The Famous Halo 2 E3 Demo Will Soon Be Playable Thanks To 343
343 Industries is recreating the iconic E3 2003 Halo 2 demo in the Master Chief Collection as part of a larger modding project to revive cut content.
The Earthcity demo never made it to the final version of Halo 2 but was universally considered a spectacle at the time, with IGN saying "there's little in the eight-minute demo that isn't worthy of awe" in our original preview.
As outlined in a Halo blog post, it's being made playable for the first time as part of the Digsite project, which will also bring back pre-release content from the original Halo: Combat Evolved. This will include a ton of different assets including previously unseen models, vehicles, NPCs, weapons, and even levels.
Earthcity headlines the package though, finally letting fans have a shot of the famous demo after nearly two decades. While 343 is definitely hoping to bring it to each version of the Master Chief Collection, it said it "can't make promises" about brining it to console.
This is because it's a particularly difficulty underatking. "This was not a trivial process, and we should probably layer on a whole page of caveats that come with taking a demo map for an engine that no longer exists and getting it to not blow up the current lightmapper," the blog post said.
The Master Chief Collection was released in 2014 but has received a pretty significant amount of post-launch support. In our 9/10 review, IGN said: "Despite multiplayer troubles, Halo: The Master Chief Collection's classic campaigns are amazing examples of FPS done right."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
Read more on ign.com
