While YouTube channels revealing the nitty-gritty of video game development have started to pop up in the past few years, it isn't often that gamers get a behind-the-scenes peek at what classic games looked like during development. Luckily, Marcus Lehto, a co-creator of Halo 2, had an early iteration of one of the game's cinematics to show off to fans.
Lehto showed off a rough cinematic from Halo 2 while it was still under development. The video is, obviously, unpolished. The Halo ring itself is shown as just an image on white backdrop at one point, and the entire video is missing textures, sound effects, and most of what it takes to be a refined video game cinematic. However, it is entertaining to see the difference between the rough and finished products, especially when compared to the cinematics of the Halo 2 remaster in the Master Chief Collection.
The video was being stored on a hard drive in Lehto's attic, an interesting place to discover a piece of history for one of the biggest video game franchises of all time. Looking at the Halo: Infinite E3 trailer, it's easy to see how the franchise has maintained its general sense of sci-fi wonder through decades of games.
Halo games tend to be a special type of timeless. Even Halo: Reach is a masterpiece 9 years later, and it's hard to deny the effect the series has had on the industry. Fans are getting excited for the launch of the Xbox Series X and, with it, Halo: Infinite, so it'll be interesting to see how it carries the franchise's legacy forward. Lehto's hard drive does have other cinematics on it as well, so maybe fans will get to see more of the game as it was during development.
343 has promised all Halo games will be on PC in 2020, opening the franchise up to new players and those that have fully transitioned to PC gaming. Maybe a resurgence in popularity will be enough to inspire other developers to share their Halo stories. It's always neat to get a look at how games actually take shape, especially one so important to so many gamers.
Halo 2 is available now on PC and Xbox, and also in the Master Chief Collection on Xbox One.