Halo is in the midst of a massive restoration project, and 343 Industries is working to integrate enemies, weapons, and vehicles cut from previous games in the series into the modern Master Chief Collection edition suite, which includes elements from the time-strategy game. actual 1999. .
In a post on Halo Waypoint, 343 details their new “cutting room floor” project, in which designers, coders, and modders work on old Halo and Halo 2 files, digging up abandoned hardware that they can restore, scale, and add to .Chef Master. Collection.
It is an absolute treasure. Did you know, for example, that Halo 2 will initially feature a smaller, golf cart-like version of the Warthog called the Piglet? Did you know that the Battle Tank Evolved was originally meant to be invisible or that the Needler was designed as a machine gun?
There are dozens of fascinating little finds, but we’re particularly fascinated by the remnants of Halo’s 1999 release, when it was designed as a real-time strategy game for the Mac. Weapons, vehicles, character models – 343 and the rest of the so-called ” Digsite Project” managed to take these assets and completely redesign them for first-person gameplay and modern visual standards. Using old design documents, the team recreated a sniper rifle, an old version of a machine gun, and several abandoned Spartan armor prototypes. However, not everything can be recovered, and some finds will take longer to edit than others. As 343 explains:
“RTS-era vehicles are very interesting from a historical point of view, but they won’t be easy to integrate and will have little supporting data (textures, animations) that look good in first person. We also don’t really know what a lot of people were supposed to do, as we don’t have any design documentation available at the moment, and there’s little to learn from the gameplay of early builds. We are still working on these vehicles, but it will take more time to develop them in the oven.”
Another great find is the abandoned Earth City level, which was shown as part of the original Halo 2 trailer at E3 2003, but was cut from the final game. 343 and his fellow modders discovered the Earth City assets and design documentation and are currently working on adding them to the release kit.
As for the launch, no specific date has been given yet, but 343 suggests that it could happen soon.
“We wouldn’t write this article if we didn’t see how fast the goal is approaching,” says the developer. “That said, we don’t have a specific date, as we still have to go through Microsoft and Xbox Game Studios’ processes and reviews, even for ‘mode’ content. The team doesn’t want to release half-broken content, so we’ll fix things.” and we will make additions until launch.”
Source : PC Gamesn
