Be sure to keep an eye out for our official Digsite release of Earth City, releasing this November 9th on Steam Workshop (playable) and GitHub (source data and tags). x.com/neoteaika/status/1842726446621745326
This Halo 2004 City Lights Aestethic is what we need for the next Halo's. The lighting, the Sunset Sky, the cyberpunk-esque kinda style, the textures. THIS is Halo in a Earth enviroment!!
No Joke! Crazy to think what we may have gotten if they'd delayed the game a year(almost exactly!) completed it to their original vision and then released it as a 360 launch title. It's hard to say if that would have been better than what we got overall(meaning H3), but very interesting!
Well on other hand Xbox 360 got released year before the competitors so having Halo 2 as launch title wasnt even needed even though ofc it could have boosted early 360 sales even more. Also Im glad that even with its faults Halo 2 got released as part of the best year ever in gaming that was 2004
We propably wouldn't have had an odst then. They developed odst in 1 year and had much trouble getting a city like it actually has, don't even want to think about how painful such a mega structure would be to design. Making ODST most likely was a decision because bungie knew that they could manage to do such a small game within a small time period with the already existing Halo 3 engine and with the mega structure odst would have been not in the city at all or at least without its semi open world. (remember, odst only exists because Microsoft forced bungie to do another 3 halo titles)
Honestly, had Bungie opted to make a spinoff series of a more cartoony version of Halo as a side project to keep the Microsoft publishers happy, while they had a devoted team working on the next actual main line halo game, which would’ve been Halo 2, I think it would have definitely been a successful launch on the 360 as well. But Halo 3 would never have existed and would never have became the golden age of Halo to every gamer out there. I think this is a powerful lesson for any game developer studio out there. Learn from Bungie and their mistakes. How they bounced back after Myth, and Made Halo. How they left Microsoft, signed a contract with Activision and made Destiny. And then slowly but surely grinding their own reputation into the dirt. And all of a sudden they are reviving their long lost creation, Marathon. I’m curious to see if they can indeed bounce back again or will this be their One, and Last, Final Effort.
Someone did an insane mod where they restored the stencil shadows the game was original designed with, which were removed for performance reasons, and suddenly the game's art style popped like you wouldn't believe. I really wish they'd have officially put it back in for MCC.
IDK why it looks so bad in this video. Just played this earlier and yeah it doesn't look great because its a texture (low res for todays standards of course) with some fire effects in spots. It's very noticeable that it's a flat texture but it doesn't have all that artificing around it like in this video. Maybe they played at 4K and it's a result of downscaling the video, IDK.
Wow, I never saw this level of quality before. This looks amazing. It really is a shame Bungie couldn't entirely fulfill their vision for Halo 2. Here's hoping the community can put their heads together to make it happen. Covenant ship, Forerunner tank, Miranda having a grudge against MC, etc. Fingers crossed. 🤞
I think at least their vision for new mombasa was realized in ODST- it features a lot of the design language that started here in the E3 demo, fleshed out with tons of different aspects and setpieces throughout the cityscape.
Considering the leaked Halo 2 Story Boards contain nothing of the sort, I don't think Miranda's betrayal was ever anything beyond just an idea Jason Jones had after a bad break up (mentioned in a Halo 2 making of video). However the whole "Strap a bomb to the Chief's back and push him down a hole" concept is very similar to Tartarus's betrayal of Arbiter in the final game.
Just played this. Was crazy to have it running in front of me playing it. Wish more developers would release this kind of stuff, I love it. And couldn't agree more, xbox users deserve access to mods. At the VERY least ones like this from the "Digsite" team. Their first upload to the steam workshop was the 1999 Macworld map! You can load it up like the normal demo (so no objectives etc, you can just explore the map), or play it as a full level, they added objectives, scripted events etc. It's really cool.
So, this corrected video was made from my upscale. I interpolated this video up to 60fps using flowframes just so it's easier on the eyes to notice the details. I've been working towards making an upscaled archive of all halo promo media, I've currently done about 90 videos already.
Most of it was wasn't in real-time and the parts that were, were held together with bubblegum and paperclips. When it came out, it was something of a controversy.
This is exactly how I remember it when I was 13 watching this during E3!! Never found a clear quality like this since then thank you for uploading this I feel like a kid again! What it would've been like if Bungie was able to pull this off with the time constraints they had for Halo 2! 💯🔥🔥
The amount of blood in here is amazing, very close to Halo CE levels of blood. I wish we had this in retail. I am surprised most modders did not up the blood amount when working on their mods. That is the first thing I would do instantly.
Love how helpful all the marines are!!! This is my first time watching the entire demo. Only seen snippets in the Halo 2 Collector's Edition Documentary
really? i think there were uploads of it on youtube back in the golden era. ans for some reason, i think there was footage of this on one of the halo releases too. maybe the halo 2 special edition?
I wass at the HCS and saw both the demo and recreation. Honestly, the demo that Sketch played looked a little low poly than I remember. Not only that, but this looks better than what they played. And the Digsite recreation looks amazing!
The xbox couldn't pull it off. If they had shifted development to the 360 (which was one year away when Halo 2 came out) then they could have. But I'm amazed they even thought it was possible. To have id tech 4 / Doom 3 style stencil shadows and per pixel dynamic lighting on the OG xbox. With halo sized environments, the AI and scripting going on etc. Not surprised they ditched the "pstencil" engine / stencil shadow approach pretty early on.
Maybe it's because I'm biased towards cities above the clouds, but god how I love this version of New Mombasa. I would give all of my worldly assets to have a Grand Theft Auto like game set in a city like this just so I could explore ever inch of it. Imagine losing the cops by driving off a street down to another street far below you.
You know if we lived in a better timeline, Halo Studios would get the digsite team to find more shit out about the old Halo 2 and work to release what they have, and try to build what is missing. I'd buy that for $70 fs, but idk if Microsoft would let them talk to Bungie veterans about what it was like.
The entire script for Halo 2 is public as well as many storyboards etc. Its quite well known what they cut, including the original ending where it was going to be reveled that forerunners were humans. (and they cut a LOT from halo 2 to make ship date, they wanted Halo 2 to be the final Halo game). There is a good video that covers all of it called "The ORIGINAL Halo 2 Campaign Bungie WANTED To Make...". There is also a mod called Halo 2 uncut on the Steam Workshop that restores a surprising amount of cut content, dialogue, encounters etc. Also the digsite team is working on releasing a cut Halo 2 level next that was going to be called "Alpha Moon".
@@MaxLittleBuddy no, it wasn't. The original uploaded of this video interpolated it to 60. The Xbox dev build of e3 was capped at 30, but had pretty gnarly frame pacing issues that only got ironed out for the press footage version built a month later (this version)
Their TV had an interpolation setting turned on, resulting in sometimes smooth, but artifacted gameplay, pretty much like what was done to this video footage before I rescaled it. (they also specifically mentioned this during the stream) The build was always capped at 30FPS.
Yeah, same. Like, why would you STACK a city like that? I remember watching this as a kid and being really confused seeing that. The low quality back then didn’t do any favors, but I thought it might have been a perspective thing.
It's a futuristic thing. Basically showing off humans mastering building megastructures on a nanoscopic degree which is the only possible way to keep structures to that scale that big from falling apart according to the laws of physics. And it's built on several stable platforms that stack by larger layers that branches out like a mushroom or tree.
even if the final game was heavily downgraded in comparisson to the E3 tech demo, damn, the final product was really good and one of the best games ever made (Man, AI in good hands offers us this kind of videos)
When you think about it, Halo 2 had to have a trouble development in order for there to be halo 3. (Because halo 2 was originally going to be the last game in the halo series). Halo 2 would have been too awesome to have a sequel but who knows. Maybe Bungie would have made a different halo 3 when what we got or something else entirely. So it was both a good and bad thing for the Bungie developers.
Yeah, original uploader used an upscaler + frame interpolation. I still find it to be the clearest general version available one scaled down to 480p, though, some artifacts are definitely present. Ultimately just wanted to share a reasonably higher quality alternative to the other footage out there, that closer represents the visual coloring we know the build to actually have, when played directly. Cheers!
I hope 343i/Halo Woke Studios or whatever they call themselves don't try to do this even if it is just a trailer and we never got it. I know they are going to crap all over it.
![Halo Reach | Survive [UNFINISHED]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QFDB3BbjXiU/mqdefault.jpg)
Be sure to keep an eye out for our official Digsite release of Earth City, releasing this November 9th on Steam Workshop (playable) and GitHub (source data and tags).
x.com/neoteaika/status/1842726446621745326
Mod only for pc or xbox free contnent update?
vow this.
@@JuanManuelVargasPereaGamer-i9p sorry? I don’t understand your answare 😅
@@andreapaiola1409 : v
@@andreapaiola1409 of course PC only
This Halo 2004 City Lights Aestethic is what we need for the next Halo's. The lighting, the Sunset Sky, the cyberpunk-esque kinda style, the textures. THIS is Halo in a Earth enviroment!!
Really feels like this Halo 2 could've led the launch of the 360.
No Joke! Crazy to think what we may have gotten if they'd delayed the game a year(almost exactly!) completed it to their original vision and then released it as a 360 launch title. It's hard to say if that would have been better than what we got overall(meaning H3), but very interesting!
@@0neWhoKnocksyes. People thought this back in the day.
With aim like this, chief would be launched in no time. That I can guarantee.
Halo 2 still the best halo of all
Well on other hand Xbox 360 got released year before the competitors so having Halo 2 as launch title wasnt even needed even though ofc it could have boosted early 360 sales even more.
Also Im glad that even with its faults Halo 2 got released as part of the best year ever in gaming that was 2004
They were ambitious back in Halo 2’s early development. Even though they didn’t stick with the original plan they sure as hell stuck the landing. 🔥
Mombasa being built like that is so cool. And if that had been kept then halo odst would've had that
We propably wouldn't have had an odst then.
They developed odst in 1 year and had much trouble getting a city like it actually has, don't even want to think about how painful such a mega structure would be to design.
Making ODST most likely was a decision because bungie knew that they could manage to do such a small game within a small time period with the already existing Halo 3 engine and with the mega structure odst would have been not in the city at all or at least without its semi open world.
(remember, odst only exists because Microsoft forced bungie to do another 3 halo titles)
@@SilverViper1000And thank God they did. Gameplay, story, ost, atmosphere was miles better than Reach.
Could you imagine if the game was delayed to 2005 and ended up becoming a launch title for the Xbox 360?
Too long of a wait while Sony was clawing back market share in 2003.
@@Ryan_Christopher unfortunately you're correct, but still would've been awesome 💯
Honestly, had Bungie opted to make a spinoff series of a more cartoony version of Halo as a side project to keep the Microsoft publishers happy, while they had a devoted team working on the next actual main line halo game, which would’ve been Halo 2, I think it would have definitely been a successful launch on the 360 as well.
But Halo 3 would never have existed and would never have became the golden age of Halo to every gamer out there.
I think this is a powerful lesson for any game developer studio out there. Learn from Bungie and their mistakes. How they bounced back after Myth, and Made Halo. How they left Microsoft, signed a contract with Activision and made Destiny. And then slowly but surely grinding their own reputation into the dirt.
And all of a sudden they are reviving their long lost creation, Marathon.
I’m curious to see if they can indeed bounce back again or will this be their One, and Last, Final Effort.
i wouldn't have been able to wait that long. it was already a long enough wait.
Someone did an insane mod where they restored the stencil shadows the game was original designed with, which were removed for performance reasons, and suddenly the game's art style popped like you wouldn't believe. I really wish they'd have officially put it back in for MCC.
I really love the dialogue in this demo better than the final game. “Hey, Parsons, is it clear?” “You tell me!” always makes me smile.
Stencil shadow halo 2 looks pretty cool!
Miss this golden era of gaming when everything was still exciting and the future seemed bright and endless.
Ah that city in the intro finally looks like it's intentional and not a glitch!
IDK why it looks so bad in this video. Just played this earlier and yeah it doesn't look great because its a texture (low res for todays standards of course) with some fire effects in spots. It's very noticeable that it's a flat texture but it doesn't have all that artificing around it like in this video. Maybe they played at 4K and it's a result of downscaling the video, IDK.
Watching it over and over again when I was younger I could have sworn it was as clear as it is today!! This came out perfect!!
Wow, I never saw this level of quality before. This looks amazing. It really is a shame Bungie couldn't entirely fulfill their vision for Halo 2. Here's hoping the community can put their heads together to make it happen. Covenant ship, Forerunner tank, Miranda having a grudge against MC, etc. Fingers crossed. 🤞
There's a mod for MCC called "Halo 2: Uncut" that adds a lot of cut content you should check it out!
I think at least their vision for new mombasa was realized in ODST- it features a lot of the design language that started here in the E3 demo, fleshed out with tons of different aspects and setpieces throughout the cityscape.
It's still one of the best games of all time
Considering the leaked Halo 2 Story Boards contain nothing of the sort, I don't think Miranda's betrayal was ever anything beyond just an idea Jason Jones had after a bad break up (mentioned in a Halo 2 making of video). However the whole "Strap a bomb to the Chief's back and push him down a hole" concept is very similar to Tartarus's betrayal of Arbiter in the final game.
It was crazy having this running on my PC and actually controlling it. I remember re-watching this demo so many times as a kid lol.
As much as I loved halo 2 on launch day, I was still very salty that the new Mombasa mission we got was no where near as epic as this.
Just played this. Was crazy to have it running in front of me playing it. Wish more developers would release this kind of stuff, I love it. And couldn't agree more, xbox users deserve access to mods. At the VERY least ones like this from the "Digsite" team. Their first upload to the steam workshop was the 1999 Macworld map! You can load it up like the normal demo (so no objectives etc, you can just explore the map), or play it as a full level, they added objectives, scripted events etc. It's really cool.
This probably wasn't running at 60fps but I'm sure some Bungie developer somewhere is flattered.
So, this corrected video was made from my upscale. I interpolated this video up to 60fps using flowframes just so it's easier on the eyes to notice the details.
I've been working towards making an upscaled archive of all halo promo media, I've currently done about 90 videos already.
The game ran at 30 on the original Xbox
Most of it was wasn't in real-time and the parts that were, were held together with bubblegum and paperclips. When it came out, it was something of a controversy.
There were no 60 fps games on the original Xbox. I'm pretty sure the 360 also ran on 30 fps
@thomasjones3206 untrue most racing and sport games ran at 60. Red dead revolver, darkwatch, and Ninja Gaiden Black as well, to name a few.
Insanely cool! Thanks for doing this!
This is exactly how I remember it when I was 13 watching this during E3!! Never found a clear quality like this since then thank you for uploading this I feel like a kid again! What it would've been like if Bungie was able to pull this off with the time constraints they had for Halo 2! 💯🔥🔥
The amount of blood in here is amazing, very close to Halo CE levels of blood. I wish we had this in retail. I am surprised most modders did not up the blood amount when working on their mods. That is the first thing I would do instantly.
Even if the Modders could, would it been possible?
It's using the CE blood decals, that's why.
Love how helpful all the marines are!!! This is my first time watching the entire demo. Only seen snippets in the Halo 2 Collector's Edition Documentary
really? i think there were uploads of it on youtube back in the golden era. ans for some reason, i think there was footage of this on one of the halo releases too. maybe the halo 2 special edition?
And now you can play it (on PC at least)!
That game looks amazing, I hope it comes out soon...
Really cool bit of trivia. Wasn’t aware of these video differences. Thanks for the writeup.
I wass at the HCS and saw both the demo and recreation. Honestly, the demo that Sketch played looked a little low poly than I remember. Not only that, but this looks better than what they played. And the Digsite recreation looks amazing!
Crazy how much more ‘heart’ this has than literally anything 343 has done
Almost as if libtard devs can’t gamedev lol!
WOW it’s so smooth
The last 50 seconds of this is so awesome.
I like the actual opening cutscene much better, but the wounded soldiers in the tents... It's a shame this didn't make it into the final game.
21 years later this still gives me goosebumps, so much better than what actually made it into the release build.
I feel like I’m watching an old cartoon THANK YOU SO MUC
Thanks for this. Been watching this badass demo every now and then since I was a kid. I've never seen it look this clear before, damn fine work.
Pretty sure I still have the disc that came with Xbox Magazine that has this on it. Great upload!
I'm in tears.
#BringHaloModsToXbox #MartyODonnellShouldComposeHaloUnrealRemake
That ending still gives me goosebumps.
This amazing
WHOA LOOKS SO GREAT 💖
Gorgeous.
Anyone else remember the trailer being on Halo CE's disc in the extras section? That got me so hyped for Halo 2!
The materials have a nice pop to them. Everything looks more alive. What Halo 2 could've been
The xbox couldn't pull it off. If they had shifted development to the 360 (which was one year away when Halo 2 came out) then they could have. But I'm amazed they even thought it was possible. To have id tech 4 / Doom 3 style stencil shadows and per pixel dynamic lighting on the OG xbox. With halo sized environments, the AI and scripting going on etc. Not surprised they ditched the "pstencil" engine / stencil shadow approach pretty early on.
Maybe it's because I'm biased towards cities above the clouds, but god how I love this version of New Mombasa. I would give all of my worldly assets to have a Grand Theft Auto like game set in a city like this just so I could explore ever inch of it. Imagine losing the cops by driving off a street down to another street far below you.
This is the Battle Rifle we should've gotten..
No way. Besides, we eventually got the DMR with Reach.
AWESOME
Today arrives the most waited mod for Halo 2 MCC and this mission is finally playable before 20 years
I would love to get the Halo 1 E3 2000 map at some point.
ITS AWESOME
This was included in some halo one copies
Yay I'm helping 😄
I wish someone managed to capture all those old embedded web ads for the game. There was some really cool ones that are now lost to time.
I need the single shot BR
Man how in the earth you found this? holy crap. I wonder this Same from another games, such as valve software games.
THANK YOU
You know if we lived in a better timeline, Halo Studios would get the digsite team to find more shit out about the old Halo 2 and work to release what they have, and try to build what is missing. I'd buy that for $70 fs, but idk if Microsoft would let them talk to Bungie veterans about what it was like.
The entire script for Halo 2 is public as well as many storyboards etc. Its quite well known what they cut, including the original ending where it was going to be reveled that forerunners were humans. (and they cut a LOT from halo 2 to make ship date, they wanted Halo 2 to be the final Halo game). There is a good video that covers all of it called "The ORIGINAL Halo 2 Campaign Bungie WANTED To Make...". There is also a mod called Halo 2 uncut on the Steam Workshop that restores a surprising amount of cut content, dialogue, encounters etc. Also the digsite team is working on releasing a cut Halo 2 level next that was going to be called "Alpha Moon".
Fuck i haven't seen this game since 2007.... One of the best games ever made, 100%.
Wow buen trabajo :)
blessed
The MCC version has weird framerate cap during cutscene. The E3 build on the xbox devkit was running 60fps all time just like this video
@@MaxLittleBuddy no, it wasn't. The original uploaded of this video interpolated it to 60. The Xbox dev build of e3 was capped at 30, but had pretty gnarly frame pacing issues that only got ironed out for the press footage version built a month later (this version)
@NeoTeAika 343 social team did showcase it at 2018 and it had no framerate cap on a devkit
Nice to know the video isn't tho
Their TV had an interpolation setting turned on, resulting in sometimes smooth, but artifacted gameplay, pretty much like what was done to this video footage before I rescaled it. (they also specifically mentioned this during the stream)
The build was always capped at 30FPS.
This how I looked at halo 2 when I was a kid
How does this compare to the demo video on the Halo 1 soundtrack DVD?
buy now.
Imagine a Halo 2 remake, but whit the original idea.
Never understood the floating city
Yeah, same. Like, why would you STACK a city like that? I remember watching this as a kid and being really confused seeing that.
The low quality back then didn’t do any favors, but I thought it might have been a perspective thing.
It's a futuristic thing. Basically showing off humans mastering building megastructures on a nanoscopic degree which is the only possible way to keep structures to that scale that big from falling apart according to the laws of physics.
And it's built on several stable platforms that stack by larger layers that branches out like a mushroom or tree.
That's what people back than imagined futuristic cities. I am glad they in the end picked a humanity which isn't as futuristic but brutalistic.
#BringSplitScreenToPCHalo
It would be dope if someone recreated this in Unreal
Would like to see it remaster this year or next
So wait is New Mombasa supposed to be floating or something ?
What is the name of the halo 2 song at the end
Why they didn´t include this level in the final game? And why nodoby leaks this build?
I hope digsite can get this working!
They did, just played it! Was crazy playing the E3 demo, I watched it so many times as a kid lol.
even if the final game was heavily downgraded in comparisson to the E3 tech demo, damn, the final product was really good and one of the best games ever made (Man, AI in good hands offers us this kind of videos)
no way is this finally going to be playable soon?
Como es posible que esto se vea mejor que el producto final?
Amigazo, esto tenia que entrar en la Xbox original.... Un sistema muy limitado....
I dont remember this scene...(?)
I’ve always felt Halo 2 was the weakest of the original trilogy but I’ve always been in awe of the fact it was an OG Xbox game
When you think about it,
Halo 2 had to have a trouble development in order for there to be halo 3. (Because halo 2 was originally going to be the last game in the halo series).
Halo 2 would have been too awesome to have a sequel but who knows. Maybe Bungie would have made a different halo 3 when what we got or something else entirely.
So it was both a good and bad thing for the Bungie developers.
#Fire343 , then hire you guys, cuz this is a banger. 🎉
🙌🏼
coloured corrected?
Was it upscaled with ai? Theres some weird artifacts here n there
Yeah, original uploader used an upscaler + frame interpolation.
I still find it to be the clearest general version available one scaled down to 480p, though, some artifacts are definitely present.
Ultimately just wanted to share a reasonably higher quality alternative to the other footage out there, that closer represents the visual coloring we know the build to actually have, when played directly.
Cheers!
@@NeoTeAika It does look quite clear
shouldve been a 360 launch
SEMI AUTO BR
Smoke and mirrors
I hope 343i/Halo Woke Studios or whatever they call themselves don't try to do this even if it is just a trailer and we never got it. I know they are going to crap all over it.
Halo 2's campaign really was supposed to be something special, wasn't it.