343 Industries is working with modders to restore old cut content from the classic Halo games, including the infamous Halo 2 Earth City demo shown off at E3 2003.
The announcement comes via a lengthy blog post on Halo Waypoint titled Cutting Room Floor, which details two restoration projects: Digsite Alpha, which focusses on Halo: Combat Evolved cut content, and Digsite Delta for content that didn’t make it into Halo 2. The modders involved with these projects include General_101, Con, Num0005, Scruffy, Sean T, Ludus, and Zeddikins.
The post clarifies, “What does this mean to the wider Halo community? The TLDR is that we are working to bring as much of this prerelease content to the community as possible, using the Editing Kits for Halo: The Master Chief Collection.” The content is slated to be available soon, although it’s noted that even modded content needs to adhere to Microsoft and Xbox Game Studios processes and reviews, with the team “fixing stuff and making additions right up to release”.
One especially important piece of information is that not everything can be restored, with files being lost over the decades or not surviving the transition from Bungie to 343 Industries. With that being said, there’s still enough in the works to make this an exciting prospect for fans.
One of the most enticing restorations is content from the initial 1999 unveiling of Halo at Macworld: “We have managed to recover cyborgs, animations, aliens, weapons, vehicles, and props from 1999-era Halo.”
Of course, there’s also the aforementioned 2003 earth demo for Halo 2, which was cut entirely from the final release. “We’ve teased this in a few of the shots above, but I can confirm we are working on a rebuild of the original E3 Earthcity scenario that makes it playable in modern retail Halo 2.”
Aside from these, there’s a whole plethora of content that’s detailed extensively in the post, including old vehicles, weapons, and another cut Halo 2 campaign map titled Alphamoon. When taken as a whole, this is shaping up to be an unprecedented swathe of recovered content
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