Halo 2 turns 20 this weekend, and Halo Studios celebrate the occasion by making it famous E3 2003 demonstration fully playable.
On November 9th (the game's anniversary), Steam owners of Halo: The Master Chief Collection can access a recreated version of the demo as a free mod. The effort was led by longtime members of the Halo community and also by the archaeological data archive Digsite, which was deemed a feat due to “several obstacles with the technology.”
In the original demo, Master Chief and the UNSC battle the Covenant in the streets of New Mombasa. At the time, it was the first gameplay seen by the public and introduced several key elements of both Halo 2 and the series itself, such as dual-wielding and the Brute faction. Bungie cut if necessary section due to limitations on the size of the game environment.
According to Xbox Wire, the demo was made using an iteration of the Halo engine that no longer exists, and its assets were incompatible with current versions of Halo 2 specifically. Senior franchise writer Ken Peters credited both Digsite's tools and the series' community with “uncovered insights into why Bungie built things the way they did in the demo.”
“Without them,” he continued, “we probably would have just had a rather unceremonious decline in raw resources and that was it.”
Halo 2 it was a big driver for the Xbox at the time and was the most played multiplayer game until the arrival of Gears of war for Xbox 360 two years later. Even then, Bungie's killer was extremely popularto the point that Microsoft delayed turning off the game's multiplayer servers on Windows Vista.
As community director Brian Jarrard noted, Halo 2 “is an important pillar for the franchise that has catapulted the series and the community to new heights. […] The overall cultural permeation has fostered a new level of global fandom and community that has elevated Halo beyond “just a game.”
In 2014, Halo 2 the remake was supposed to be the big draw for the Master Chief Collection. To date, the first two Halo games are the only mainline titles to receive full remakes, as opposed to improved graphics with the remastered bundle.
Along with the E3 demo, Halo Studios is celebrating Halo 2 birthday through Infinite Halo with modern recreations of some of its multiplayer maps and a playlist with an old-school vibe, both of which you can read about Here.