pillar of Autumn, so I think that the community having even a few new human textures to play with can lead to some cool results.

I tried to keep my changes in Underground as a nice balance between the original layout of Indoor, changes based on the feedback Bungie gave Gearbox at the time of development, and lastly changes that I felt would help the map play in a way that Halo: CE multiplayer veterans might enjoy. In the new update with the tools, modders will be able to find the files for both the original Gearbox Indoor along with my map Underground.

Neo: I believe a key element of Halo: CE’s memorability lies in the distinct environment audio of every location, waiting patiently to shine in moments of reflection and reprieve. Against an entrance that may have once served a relaxing stroll for crew off duty, the interior is full with a rumble worthy of sleep mixes, computer equipment ticking away at data, perhaps never to be measured again.

Cue action: what was once underground has now been found! Evacuation sirens bounce through the corridors. Partially inspired by the escape sequence onboard Nostromo from Alien, we repurposed the Pillar of Autumn’s klaxons (now with an orange coat of paint to match Ludus’ nifty visual design) to serve in the mixing pot of your next tense round of hardcore doubles.

…and who left all the stuff in here running, anyway?

Dusk/Abyss

Watch your step. 2-4 players.

Ludus: While working on Underground, I decided to take a second look at another cut Halo PC map, Dusk.

Unlike the state Indoor was found in, Dusk was rough to say the least. The scaling was entirely off and much of the map’s layout was muddled and unclear. Funnily enough, the layout of the center structure vaguely reminded me of the map Rust from the Call of Duty franchise, and that’s when the idea for how I’d remix Dusk came about.

Jump in the arena.

From Dusk came the map Abyss. I have always adored Halo: CE’s multiplayer above all other games in the franchise for one thing specifically: the sheer sweat and tears that 1v1 and 2v2 Slayer matches produce. I scaled up the original portion of Dusk I wanted to remix and went to work.

Similar to Underground, I also wanted this map to be an example of what could be done with the new assets the community will be able to play with in this Digsite release, so it also uses the cut rock texture found in Indoor’s files along with using the skybox some might recognize from Halo‘s E3 2000 demo.

Old WIP screenshot of Abyss to better show the E3 2000 skybox.

This map was especially fun to put together because playtesting was as simple as getting one other Digsite member on call to 1v1. (Un)pleasantries were exchanged each playtest session. Word of advice though, watch your step when going for Rockets.

Keys to superweapons!

Neo: The cavern lighting is one of my favorite spots here. I wanted to match the vibrant visuals and centerpoint here with a hum reminiscent of vinyl crackle and the noises you can conjure up with a piezoelectric style microphone. If the buzz gives you positive tingles, I encourage you to listen to this supercut of field recordings for Halo Infinite’s audio design, capturing intricate sounds with said microphones’ ultra-sensitivity to electrical interference!

Ruined Pain

All pain, some gain. 8-16 players.

Two “Ruined Pain” maps were uncovered as part of the Digsite process, in different stages of completion and playability. We believe this particular variant dates to a very early stage of Halo FPS-era development, as it was created at a scale appropriate for the original cyborg, who was roughly the same height as a retail marine. During playtesting, it was immediately apparent this caused issues in retail MCC due to the larger player character, so the fixed-up version was scaled up by x1.5.

Ludus: It was a bit surreal getting to play the first test of the map after scaling the map up to correct size for retail MCC. Everything just clicked into place after that single change. After trying it with Killzone64, we both agreed there was potential for a really cool Halo: CE equivalent to something like Halo 3’s Standoff.

Killzone64: Ruined Pain actually ended up being a great BTB map once we scaled it up – all I had to do was add weapons, player spawns, and some oxygen tanks so that players could jump up onto the base structures more easily. I also spent a little time building a completely chaotic racecourse that I really hope players enjoy.

I am also currently working on the more well-known version of Ruined Pain that appeared in the beta UI as the map preview for Damnation. This version of Ruined Pain will be released once we get it into a playable state. In addition, a “remixed” version of the map inspired by the original layout will be released by Digsite member Conscars.

Swampthing

Something in the mist…

A swamp themed level by Gearbox Software. Lots of similar art from the single-player level 343 Guilty can be seen on display here and the theme for a foggy swamp area goes as far back as the swamp level from the third-person era of Halo. Put together, you have a level evoking that familiar ominous mystery.

The name and some of the theming are also shared with a very early version of Halo: CE campaign development which survives only in the form of missing tag references. In B20, the Master Chief was tasked with assassinating a Covenant Prophet (who – at this early date – took the form of Elites wearing appropriately striking hats, per Joseph Staten). A mysterious killer monster lurked in the center of the map, forcing the player to take a wide path around the center of the swamp as they made their way to a distant tower.

Spasm

Ancient, Epic, Mysterious

Made famous by the Macworld 1999 demo and subsequent media appearances, Spasm was a multi-biome environment built to test vehicles, architecture, and new game mechanics during the fast-paced early days of Halo development. It’s a big place, and used a heightmap-based terrain system incompatible with Halo: CE, so it took some work to get running in MCC. We’ve set it up as a sandbox to play in, explore, and repurpose for your own mods. Don’t forget to pack a picnic!

Ludus: It was a fun challenge to get this into MCC. The process of figuring out how to best translate the map into something usable with the retail mod tools was very fun. It’s a bit surreal getting to walk around the map after all these years.

Currently I use a copy of Spasm for its original intended use case: a test map for tags I work on. It’s a great playground to see how vehicles play, weapons react to different materials, and even has some nice areas to set up play fights with AI if I need to test that. I hope the community will enjoy getting to first hand explore Halo’s past like this. I’d love to see someone turn it into a giant BTB map to recreate the glory of 24/7 CTF servers on Halo PC Death Island!

Neo: Vast, rich with texture, and containing a mythical center. No it’s not my favorite chocolate, but it is a very special piece of Halo history! Hiking up to points of altitude, you’ll hear the wind rushing past, and friendly birds holler near the few trees dotted around the island. Those familiar with Custom Edition-era modding may remember stereo 44.1khz sound scenery could cause the game to crash. MCC’s under-the-hood upgrades include raised engine limits and improved functionality for handling audio beyond what the engine previously supported.

This ensures that you’ll hear waves lap all around your hunking boots, in crispy stereo!

The interior is where the magic is though. Some say the Spasm hangar is haunted with everlasting whispers, but the real treasure is the Macworld control room. To me, Halo’s strongest association of wonder lies in this room-’o-destruction, not only for story importance, but because this control room set the opening shot of Halo’s initial Macworld reveal in 1999.

In keeping with the spirit of said magic, the control room ambiance features a rerecording of the very first element heard in both the Macworld trailer, and the opening of Halo: CE’s campaign.

Blink, and you’ll miss it, the key lies with the index…

Ghosts of Futures Past

Deep in the archive catacombs, we uncovered a myriad of worlds from Halo 2’s production in early revisions of classics, and previously unseen trinkets of Xbox and Vista development.

These maps have all had work done to ensure compatibility with MCC and are playable, though they may contain occasional visual or physical oddities. Some of these may be fixed later, but we thought it important to present these as important milestones in the Halo multiplayer experience and learning tools for new modders without enacting changes that impact their original layout or design.

Not everything takes form right out of the gate during production—it’s important to iterate on all ideas and adapt with where the successful ingredients naturally flow.

Arcology

An early revision of Outskirts/Metropolis where New Mombasa was still a towering arcology stretching up into the clouds.

City fight!

Ascension Revision

Recovered from an era where Halo 2 still largely resembled its predecessor, this early build of Ascension has been brought forward to MCC in all its glory.

Infinity and beyond.

Burial Mounds Revision

Perhaps one of the most significantly different early variants of maps that made it to the final game. This restoration features a unique teleporter design constructed from meteorite chunks that emit purple particles, compared to the familiar portal variation that appears in the final game.

More than secrets are buried here.

Colossus Revision

From an early period where textures, mechanics (e.g. ladders), and design language further resembled Halo: CE, this revision is nearly unrecognizable as the map we know today, though with tantalizing elements that hint at greatness. It even has some greenery in the back!

Big changes are afoot.

Headlong Revision

Another highlight of radical iteration, yet with a familiar feeling… The Spartan statue is the visual set piece here. Decals indicate this area a commercial district, but parking is in short supply.

Urban planning is harder than it looks.

Lockout Revision

This version of Lockout predates prior publicly known development builds of Halo 2.

Halo: CE-style teleporters connect the lift room and sniper tower, preceding the final “elbow bend” walkway. The lift room here also sports an actual physical platform instead of a gravity lift to ascend floors.

Also known as Blockout.

Midship Revision

An early version of Midship. Another map pulled from an era where Halo 2 still resembled Halo: CE in a lot of ways. It has the same energy as what we got in retail, but it’s a little different with how things work. For example, there is an elevator in the middle of the map that leads up to rockets.

Action from port to starboard.

Waterworks Revision

No water to be found here! This version of Waterworks borrows environment textures from Halo: CE’s Blood Gulch, and likewise is very spacious and open, much flatter than Halo 2’s final incarnation.

The spigot has not been turned.

Anchor Point

A cut multiplayer map from Halo 2 on Xbox. The divisive map is finally here and ready to be judged by your own hands.

It’s a gas!

Artery

A cut multiplayer map from Halo 2 Vista. Watch that you don’t fall, it’s a long way down.

An entire ecosystem of megastructures lies beneath the ring.

Backwoods

A cut map from Halo 2 Vista. Let the battle for the hill commence!

Private property.

Convergence

A cut multiplayer map from Halo 2 Vista. An interesting Forerunner installation with unknown purpose.

Together, forever.

Convergence Revision

An alternate, earlier iteration of Convergence, with notable differences in both art and layout.

It’s all coming together.

Convict

A cut multiplayer map from Halo 2 on Xbox. “Prisoner from Halo: CE was a really good map, but how could we make it even better?” That’s probably what the meeting for the creation of this map looked like. Frankly, it’s more Prisoner and you can’t go wrong with that.

…and throw away the key.

Grotto

A cut multiplayer map from Halo 2 on Xbox, surgically sliced from the Halo 2 campaign geometry. It’s a shame this wasn’t more fleshed out since the Delta Halo art is spectacular.

Wanted: Snipers

Rodentia

A cut multiplayer map for Halo 2 Vista. Take in the nostalgia with this remake of Rat Race from Halo: CE in the Halo 2 engine. Pulled from a map file and cleaned up for you to enjoy.

You can check in, but never leave.

Covenant Sample

An unearthed Covenant example map for Halo 2 Vista. A fine example of eloquent construction.

The Great Journey starts with a single step.

Forerunner Sample

Only unofficially released until now. A Forerunner example map for Halo 2 Vista. Views like this should be enjoyed by all.

Relax on the beach they said. No Flood they said…

Human Sample

Only unofficially released until now. A human example map for Halo 2 Vista. Duke it out in the streets of Mombasa.

Build up. Build out.

Shaft

A cut multiplayer map from Halo 2 on Xbox. The basics of the map layout and theme were also worked on in Halo 3 and will be the subject of a later Digsite release.

Don’t delve too deep.

Soccer

A revision of a test map from Halo 2 Vista. You may remember this map from early demos showing the modability of H2V. Cue Haloball!

GOAL!

Weapons, Critters, & Vehicles

This Digsite release includes various assets from the early development era of Halo: CE and Halo 2. From vehicles, to weapons, to new creatures, there’s a little something for everyone to get their hands on.

Locked and Loaded

One of the most beloved parts of the Halo franchise has always been the diverse and fantastical armaments seen throughout the games and media.

Famously, the first Halo had a large and diverse arsenal that never made it to the final game. Thanks to the efforts of both the Digsite and MCC teams, modders now have access to plenty of new guns to play with. Here are a couple of the new firearms awaiting you in this release.

We do want to point out that the recovered weapons shown below were from the third-person era of Halo development – they were not made to be seen up-close, nor rigged for use as first-person weapons. All of the cut prerelease Halo: CE weapons with first-person models in these Digsite releases were done from-scratch by the team as a labor of love!

Assault Rifle Grenade Launcher

MA-5 ICW/30mm CGL

Neo: The assault rifle shouts quintessential Halo, with a character recognizable far and beyond. It seemed fitting to incorporate elements of the spiritual predecessor, and fans of Marathon may detect hints of the MA-75B in the secondary trigger. Time to deliver some boom with your bang!

Ludus: I always loved the MA5B from the first Halo. Logically the only way to make it cooler was to give it a noob tube. It was fun working on the first-person model to keep it as a nice middle ground between the original third-person models we recovered and the final MA5B.

Scruffy: It was an interesting design challenge translating third-person weapon data to values that made sense for a first person weapon, and fitting them into an established sandbox. Using the original stats would have resulted in sniper-accurate paper cuts, so what I ended up with was a blend of the original unique stats, adjusted to be on equal footing with the rest of Halo: CE’s sandbox in damage and range, without sandbox overlap.

If the MA5B is an SMG in rifle’s clothing, then our grenade launcher variant is CE’s first true mid-range rifle. Be careful firing grenades, they ricochet on hard angles, though will plant firmly into earthy materials like dirt before detonating.

Sean T: For the most part I didn’t want to change what isn’t broken with the AR animations. The MA5B reload is effectively synonymous with Halo: CE itself, and maintained with this animation set (with hand placement adjusted to accommodate a larger grip on this model). On top of this, I fixed up the old “stealth” melee to be much snappier, now the featured melee. There’s a special extra animation for grenade reloads, a feature now possible with MCC’s engine updates.

SMG

12.7mm MP-99 para

Neo: Though they share a side-fed ammo delivery system, this SMG is very different from the signature M7 we bonded with in Halo 2 and ODST. This SMG has a meaner punch, thanks to the heavier caliber, but still needed to fit into the soundscape of Halo: CE. The result is a sort of middle ground between the “plastic” bite of Halo 2’s audio, against the beefiness of CE’s human guns. A middle ground between a cat purring and a motorcycle with engine issues. Avoid the barrel end.

Ludus: For everyone who complained that the MA5B performed too much like an SMG, thankfully your solution is here: an actual SMG!

Unlike other models – like the Chaingun or the above ARGL – the SMG was pretty barebones detail-wise. I wanted to keep a lot of the original silhouette and design choices but have the gun “make sense” in first-person. To keep the proportions of the original gun’s sights, I decided to turn that into a futuristic holographic sight. I used this as an opportunity to make a nod to the original holographic parallaxing reticles Halo had back in its third-person era. To make more mechanical sense of the gun, I drew inspiration from the firing mechanism of the real-life HK SMG II.

Scruffy: A similar challenge with the SMG as with the Assault Rifle. This time, however, it clearly would overlap with a retail weapon and there was no way around that. The decision was to make it a different flavor of MA5B gameplay instead of trying to push it towards a gameplay role it was not designed for.

It’s slightly more accurate, but with a slightly smaller magazine. It also features a burst fire mode recreated from its original files, which can still be disabled by modders to allow grenade throwing.

Sean T: The SMG is a completely custom set of animations and was the most challenging weapon to work on for Digsite. The goal with these first-person animations was to keep them in line with the Halo: CE style, which is slower paced and more methodical than the rest of the franchise. An earlier version of this animation set felt far closer to Halo 2, so I ended up redoing all of it from scratch with help from Ludus. I think the final version feels right at home now.

Additionally, with the help of the MCC tech team, many features were added in recent updates that help us approximate legacy behavior. For example, the CE engine can now support third-person weapons, allowing us to replicate their original look and feel much closer than previously available.

It really brings a new perspective to things.

Now I can Hide Behind... Me?

Scruffy: It works, and it looks really cool. These third-person reticles aren’t perfect recreations of the older builds in function, instead of 2D HUD layers they exist physically as 3D holograms. Even so, they indicate your weapon’s aim precisely, even at a distance or while jumping around.

When we began modeling and animating first-person weapons it became clear that we would not be able to enhance all of them to a retail-level quality standard within a timely manner. Once Halo: CE was updated to allow third-person weapons, our weapon count for R1 quickly shot up from four weapons to over forty. Shout out to the MCC dev team for implementing our feature requests.

Ludus: I’d also like to give a small shoutout to my friend and fellow Halo modder Frostbyte6686. Thanks to spitballing “things to do with effects tags in Halo: CE with him, the method used to implement the 3D reticles was figured out.

To read the rest of this Digsite Delivery, including Blender versions of vehicles recovered from the real-time strategy and third-person era of early Halo development (circa 1998-1999), some Ringworld inhabitants, new wheels, lost combatants from the past, and more, head over to Halo Waypoint today!

This concludes the first part of our detailed excavation of what the Digsite crew has been uncovering, but we’ll be back soon…

We’ll be sharing a preview of the next MCC content update (which includes the tags for all this content and more for MCC players on PC!) on July 10, and our second Digsite blog will drop out of slipspace on July 14 to explore some of the additional things the crew has been up to – from the E3 2003 demo of Halo 2, to the Guardians cut from Halo 3, more weapons, maps, vehicles, characters, and more general awesomeness.

Until the next time.

(Praise slugman!)

May 25, 2023

MCC Mod Spotlight

Halo: The Master Chief Collection - misplacedyank

Welcome to our second edition of this modtacular series where we take a look at some of the incredible mods that have been created by the community for Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC.

To see even more of what’s available to augment your Halo experience, be that with curative care or unbridled chaos, head over to the Steam Workshop for MCC!

Mod Download Instructions

Accessing each of the links below will take you to the mod’s Steam Workshop page, where the mod creators have instructions on installation, known issues and bugs, and any additional packages you may have to download separately (such as audio files, which have also been included below).

In general, these mods will require that you have the relevant game components installed. For example, if you are looking to play a mod for Halo: Combat Evolved, it is best to have the Campaign and Multiplayer installed from MCC, or else you may encounter errors like infinite loading.

To play modded content, ensure that you have anti-cheat disabled, which can be selected upon launching MCC from your Steam library.

For more information on modding for MCC, including manuals and tutorials on how to create mods for each of the games, where to obtain mod tools, and how-to guides, check out our official documentation page.

MCC Mod Documentation

Ultimate Firefight Sandtrap

Author: weaver9000
Download Link
Additional Sound Files

Ever since we set foot on its rolling dunes back when Halo 3 released, there has been a distinct sense that the silent stillness of Sandtrap came after some great battle.

In Ultimate Firefight Sandtrap, you get to experience that conflict – and it’s more intense than anything you could’ve imagined! Drop feet-first into this iconic locale and you’ll find Covenant, Banished, Flood, Prometheans, AI allies, Scarabs, Halo Wars vehicle units, weapons from across the series, boss fights with the Didact and Gravemind...

Words can only capture so much here. You simply have to see it for yourself. So, check out the video showcase put together by KYOT below, take a look at weaver’s own videos breaking down the various elements of this mod, and then go download it!

Hemorrhage AI Mayhem

Author: III AVIATOR III
Download Link

Once you’ve concluded the battle of Sandtrap, why not take the fight over to Halo: Reach’s Hemorrhage where an endless AI war is taking place!

In this mod, troops and vehicles are brought in via dropship and over sixty combatants take part in this battle. Engagements are different every time due to several random factors, such as the composition of AI squads and vehicle variants.

Co-op is supported, so you can jump in with your friends, and you can extensively customize a variety of options in the pre-game lobby.

Prevarication

Author: EvilPie118, Mommy Maro
Download Link

How about something that might put you on the back foot a little more? In Prevarication, you drop into a modded custom campaign set in an infected city that brings a new take on Halo 3: ODST’s gameplay.

Pick up an expanded arsenal of incendiary-based weaponry to fight the Flood, play smart with your health and ammo, (re)learn the hooks of a rebalanced sandbox, and work your way to the source of the infection across four campaign missions...

Halo 3 Mythic Overhaul Campaign

Author: MythicJaqui
Download Link
Additional Sound Files

Sometimes, you just wanna mix ‘n’ match all the cool stuff that came in future games and put them into an older one for a fresh take on an experience you otherwise know like the back of your hand.

In MythicJaqui’s Halo 3 Mythic Campaign Overhaul, get ready to finish the fight once more with an expanded and reworked weapon sandbox, new vehicles, new enemies and ranks, new equipment, updated character models, and even new Easter eggs.

MythicJaqui has also put together a super helpful (and easy to digest) two-minute guide on installing custom sounds for your MCC mods, which you can check out here.

Halocraft

Author: InfernoPlus
Download Link

From the creator of Cursed Halo (and Cursed Halo Again) also comes “Halocraft,” which is exactly what it sounds like.

In Inferno’s own words, this is a comprehensibly destructible Havok physics simulation of Minecraft... in a game engine that predates Minecraft by several years.

You can grab a multiplayer map pack of four destructible Minecraft maps that will provide an entirely different way to experience Halo 3 with your friends and foes.

Aerial

Author: Fubih
Download Link

Over the years, Halo’s gameplay has come in a variety of different flavors, but have you ever wondered what Halo would be like if it played like a true Quake-inspired arena shooter of old?

After four years of work, Aerial answers that by adding jump pads, pick-ups, melee and shotgun boosting, and other advanced movement elements that will take you back to the ‘90s in style. And it’s not just about the gameplay, but half-a-dozen maps have been recreated – transforming their layouts from classic Quake arenas into Covenant and Forerunner-themed Halo maps.

Now get out there and party like it’s 1996!

Halo 3 Jackrabbit

Author: Skaboodlydoodle
Download Link
Additional Sound Files

Introduced in Halo Wars 2, the M121 Jackrabbit is the UNSC’s three-wheeled scouting vehicle that sits perhaps somewhere between a Gungoose and a Warthog.

Green Knight and Skaboodlydoodle have collaborated to bring this fast-attack bike to Halo 3, featuring five variants in total that come equipped with grenade launcher and chaingun versions, as well as several vehicle skins – default, woodland, sand, snow camo, and a couple of bonus ones.

Note that this mod requires you to download and install additional sound files, so be sure to follow the instructions provided on the Steam Workshop page!

Halo: Reach Rat Boss Fight

Author: General Heed
Download Link
Additional Sound Files

Over the years you’ve played Halo, you’ve fought some of the most dangerous enemies the universe can throw at you. The Covenant, the Didact, the zombified remnants of our own creators that have been twisted into cosmic parasitic nightmares...

All of that was just basic training for the real fight. And even then, I don’t know if you’re strong, swift, or brave enough to finish it.

The Halo 3 rat has come to Halo: Reach.

That’ll do it for this issue, as you’ve got quite a fight ahead of you. Flood-infested city streets, absolute mayhem unleashed upon Sandtrap and Hemorrhage in Firefight, reworked arena shooter and Minecraft-based features, and of course the dreaded rat—the latest and most horrifying form of Precursor – attaining its full power to claim dominion over the universe...

Go forth and get downloading!