10:45. I love how the marines are reluctant to even attempt an attack to take out those mortars, but the instant the chief arrives, it's "problem solved" and they immediately charge. And the chief never even said a word.
"And which promise is that? That the great journey is for all of us, that the prophets shall lead us in good faith? That the elites shall make the galaxy a graveyard and never ask why or wherefore?" That might just be the greatest line of dialogue in the entirety of Halo, it's a real shame that it was never used.
We might have gotten it if Bungie wasn’t so burned out after Halo 2. Some members like Joseph Staten went on hiatus during Halo 3’s development which is why the story felt so dull and bland compared the writing of Halo 2.
@@The_Punisher its entirely possible to do, just need someone that has the skills and passion. What AI voice can do these days could also play a massive role in bringing it to life
While both Guilty Spark and the Prophet of Truth refer to forerunners as the parents of humanity in Halo 3, the reveal is far better executed, and far more meaningful in this ending.
@@theneoreformationist Agreed. I think that’s what makes it easy to ignore that Forerunners were Humans in the original trilogy, because the big bombshell was cut from Halo 2 and never implemented in Halo 3.
I wonder why they never added it to Halo 3, it's completely feasible and although we get confirmation from Guilty Spark the impact of that scene is too good to pass up as a closer to the series. It could've gone something like this: As the Arbiter's half of Forward Unto Dawn comes out of the portal, it crashes into the structure and punches throught to the data vault. There he meets the monitor left in charge of the portal, data vault, and the machine after which the scene plays out like we see here.
@@Evilbob1555 Or it could've been explored in Halo 4. I do like the basic premise of Halo 4's story, although I do dislike the art style, and some of the creative choices that went into its development. I have a number of simple changes I would have made to Halo 4's story: 1. To have Jul M'dama fill the Didact's role in the game as the main villain, leading a unified Covenant remnant in its search for Halo rings, and other Foreunner artefacts, and when he is introduced, acquiring Forerunner armour and weapons, and eventually the Composer, with his role in the story pretty much playing out the same as it does with the Didact. 2. The Chief has a boss fight with Jul in the end, which involves Jul - with his Forerunner armour and weapons - having stronger shields than the chief, the ability to cloak, teleport, and fire an overpowered sentinel beam like 343 Guilty Spark could do in Halo 3. And Jul is obviously defeated, his ship is destroyed along with the Composer, and humanity is saved yet again. (Hoorah!) 3. The art style, obviously. (But I get why 343 changed it.) I was personally satisfied with Halo 3's ending. That said, I still like what they did with the arbiter finding a forerunner skeleton and the revelation that they are simply prehistoric humans. 3. So the final change I would have made to Halo 4's story is the most drastic, and it is to include the Arbiter as a playable protagonist, as he was in Halo 2. And from a completely different perspective to the chief's, we would see the Arbiter on his own mission against Jul M'Dama and his Covenant faction, we would see what the stakes are for him, and we would see his reluctance to fight and kill his own kind - who like Tartatus in Halo 2, are simply so set in their ways that they refuse to ally with humans, dismiss the truth about the Halo rings as propaganda, and so on. And in the end, the Arbiter's role in the story would culminate in the discovery originally intended for Halo 2 - a discovery that the Arbiter intends to share with the rest of the Galaxy, to finally break the hold that religious fanaticism and zealotry still has on the elites and the rest of the Covenant, and thereby hopefully ending the Covenant and the threat it poses on the Galaxy.
10:25 Look, I love Halo 3’s opening… but don’t tell me you wouldn’t have wanted to see this version in a Halo game, at least in some form. Well done on the animation and audio, this is badass as hell!
This is what was missing from the Original Trilogy, we always see the marines completely demoralised (such as the bridge scene in new mombasa) we never really get that high moral marine focused seen. Best we got is "No way a spartan?!" from the wounded marines in 3.
As a big fan of Halo 2's story line, stumbling upon these never before seen cutscenes is like finding the Lost Dutchman's gold mine... I absolutely love the idea of Arbiter coming into the control room with a squad of Elites, it explains why there were so many charging towards Tartarus during the boss fight too. Arbiter's final confrontation with Truth, now that was beautiful... especially their exchange of words starting at 17:14. It would have concluded his character arc perfectly. 28:32 If THIS scene along with the rest of the lost ending made it into the final game, I think it would have solidified Halo 2's position as the best story told in a video game. The reveal of Forerunners being ancient humans all along, after the build-up we've heard from books and games regarding these mysterious species, would have been such a great plot twist
Upon rewatching it, it seems like Forerunners were not humans, but they did nudge human evolution so we end up resembling them. I think that interpretation is absolutely phenomenal since I cannot get behind the idea of cavemen building an advanced civilization then losing hundreds of thousands of years of societal progress with no evidence of it.
it occurred to me while watching this- the forerunner ship that chief boards looks a lot like a UNSC ship on the interior. after seeing the holotype, im starting to think that might not have been a coincidence or a placeholder and might have been foreshadowing. it would make the player think “this forerunner ship is just like a human one, isn’t that odd?” and i think setting up some human-forerunner parallels beforehand would have done a lot of good.
Guilty Spark's words to the holotype feel so much more poignant after waiting nearly 20 years to hear them and watching how far the light of this series has been distorted by hands that did not know about or understand the plans that were originally intended for it.
I never like the idea of humans actually being Forerunners or spacefaring cavemen, but the idea of the Forerunners nudging human evolution so we resemble them sounds phenomenal to me. No where near as insulting to people like me who have studied anthropology.
@@alexanderrobins7497 Nah humans being descendants of Forerunners is way cooler. Every setting has some "ancient alien civilization" messing with human history, for once it could've been HUMANITY that was the ancient alien civilization.
God just the delivery of that line. “You knew along what halo would do, how many would die” it’s such a shame they didn’t use that line considering how much we really know Truth knew about humanity, the halos and their purpose in the expanded novels
It feels criminal how dull and bland Halo 3’s story feels compared to Halo 2, but I also heard it was because everyone was so burned out. Apparently Joseph Staten went on hiatus during Halo 3’s early development stages.
@@Powerof7even The ending of Halo 2 made sense, it was just a cliffhanger. This alternative ending is very good, but there are still plenty of issues with it. I hate the implied relationship between Master Chief and Miranda Keys. I also don't like that Cortana's fate is kind of unknown. Additionally, I don't love the weird fight with a cyclops thing. Lastly, and least importantly, some of the humor was a little off-putting and ill-timed. To it's credit, many of my issues likely would have been ironed out if this ending had been actually used. I always loved the idea of the Forerunners being just the ancient humans. However, I don't hate the current lore of the Forerunners, especially with the precursors. I really enjoyed the Forerunner trilogy of books as well.
@@ColinCreighton I think the original interpretation was a phenomenal idea. Instead of being Forerunners or spacefaring cavemen, the Forerunners nudged human evolution so we ended up resembling them. It is far less insulting to the people who have studied anthropology.
@@alexanderrobins7497 I like both ideas. Though, the term Inheritor was not just from the Forerunners. It goes back to the Precursors, who deemed the Forerunners too violent/wrathful for the Mantle of Responsibility and instead wanted Humanity to inherit the Mantle when ready. Which makes me think that the Precursors knew their fate before the Forerunners attacked them.
@@ColinCreighton that whole mantle trash is just a way of retconning Staten original story. none of that shit makes sense with the original story or Halo. Truths motivation actually makes sense, dialogue makes sense, and the irony of the covenant laying waste to what is considered to be their rightful gods in their religion makes way more sense than passing some mantle macguffin from one race to the next. hell even the symbolism of the naming, the flood being the unstoppable force, the covenant being the maniacal religious extremists, the holy prophets leading them, it actually works when it is contextualised in Statens original vision. its just a shame Halo will never be what it was supposed to be now and there isnt hope it will get anywhere on this level again.
“Mercy immediately unsaves himself” That made me crack up These have been amazing dude! Thank you for all the work you have put into these videos. You have somehow made me love halo 2 more.
Amazing work. There’s a Truth line from the behind the scenes VidDoc that never made it into the game, I wonder if it was supposed to be in the Mercy betrayal scene?: “The universe is full of cold, hard facts. And this is one of them.”
@@C3_SABERTOOTH Honestly; you've seen what 343 can do to Halo canon while they claimed to be a direct continuation. At least the TV series never claimed to be a faithful continuation.
While I know the whole 343 retconning Forerunners into a different species vs the original lore being that they were more or less 'humans' (Halo CE dropping the hints like Hansel & Gretel there...), the way that this cut ending at about 28:30 drops it was really powerful. I guess I sort of saw it leading to something like this, but the choice of lines for Arbiter there and how the scene draws the viewer to see the skeleton of what is undeniably a 'human' while Arbiter reels back in disbelief as the realisation really sinks in really hit. For a long-term fan of the original Bungie Halo, I honestly choked up a bit when the video hit this point. I really have no idea how Halo 3 would have worked out if this ending actually made the cut, but I also sort of feel it's a shame that they didn't find a way to recycle that into Halo 3 either given most of the rest was just expanded on to pad out the 3rd game. I suppose Halo 3 wraps it up with Spark's big reveal line during the fight sequence and it does hit hard there too, but something about the fact that Arbiter had this moment to realise the depths of his people's wrongdoings and misguided faith just makes that deleted reveal hit with such a greater depth because it's more than words... Will add though, Chief's scene is a bit less fulfilling... especially the hinting at Miranda having a thing for him!? Nope.... that just doesn't sit well (it also just has that "small world" feel which feels cheap and gimmicky)
This ending would have been phenomenal. Instead of being Forerunner or spacefaring cavemen, human evolution would have been nudged so we ended up resembling Forerunners.
The dramatic, meaningful reveal to the Arbiter was a much better choice than Guilty Spark just saying, "You are the child of my makers. Inheritor of all they left behind. You are Forerunner!"
If Bungie weren't forced by Microsoft to a early release date Halo 3 would have been the 3-rd act of Halo 2 . They might have actually wrapped it up there since Bungie were pretty tired of doing Halo games after 3 so Reach had a short campaign too and ODST was an asset flip to fill the 5 games they had to make to get done with their contract ,there still not bad games though
I wonder if the Arbiter's ending was going to be for Legendary difficulty only, whereas you only get the Chief's ending if you play on lower difficulties.
That would have been the best legendary ending in the series. I assume if the game was finished as intended legendary wouldn't be as broken and more people would play it.
It's strange to think that halo 3 killed off Johnson, Miranda, and Guilty Spark while all three survived in this intended ending. But there's still the mystery behind what happened to cortana right?
@@ugiustuskeiserus8066 which begs the question if Halo 3 would have still been a thing. And if so, it'd probably be DRASTICALLY different from the version we have today.
I’ll be honest, while I included Marty’s quote in the trailer, I don’t entirely trust it. I think this version of Halo still would’ve been finally concluded in a third entry. It just would’ve been a different Halo 3.
@@C3_SABERTOOTH well the rest of Bungie still shared the same sentiments as Marty right? Looks like Halo 2 was going to have cliffhangers no matter what.
I always found Halo 3's writing to be incredibly lacking compared to Halo 2, and this basically proves why. The events of Halo 3 were not meant to be watered down and stretched out into a full game's worth of story.
Thank god I’m not alone in the world with this opinion. Even as a younger teenager Halo 3’s plot felt lackluster compared to 2. Not to mention that Halo 2’s cliffhanger with the Flood being resolved alongside the end of the Human-Covenant War denies us a full campaign on dealing with the Elites war on the Brutes, and the Flood. Which, ironically, is exactly what Halo 3 ended up being anyway.
The way the Great Journey scene is staged is significantly better than what we got in the final game. I like the idea of the Arbiter speaking to his elite brothers rather than Tartarus about the Prophets betrayal.
Human lifespan in Halo's 2552 setting is drastically increased with ages easily hitting 100+, so that along with frequent cryo-stasis and the enhancements Spartans receive, Master Chief is relatively young for that time. Just look at Sgt. Johnson, he was presumed to be 78 years old upon his death on the Ark and he was on the front lines of some gnarly battles. Johnson did have enhancements though due to him being a part of the failed Spartan-I program. With that being said, a romance between Chief and Miranda would still have been weird to suddenly be present or hinted at at the end of the game. And I've always viewed Chief's relationship with Cortana in a similar vein as Big Boss' relationship with The Boss. The love is there and it's immense, but it goes beyond romance. When you're together with someone for so long and go through extreme situations with each other, the roots of camaraderie form an intense bond.
My assumption would be enhancements would *reduce* lifespan, not increase it. Taking things to their limit typically doesn't increase their resilience. I think the Cryostasis is the best excuse for it though, since that literally halts the progression of aging, and thus chronologically he'd be 41, knocking even 5 years off his biological clock makes it far less icky. Having said all of that, 15 years isn't too bad a difference as long as the younger party is at least 25. (People don't really change much after 25 years of age).
Thank you so much for your dedication to this project! I would have had a hard time interpreting and visualizing it all myself with only the storyboards. Thanks to your visual and audio enhancements, and your deep lore knowledge, I get to soak in every last drop in awe! 12:54 this is peak Halo comedy and I am here for it 14:22 The phantoms coming in as low as they can, skimming the flat desert and kicking up dust behind them, is such a badass visual! It reminded me of when I first saw The Last Jedi trailer with the ski speeders. I thought that was such a cool visual too, then I saw the actual movie with the context of how dumb and pointless of a plan it was lmao
Well it wasn't intended to be the end, but the start of a new, and very different, chapter. It was still going to have the post-credits cliffhanger scene with Cortana on high charity, so Halo 3 would probably feature Gravemind as the main antagonist without a mainline covenant force. Arbiter may be sent on some type of negotiation mission or diving deeper into the forerunners.
Halo 3 After This: Arbiter and Commander go off and break the Covenant and bring peace. Chief and Spark go rescue Cortana and destroy the Flood. Two "buddy cop" stories, and probably a better ending for Spark than going psycho mode over losing his Ring again.
Bungie's Forerunner story is so much more satisfying than 343 and their terrible direction! Fantastic work man. I guess Halo 3 would have been Chief getting Cortana back and fighting the Flood with the Arbiter and the Elites stopping the Covenant, one way or another.
Dude. You deserve SO many more views and subscribers, the effort you've put into all this is TANGIBLE. I've always loved seeing those storyboards, but seeing them in motion with dialogue is something else, and your explanations for all those abandoned concepts are on point. See you on the Great Journey
Wow the Arbiter ending actually hit. Such a more fulfilling conclusion. Considering this maybe 343s games are just some bad alternative timeline we can forget about.
I can see both angles to the "Miranda and Chief" romance arc. I for one wouldn't have minded it, it might have needed more setup, but I think every good story can support a romance. That's just me though, barring a romance subplot, I think it could also be interpreted as a way of the pair reflecting on both of the things they've lost, Miranda, her father, and Chief, well, as far as we know at this point in Halo's story (to my somewhat limited knowledge) everyone. I could be wrong, but I think it's in "Halo: The Flood" where it's stated that Chief looks up to Captain Keyes as almost a father figure. In this sense, Miranda and Chief are more of a brother and sister, and it's like they're finally able to put down their guns and mourn the lost, almost what we see in the Hillside Monument of the ending of Halo 3.
It’s not just Captain Keyes - Dr. Halsey is arguably the Chief’s surrogate mom! The “knowing smile” definitely suggests romance to me, and my biggest qualm with the whole thing is how a romance between these two is borderline incestuous. I agree, they’re practically siblings!
@@C3_SABERTOOTH "Knowing Smile" to me just seems like an adjective to describe a subdued, but still obviously very joyful smile from Johnson now that the war is officially over. Again, I don't really mind the notion of them being a "thing", it would require some explanation, and perhaps you're right, but the sibling dynamic also works for them, and I think it's sweet that Halo 2 was the game where Chief finds his family in his comrades, Arbiter, his newfound brother, Johnson, his old time brother, and Miranda, his new younger sister.
@@C3_SABERTOOTH Also, I hate to resurrect an old comment, but I just finished Floodgate while playing for fun, and I realized that in the outro cutscene, after the Arbiter and Johnson take the other factions' weapons to their own, Chief and Miranda watch Lord Hood depart on a pelican, in a similar fashion to how they're depicted here. Not quite the same context, but perhaps in some early draft of Halo 3, the idea that the war with the the Elites/Seperatists was considered the end of the war in some capacity, and the idea of Chief and Miranda looking over at a planetary body was replaced with Lord Hood and the Ark Portal.
RUclips actually insane for not recommeneding this to everyone. Like this is possibly the highest quality way to show this content. Insane how low the views of this video are
Phenomenal work, its fascinating to see how much of this made it into Halo 3, they ended up changing the overall presentation but most of the general beats were still there.
It's sad to see this amazing series come to a close, but I couldn't imagine a finer and fitter ending. Hope one day we can see H3s storyboards but regardless I'm just looking forward to seeing more of your stuff! Great animation and funny commentary!
@@samlund8543It did change though and I know this for a weird reason. In 2006 there was a Marvel Comic Line for Halo 3 called "Uprising" . It was said to have a key plot point in Halo 3. Well the only plot point in that entire comic was the Key of Osanalan basically a McGuffin for why the Halos did not work right. It turned out narratively a bluff that had nothing to do with Halo or anything frankly, however that is said to be why the comic were so delayed. They were meant to come out as a lead up in the summer of 06 and after issue 1 were immediately delayed because of plot points in the story. The comica ended up releasing in 08 and being entirely useless . Marvel officially said a major plot point in Halo 3s development was made and it needed to be reworked. Beyond that , some time between 2/3 The Earth Ark became the Portal and the Halo 3 Ark beyond the galaxy came into being (Probably very early on)
These have been great, thanks for making these. After seeing this ending, I’m quite happy that it instead ended in the fashion Halo 3 did. Something about this ending just feels empty? It feels like it would have been rushed. Obviously these are just early storyboards but I don’t think it would have been a great experience having all that stuff crammed into the end of the game
I really like this Master Chief ending tbh aside from the random Miranda interest in Chief. It feels well earned for him and I think Arbiters fits pretty well too. He's completely freed from the lies of the Prophet's and the entirety of the Covenant's purpose/belief and he can be at peace with himself for once. Even though the sequel bait is still somewhat present by saying Arbiter and the elites are going to finish the Civil War in the Covenant but it's still pretty cool
What I fucking hate is how it turned out. Forerunners and Humans as a separate species. All this knowledge I have now about Halo 4, 5 and Infinite ret-conning Halo 1, 2, 3, ODST and Reach. I love the atmosphere of this, it feels like Halo, more so than everything 343 managed to make.
i have a feeling you read each comment, no need to reply. i have a lot on my mind but i just want to say thank you for making these. as a big time halo fan since 2004, i love seeing more bungie era content. im happy someone made this, and you made it very well, great voice to listen too and you make funny quips and good editing and pacing. hope too see more from this channel
Way better ending to the Halo Story than we got with Halo 3! Man this woulda been a great tie up of the series and I'm loving all the callbacks to the start of Halo 2. Really woulda added another layer of thoughtfulness to the story.
This still could’ve worked if this story was spread across two games, seems a bit much for just one, plus that only leaves the Flood as an Antagonist and they’re pretty unfun to fight on their own
Yeah that would be the one unintended consequence if we got the original halo 2 story. Narratively I think it could still work, but gameplay wise [unless the remnants of the covenant lead by the brutes is in the story] could cause the gameplay to feel stale as flood levels with them as the only enemy were more of a chore to get through
Just sat through most of your recent videos and I've gotta say, you've done some phenomenal work here. As someone who is pretty disenfranchised with the story from 4 to current, this stuff has literally given me some much needed closure and I feel like I've seen the true canon story of Halo here (minus the Chief + Miranda thing. That was... yeah). I still like a lot of what resulted in Halo 3, but seeing what could have been is just... awesome. The Forerunner lore is just absolutely convoluted and confusing now, I really wish there was some way to fix it... maybe Joe can work some magic, but probably not with 343i's team in charge of 'canon'. Again, great work man.
I think the two storyboards have "fade to credits" because Bungie wanted to alternate the cutscenes like at the beginning of the game. -You fight Truth in a final boss battle (like Tartarus) and defeat him -Cutscene starts and Chief and Arbiter split up. Chief makes it out, but not Arby -Arby follows Guilty Spark and that whole scene plays out. It ends with him ascending into the light -From the bright light is the zoom out from Chief's name tag. He's awarded and saluted -Camera slowly moves through rows of elites. One salutes. The camera turns and shows Arby -UNSC applaud and whistle. Chief tugs on his cap -Arby walks up to Vadum, and Vadum asks what's next. "Take us home." Slow pan away from window -Ships zoom away and fireworks. Chief contemplates at the window as Johnson and Miranda approach. She asks if that's it. "It's finished." Slow pan out from the window, showing the covenant as they leave. Fade out
343 Industries has invited modders to look through their archives and port what they can to the final builds. What sucks is they’ve implied their records aren’t complete.
Man I really wish we got this version of Halo 2, would have been a whole different Halo 3 but that's fine with me, this ending was so much better and I absolutely love that the Forerunners were ancient humans. And the Oracle's final words to his creators plus the Arbiter's recaction to it is just chef's kiss. Also makes much more sense why the Elites would so easily form an alliance with Humanity and so fast
I just watched through all the parts of this and I have to say that you did a fantastic job! Makes me hope one day we can see some of these storyboards as cutscenes
No. Rewatch it again at 28:45. “Ah, the holotype. A reference for their development.” Human evolution was nudged by the Forerunners to resemble each other, but are still two separate species that never met. I think this interpretation is phenomenal compared to what we got in Halo 3 or with 343 Incompetencies.
If HALO ever gets the big screen movie treatment properly I pray that it is faithful with Bungie's vision and follows many of the story beats in this HALO 2 original ending minus the Chief x Miranda plot.
This was absolutely incredible. An amazingly well put together project, sound, animation, everything. Even though I knew about human's being forerunners in Bungie''s OG vision, that ending was still a WTF moment. I can only imagine how good that ending would have been if it ever made release
Hey dude, I know everyone has given this series the highest praise already but seriously, thank you so much for this. I can’t imagine how much work this must’ve taken, the production value is incredible. Hopefully one day Halo gets a faithful adaptation as a film trilogy like it deserves. If it does, man I hope they draw as much inspiration from the best of these videos as they do the actual games. The lost ending here is the finest narrative moment in the history of the franchise. I totally get why Bungie were always salty about how Halo 2 turned out now.
6:55 Actually Marty once appeared to me in a dream and said the gameplay mentioned here was a three round game of Halo-themed Candy Crush. Yeah Candy Crush is a Forerunner invention. In all seriousness though, I love the through-line of Chief landing on Delta Halo with a bang and then doing the same back on Earth. What a cool moment.
Wow I’ve known about halo ever since I was 6 years old back in 2004 , and been obsessed with its story .. this is the first time I ever hear about another ending , at this age of 24 yo now!
subbed this was incredible SERIOUSLY THIS WAS FUCKING AWESOME I hope it inspires some people to come together and Mod this into Halo 3s Engine as a whole "Halo 2 Lost Cut" Seriously would be awesome.
I was late to the halo party. I played Halo CE in 2019 and fell in love with that game. I beat it several times before moving to Halo 2. I loved the first few levels and sure was confused about that was happening in Halo 2. I felt like the game dragged on a bit and I remember beating it and was really confused about why it ended like that, Like I was missing something. I read story summaries but eventually moved on to Halo 3 but the story just seemed to be such a mess by that games' conclusion. It was only recently I learned about the Earth Ark and the final cut act. Someone told me the story continued into 3 but I never felt great about it's conclusion. I stumbled upon the story boards and this video (Thank you for putting this together man, you did a great job) However, this cut act closes so many loop holes and finishes up the story much better than Halo 3 did. As they are released it makes little sense to have the arbiter have so much play time and screen time but with this ending you really see what they were going for. With Halo 2's release for the 2004 Holiday season, they could have released a second disc (containing the final cut act) in March or April for an additional cost $20-30 or free downloadable (To the HD) dlc via xbox live. But god damn this ending is way better. Enough rambling. Thanks for the video man. I appreciate it.
Is anyone else glad that when 343i made Halo 2 anniversary, they just pasted new graphics over the old game without rebalancing legendary difficulty? I mean imagine if they gave us a completed version of what Halo 2 was supposed to be. This isn't the biggest missed opportunity since Disney didn't have a reunion of Han, Luke, and Leah in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Best company ever.
They couldn't have done the latter as these story boards were long gone and it would conflate with Halo 3. Now the former they definitely could have done. Simply reducing some numbers in the code would have been simple. Best company indeed.
@@spartanq7781 the only changes id make would be the gravemind starting fight (you die as the game loads in, make a script stop the brutes from firing for atleast 2 or 3 seconds), and reduce legendary damage multiplier from enemies from 1.5 to 1.25. This will prevent jackals from one shotting chief.
@@halinaqi2194 Halo 2 cranked the damage and the enemies rate of fire way too much. Halo 2 on heroic is a bit too easy so there is no perfect difficulty. Halo 1 nailed difficulty perfectly but later Halo games always got one or two things wrong. Halo 2 way too hard. Halo 3 and Odst way too easy Halo Reach way to frustrating Halo 4 a pain in the ass I don't know about the later games.
On the one hand I’m glad the halo 2 story got split as we wouldn’t get the improved halo 3 gameplay. But on the other I wish the story ended with halo 2 as the cut script of halo 2 is just so much better as wrapping up the story
Fantastic job on animating these! Super beautiful work! Also so cool to see what the original ending was and how many similarities it has to the final version of Halo 3.
I've been waiting for this, and it didn't disappoint! Excellent work as ever, it's great to see Halo history brought to life in such an entertaining way!
That was interesting. I do think the Ark being just a buried building on Earth would have been rather unimpressive. Though maybe what we got in Halo 3 is colouring my perception. I really love the paperdoll depictions of hypothetical levels.
Yeah this would have been awesome. It's makes more sense as why forerunners were human, and the "reclaimer" reclaiming the mantle. Now if we can get some modders to recreate the campaign in halo 2's engine to reimagine their original intent, the journey would be complete.
Great video, you've put a lot of time into this! Shame that we most probably won't ever see Halo 2 done as Bungie first envisioned it. Imagine if they would do a remake of Halo 2 with all this.. Greatest single player experience ever.
Also, I would love to get my hands on the lore how Forerunners thought Data Vault would affect humanity. I study theology and this just opened a possible research in my mind. That would be so fun to connect the dots between Abrahamic religions and Halo!
@@velshu I think Joseph Staten majored in theology which makes sense. It sounds like the original intended lore in Halo 2 was that humans were not Forerunners or spacefaring cavemen, but our evolution was nudged by the Forerunners which I find to be a phenomenal idea compared to what we got.
Absoloutely fantastic work on this. While I do adore the Halo 2 and 3 we got, I would have loved beyond measure to see this play out. I think this is a far better way to conclude the Arbiter's story arc. It's a far more devastating realization than just finding out what Halo truly did and carries a lot more emotional impact.
Man, what a trip. Even just the animatics just blow me away like if it was the real deal. The team at Bungie really knew how to plan out a masterful story, no doubt the gaming landscape would be notably different if Halo 2 was the ending of the covenant - human war with that ending. Regarding the profets nuking the universe, I'm not well versed into this conversation but I do recall the profets knowing about the humans direct relationship with the forerunners. They had their people safeguarded in from the ring's blast in shield locations, I'd assume they wanted to be the true gods of a restarted universe and built however they saw fit. However I'm not sure if this matches with the old lore or if Bungie had this story planned out or thought out in some way or I'm just mixing new lore with old one. At any rate, this whole video was amazing, and it just feels like if Bungie released a new alternate story in current year, well even if it was known for a while, I'm sure animating all the animatics was a lot of work.
That 2nd paragraph would make more sense because why do forerunners not exist anymore... doesnt make sense that they would obliterate themselves out of existence and preserve everything except themselves. Not sure what the lore reason given is but i'm sure it's a stretch to cover that plothole.
@@randomhiphop5055 I'm guessing it was part of removing the food sources for the flood but keeping themselves as the ones with the mantle of responsibility, hence destroying themselves in the process. But we can only speculate so much on alternative lore, fascinating nonetheless.
@@XradicalD Actually we have a reason, and it's even stated in the Terminals of CEA. The reason why the Forerunners chose extinction was to atone for the sins of creating the Flood outbreak to begin with. The reason why Humanity are the Reclaimers is because we were chosen by the Precursors to hold the Mantle of Resonsibility, causing the Forerunners to become jealous and spiteful, and then committed genocide on the Precursors, the ancient gods of the Halo universe, who then turned themselves into a dust form to try and escape the massacre. This dust corrupted and became the Flood, which began to infect Human planets and when humanity tried to run they wound up in Forerunner territory, burning an infected Forerunner planet to stop the plague from spreading, which sparked off the Human-Forerunner war. Weakened by the war against humanity, and with humanity unable to focus on the Flood, the parasite became too powerful and took over everything. The Forerunners' war avainst humanity without giving them a chance to explain and genocide against the Precursors were the reason why the Halos were needed.
@@Finger112 I like to envision an alternate timeline with this version of Halo 2 but we'd miss out on Halo 3, ODST, and probably Reach, I'm happy with what we got but sometimes I wonder also what would come of the 343 games they would be massively different, could they be better or worse
Mate, your work here is fantastic. These animatics have totally revitalised my love for the original Halo series. I'd love for modders one day to bring these to the game some day. Props to bungie for such an amazing story, and no props to 343 for killing it.
I love how 11:00 just exemplifies the fact that everyone sees Chief as the solution to their problems. Like dude just shows up all ex-machina like and the Marines get an instant morale boost
![Stromae, Pomme - “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1F3OGIFnW1k/mqdefault.jpg)
Arbiter actually getting to complete his story without becoming a side character? Wild
Yes, this would've been so satisfying
That's why halo needs to remake and make a reboot
He completed his story fine in release
@@HaloUP that will never happen lmaooo
In all honesty, The Arbiter is the Hero of Halo 2.
This was great! The Arbiter finding that their “Gods” were the same humans they were fighting all along is gold! Bungie had it right!
That would of been a way better ending than what we got
that unreleased Keith David audition Arbiter dialogue goes so fucking hard and it leads into a Prophet of Truth boss fight? WOW
it wasn't a boss fight, he literally just broke his fucking neck
@@MisterChief711 it's the intro before a bossfight
@@Rythaze it isn't written anywhere it was a boss fight
@@MisterChief711 he literally says in the video "next will be the third and final hierarch boss battle"
@@MisterChief711 It literally is, are you blind?
10:45. I love how the marines are reluctant to even attempt an attack to take out those mortars, but the instant the chief arrives, it's "problem solved" and they immediately charge. And the chief never even said a word.
"And which promise is that?
That the great journey is for all of us, that the prophets shall lead us in good faith?
That the elites shall make the galaxy a graveyard and never ask why or wherefore?"
That might just be the greatest line of dialogue in the entirety of Halo, it's a real shame that it was never used.
We might have gotten it if Bungie wasn’t so burned out after Halo 2. Some members like Joseph Staten went on hiatus during Halo 3’s development which is why the story felt so dull and bland compared the writing of Halo 2.
@@alexanderrobins7497 Yeah, that and Frank O'Conner absolutely stepping all over Joe's vision.
Imagine someone using it to recreate the ending in a mod or something
@@The_Punisher its entirely possible to do, just need someone that has the skills and passion. What AI voice can do these days could also play a massive role in bringing it to life
That Arbiter ending! That’s literally better than Halo 3’s ending wtf.
that music, bro i wish i could see it animated on blams engine
While both Guilty Spark and the Prophet of Truth refer to forerunners as the parents of humanity in Halo 3, the reveal is far better executed, and far more meaningful in this ending.
@@theneoreformationist Agreed. I think that’s what makes it easy to ignore that Forerunners were Humans in the original trilogy, because the big bombshell was cut from Halo 2 and never implemented in Halo 3.
I wonder why they never added it to Halo 3, it's completely feasible and although we get confirmation from Guilty Spark the impact of that scene is too good to pass up as a closer to the series. It could've gone something like this:
As the Arbiter's half of Forward Unto Dawn comes out of the portal, it crashes into the structure and punches throught to the data vault. There he meets the monitor left in charge of the portal, data vault, and the machine after which the scene plays out like we see here.
@@Evilbob1555 Or it could've been explored in Halo 4. I do like the basic premise of Halo 4's story, although I do dislike the art style, and some of the creative choices that went into its development. I have a number of simple changes I would have made to Halo 4's story:
1. To have Jul M'dama fill the Didact's role in the game as the main villain, leading a unified Covenant remnant in its search for Halo rings, and other Foreunner artefacts, and when he is introduced, acquiring Forerunner armour and weapons, and eventually the Composer, with his role in the story pretty much playing out the same as it does with the Didact.
2. The Chief has a boss fight with Jul in the end, which involves Jul - with his Forerunner armour and weapons - having stronger shields than the chief, the ability to cloak, teleport, and fire an overpowered sentinel beam like 343 Guilty Spark could do in Halo 3. And Jul is obviously defeated, his ship is destroyed along with the Composer, and humanity is saved yet again. (Hoorah!)
3. The art style, obviously. (But I get why 343 changed it.)
I was personally satisfied with Halo 3's ending. That said, I still like what they did with the arbiter finding a forerunner skeleton and the revelation that they are simply prehistoric humans.
3. So the final change I would have made to Halo 4's story is the most drastic, and it is to include the Arbiter as a playable protagonist, as he was in Halo 2. And from a completely different perspective to the chief's, we would see the Arbiter on his own mission against Jul M'Dama and his Covenant faction, we would see what the stakes are for him, and we would see his reluctance to fight and kill his own kind - who like Tartatus in Halo 2, are simply so set in their ways that they refuse to ally with humans, dismiss the truth about the Halo rings as propaganda, and so on.
And in the end, the Arbiter's role in the story would culminate in the discovery originally intended for Halo 2 - a discovery that the Arbiter intends to share with the rest of the Galaxy, to finally break the hold that religious fanaticism and zealotry still has on the elites and the rest of the Covenant, and thereby hopefully ending the Covenant and the threat it poses on the Galaxy.
THIS WAS AWESOME
Thankyou for all your hard work putting this together
THANKS MINTY
@@C3_SABERTOOTH mate your channel is going to blow up. Good work on this!
JUST WENT 3 : 0 AGAINST YOU IN TOTAL CONTROL. GET REKT MINTY.
10:25 Look, I love Halo 3’s opening… but don’t tell me you wouldn’t have wanted to see this version in a Halo game, at least in some form. Well done on the animation and audio, this is badass as hell!
I’ve always lamented this wasn’t a mission in Halo 3
This is what was missing from the Original Trilogy, we always see the marines completely demoralised (such as the bridge scene in new mombasa) we never really get that high moral marine focused seen. Best we got is "No way a spartan?!" from the wounded marines in 3.
@@reviveempires We do get applause and cameras in the beginning of Halo 2
Mods are an option
It would've been a way better opening than what we got for H3.
As a big fan of Halo 2's story line, stumbling upon these never before seen cutscenes is like finding the Lost Dutchman's gold mine... I absolutely love the idea of Arbiter coming into the control room with a squad of Elites, it explains why there were so many charging towards Tartarus during the boss fight too.
Arbiter's final confrontation with Truth, now that was beautiful... especially their exchange of words starting at 17:14. It would have concluded his character arc perfectly.
28:32 If THIS scene along with the rest of the lost ending made it into the final game, I think it would have solidified Halo 2's position as the best story told in a video game. The reveal of Forerunners being ancient humans all along, after the build-up we've heard from books and games regarding these mysterious species, would have been such a great plot twist
Upon rewatching it, it seems like Forerunners were not humans, but they did nudge human evolution so we end up resembling them. I think that interpretation is absolutely phenomenal since I cannot get behind the idea of cavemen building an advanced civilization then losing hundreds of thousands of years of societal progress with no evidence of it.
@@alexanderrobins7497 I agree
@@alexanderrobins7497 Fossilization is an extremely rare event, keep in mind.
My headcanon is that Truth misinterpreted the Forerunner's plan to preserve their DNA (into what became humans) as "ascending to godhood".
Ditto.
it occurred to me while watching this- the forerunner ship that chief boards looks a lot like a UNSC ship on the interior. after seeing the holotype, im starting to think that might not have been a coincidence or a placeholder and might have been foreshadowing. it would make the player think “this forerunner ship is just like a human one, isn’t that odd?” and i think setting up some human-forerunner parallels beforehand would have done a lot of good.
Guilty Spark's words to the holotype feel so much more poignant after waiting nearly 20 years to hear them and watching how far the light of this series has been distorted by hands that did not know about or understand the plans that were originally intended for it.
Frank O'Connor soiled any poetic impact forerunners would ever have ever since he wrote those goddamned H3 terminals.
Still hit pretty hard though
I never like the idea of humans actually being Forerunners or spacefaring cavemen, but the idea of the Forerunners nudging human evolution so we resemble them sounds phenomenal to me. No where near as insulting to people like me who have studied anthropology.
@@edboysvarietyhour6565 We already got Bonnie and Kiki the boot. One final hierarch remains, and his name is Frank O'Connor.
@@alexanderrobins7497 Nah humans being descendants of Forerunners is way cooler. Every setting has some "ancient alien civilization" messing with human history, for once it could've been HUMANITY that was the ancient alien civilization.
God just the delivery of that line. “You knew along what halo would do, how many would die” it’s such a shame they didn’t use that line considering how much we really know Truth knew about humanity, the halos and their purpose in the expanded novels
It feels criminal how dull and bland Halo 3’s story feels compared to Halo 2, but I also heard it was because everyone was so burned out. Apparently Joseph Staten went on hiatus during Halo 3’s early development stages.
MODS
@@alexanderrobins7497 dang corporations making passionate developers burnt out mane
@@The_Punishershii easier said than done
Wow, that ending would have been so good. It brings a whole new meaning to the term "Inheritors."
It brings an ending that actually makes sense lol
@@Powerof7even The ending of Halo 2 made sense, it was just a cliffhanger. This alternative ending is very good, but there are still plenty of issues with it. I hate the implied relationship between Master Chief and Miranda Keys. I also don't like that Cortana's fate is kind of unknown. Additionally, I don't love the weird fight with a cyclops thing. Lastly, and least importantly, some of the humor was a little off-putting and ill-timed.
To it's credit, many of my issues likely would have been ironed out if this ending had been actually used. I always loved the idea of the Forerunners being just the ancient humans. However, I don't hate the current lore of the Forerunners, especially with the precursors. I really enjoyed the Forerunner trilogy of books as well.
@@ColinCreighton
I think the original interpretation was a phenomenal idea. Instead of being Forerunners or spacefaring cavemen, the Forerunners nudged human evolution so we ended up resembling them. It is far less insulting to the people who have studied anthropology.
@@alexanderrobins7497 I like both ideas. Though, the term Inheritor was not just from the Forerunners. It goes back to the Precursors, who deemed the Forerunners too violent/wrathful for the Mantle of Responsibility and instead wanted Humanity to inherit the Mantle when ready. Which makes me think that the Precursors knew their fate before the Forerunners attacked them.
@@ColinCreighton that whole mantle trash is just a way of retconning Staten original story. none of that shit makes sense with the original story or Halo. Truths motivation actually makes sense, dialogue makes sense, and the irony of the covenant laying waste to what is considered to be their rightful gods in their religion makes way more sense than passing some mantle macguffin from one race to the next. hell even the symbolism of the naming, the flood being the unstoppable force, the covenant being the maniacal religious extremists, the holy prophets leading them, it actually works when it is contextualised in Statens original vision. its just a shame Halo will never be what it was supposed to be now and there isnt hope it will get anywhere on this level again.
“Mercy immediately unsaves himself”
That made me crack up
These have been amazing dude! Thank you for all the work you have put into these videos. You have somehow made me love halo 2 more.
Amazing work. There’s a Truth line from the behind the scenes VidDoc that never made it into the game, I wonder if it was supposed to be in the Mercy betrayal scene?:
“The universe is full of cold, hard facts. And this is one of them.”
oof wish that had been included in the vid
Chief’s pause to say only .. “Yeah” made me laugh out loud.
Obviously it's a nod to the ending of Halo 1, and brilliant
"Be mentally prepare for that."
The Halo show already got me mentally prepared.
I haven’t watched it! My little heart can only take so much abuse.
I'm already scarred enough from Jimmy rings clapping covvie p.o.w. cheeks. This was tame by comparison. Lol
@@C3_SABERTOOTH Honestly; you've seen what 343 can do to Halo canon while they claimed to be a direct continuation. At least the TV series never claimed to be a faithful continuation.
@@meateaw Well, they _were_ claiming it was going to be canonical until 343’s fanbase got into a tizzy over black Miranda.
@@C3_SABERTOOTHBecause a black Miranda makes since when Miranda is white
While I know the whole 343 retconning Forerunners into a different species vs the original lore being that they were more or less 'humans' (Halo CE dropping the hints like Hansel & Gretel there...), the way that this cut ending at about 28:30 drops it was really powerful. I guess I sort of saw it leading to something like this, but the choice of lines for Arbiter there and how the scene draws the viewer to see the skeleton of what is undeniably a 'human' while Arbiter reels back in disbelief as the realisation really sinks in really hit. For a long-term fan of the original Bungie Halo, I honestly choked up a bit when the video hit this point. I really have no idea how Halo 3 would have worked out if this ending actually made the cut, but I also sort of feel it's a shame that they didn't find a way to recycle that into Halo 3 either given most of the rest was just expanded on to pad out the 3rd game. I suppose Halo 3 wraps it up with Spark's big reveal line during the fight sequence and it does hit hard there too, but something about the fact that Arbiter had this moment to realise the depths of his people's wrongdoings and misguided faith just makes that deleted reveal hit with such a greater depth because it's more than words...
Will add though, Chief's scene is a bit less fulfilling... especially the hinting at Miranda having a thing for him!? Nope.... that just doesn't sit well (it also just has that "small world" feel which feels cheap and gimmicky)
This ending would have been phenomenal. Instead of being Forerunner or spacefaring cavemen, human evolution would have been nudged so we ended up resembling Forerunners.
The dramatic, meaningful reveal to the Arbiter was a much better choice than Guilty Spark just saying, "You are the child of my makers. Inheritor of all they left behind. You are Forerunner!"
If Bungie weren't forced by Microsoft to a early release date Halo 3 would have been the 3-rd act of Halo 2 . They might have actually wrapped it up there since Bungie were pretty tired of doing Halo games after 3 so Reach had a short campaign too and ODST was an asset flip to fill the 5 games they had to make to get done with their contract ,there still not bad games though
Of course the Arbiter riding Guilty Spark fades out with the pose mirroring the Marathon symbol
pretty insane how with the forerunners being their own species retcon it nulls the reason the covenant went to war with the humans
Well this only makes me even more mad at 343's "lore".
I wonder if the Arbiter's ending was going to be for Legendary difficulty only, whereas you only get the Chief's ending if you play on lower difficulties.
That would have been the best legendary ending in the series. I assume if the game was finished as intended legendary wouldn't be as broken and more people would play it.
It's strange to think that halo 3 killed off Johnson, Miranda, and Guilty Spark while all three survived in this intended ending. But there's still the mystery behind what happened to cortana right?
Yeah and the Flood would still be an active threat in the galaxy too
@@ugiustuskeiserus8066 dang good point
@@ugiustuskeiserus8066 which begs the question if Halo 3 would have still been a thing. And if so, it'd probably be DRASTICALLY different from the version we have today.
I’ll be honest, while I included Marty’s quote in the trailer, I don’t entirely trust it. I think this version of Halo still would’ve been finally concluded in a third entry. It just would’ve been a different Halo 3.
@@C3_SABERTOOTH well the rest of Bungie still shared the same sentiments as Marty right? Looks like Halo 2 was going to have cliffhangers no matter what.
I always found Halo 3's writing to be incredibly lacking compared to Halo 2, and this basically proves why. The events of Halo 3 were not meant to be watered down and stretched out into a full game's worth of story.
Thank god I’m not alone in the world with this opinion. Even as a younger teenager Halo 3’s plot felt lackluster compared to 2. Not to mention that Halo 2’s cliffhanger with the Flood being resolved alongside the end of the Human-Covenant War denies us a full campaign on dealing with the Elites war on the Brutes, and the Flood. Which, ironically, is exactly what Halo 3 ended up being anyway.
I heard part of the reason was due to everyone at Bungie being so burned out, some when on hiatus during early development, like Joseph Staten.
@@alexanderrobins7497couldn't imagine being an artist, having to cut out so much content and then having my creation ruined in the future
The way the Great Journey scene is staged is significantly better than what we got in the final game. I like the idea of the Arbiter speaking to his elite brothers rather than Tartarus about the Prophets betrayal.
The way I yelled 'holy shit' at the end... That was a brilliant ending! Wow.
OH MY GOD. The scene of the elite ships decimating the Brute army. We needed that so badly
The arbiter’s dialouge to truth was amazing…
Wow
Human lifespan in Halo's 2552 setting is drastically increased with ages easily hitting 100+, so that along with frequent cryo-stasis and the enhancements Spartans receive, Master Chief is relatively young for that time. Just look at Sgt. Johnson, he was presumed to be 78 years old upon his death on the Ark and he was on the front lines of some gnarly battles. Johnson did have enhancements though due to him being a part of the failed Spartan-I program.
With that being said, a romance between Chief and Miranda would still have been weird to suddenly be present or hinted at at the end of the game. And I've always viewed Chief's relationship with Cortana in a similar vein as Big Boss' relationship with The Boss. The love is there and it's immense, but it goes beyond romance. When you're together with someone for so long and go through extreme situations with each other, the roots of camaraderie form an intense bond.
My assumption would be enhancements would *reduce* lifespan, not increase it. Taking things to their limit typically doesn't increase their resilience. I think the Cryostasis is the best excuse for it though, since that literally halts the progression of aging, and thus chronologically he'd be 41, knocking even 5 years off his biological clock makes it far less icky.
Having said all of that, 15 years isn't too bad a difference as long as the younger party is at least 25. (People don't really change much after 25 years of age).
Thank you so much for your dedication to this project! I would have had a hard time interpreting and visualizing it all myself with only the storyboards. Thanks to your visual and audio enhancements, and your deep lore knowledge, I get to soak in every last drop in awe!
12:54 this is peak Halo comedy and I am here for it
14:22 The phantoms coming in as low as they can, skimming the flat desert and kicking up dust behind them, is such a badass visual! It reminded me of when I first saw The Last Jedi trailer with the ski speeders. I thought that was such a cool visual too, then I saw the actual movie with the context of how dumb and pointless of a plan it was lmao
It's cool to see how much of 2 & 3 are present in the early storyboarding. They really set this up to be the end of halo and pulled out all the stops.
Well it wasn't intended to be the end, but the start of a new, and very different, chapter. It was still going to have the post-credits cliffhanger scene with Cortana on high charity, so Halo 3 would probably feature Gravemind as the main antagonist without a mainline covenant force. Arbiter may be sent on some type of negotiation mission or diving deeper into the forerunners.
With the mod tools, it could be possible to bring the original vision of Halo 2 to life.
and using AI generated voice. sure hope someone with skills and passion does this one day
Shii I'm going to build me a PC
This is the only ending I care about now. 'Things look different without 343's lies clouding me vision'. Excellent work, sabertooth👍
I like donkeys explanation that 343 industries is 343 guilty spark trying to imagine the future of the Halo universe after getting destroyed
High Prophet of the Halo storyboards, we thank you for taking us on a Great Journey
Fingers crossed this'll get made into a mod
Maybe someday
Somebody needs to pay the voice actors to give a few lines. I know Steve Downs and Jeff Steitzer have done it for fans before.
Halo 3 After This: Arbiter and Commander go off and break the Covenant and bring peace. Chief and Spark go rescue Cortana and destroy the Flood.
Two "buddy cop" stories, and probably a better ending for Spark than going psycho mode over losing his Ring again.
Bungie's Forerunner story is so much more satisfying than 343 and their terrible direction!
Fantastic work man.
I guess Halo 3 would have been Chief getting Cortana back and fighting the Flood with the Arbiter and the Elites stopping the Covenant, one way or another.
Probably.
Fantastic work dude! Happy to have helped support this and future projects of yours!
Happy to have your credited contributions!
When Bungje said Halo 2 was going to be ambitious, I didn't know what they truly meant until I watched this. Halo 2 was going to be insane.
Dude. You deserve SO many more views and subscribers, the effort you've put into all this is TANGIBLE. I've always loved seeing those storyboards, but seeing them in motion with dialogue is something else, and your explanations for all those abandoned concepts are on point.
See you on the Great Journey
Wow the Arbiter ending actually hit. Such a more fulfilling conclusion. Considering this maybe 343s games are just some bad alternative timeline we can forget about.
This really came to life you did a phenomenal job
I appreciated you giving context to everything as well
Dude arbiter becoming the reclaimer symbol at the end was just.. amazing. The true ending..🙏🙏
I can see both angles to the "Miranda and Chief" romance arc. I for one wouldn't have minded it, it might have needed more setup, but I think every good story can support a romance. That's just me though, barring a romance subplot, I think it could also be interpreted as a way of the pair reflecting on both of the things they've lost, Miranda, her father, and Chief, well, as far as we know at this point in Halo's story (to my somewhat limited knowledge) everyone. I could be wrong, but I think it's in "Halo: The Flood" where it's stated that Chief looks up to Captain Keyes as almost a father figure. In this sense, Miranda and Chief are more of a brother and sister, and it's like they're finally able to put down their guns and mourn the lost, almost what we see in the Hillside Monument of the ending of Halo 3.
It’s not just Captain Keyes - Dr. Halsey is arguably the Chief’s surrogate mom!
The “knowing smile” definitely suggests romance to me, and my biggest qualm with the whole thing is how a romance between these two is borderline incestuous. I agree, they’re practically siblings!
@@C3_SABERTOOTH "Knowing Smile" to me just seems like an adjective to describe a subdued, but still obviously very joyful smile from Johnson now that the war is officially over. Again, I don't really mind the notion of them being a "thing", it would require some explanation, and perhaps you're right, but the sibling dynamic also works for them, and I think it's sweet that Halo 2 was the game where Chief finds his family in his comrades, Arbiter, his newfound brother, Johnson, his old time brother, and Miranda, his new younger sister.
@@C3_SABERTOOTH Also, I hate to resurrect an old comment, but I just finished Floodgate while playing for fun, and I realized that in the outro cutscene, after the Arbiter and Johnson take the other factions' weapons to their own, Chief and Miranda watch Lord Hood depart on a pelican, in a similar fashion to how they're depicted here. Not quite the same context, but perhaps in some early draft of Halo 3, the idea that the war with the the Elites/Seperatists was considered the end of the war in some capacity, and the idea of Chief and Miranda looking over at a planetary body was replaced with Lord Hood and the Ark Portal.
@@theta_clips Ah, I kind of see the parallel there!
@@C3_SABERTOOTH Just thought I'd mention it, I love your channel and it lets me delve into Halo lorecrafting and cut content. Keep it up man!
RUclips actually insane for not recommeneding this to everyone. Like this is possibly the highest quality way to show this content. Insane how low the views of this video are
Phenomenal work, its fascinating to see how much of this made it into Halo 3, they ended up changing the overall presentation but most of the general beats were still there.
Those Marine dialogue choices are both absurd and hilarious. Well done
i can't even fathom the amount of work that must have went in to create those animatics
I feel like we are all capable of great things, it's just this modern world does a good job at keeping us distracted
It's sad to see this amazing series come to a close, but I couldn't imagine a finer and fitter ending. Hope one day we can see H3s storyboards but regardless I'm just looking forward to seeing more of your stuff! Great animation and funny commentary!
I can’t imagine Halo 3’s story would have changed much over development - I mean you’re basically looking at the earliest draft of it in this video.
@@samlund8543It did change though and I know this for a weird reason. In 2006 there was a Marvel Comic Line for Halo 3 called "Uprising" . It was said to have a key plot point in Halo 3. Well the only plot point in that entire comic was the Key of Osanalan basically a McGuffin for why the Halos did not work right. It turned out narratively a bluff that had nothing to do with Halo or anything frankly, however that is said to be why the comic were so delayed. They were meant to come out as a lead up in the summer of 06 and after issue 1 were immediately delayed because of plot points in the story. The comica ended up releasing in 08 and being entirely useless . Marvel officially said a major plot point in Halo 3s development was made and it needed to be reworked.
Beyond that , some time between 2/3 The Earth Ark became the Portal and the Halo 3 Ark beyond the galaxy came into being (Probably very early on)
These have been great, thanks for making these. After seeing this ending, I’m quite happy that it instead ended in the fashion Halo 3 did. Something about this ending just feels empty? It feels like it would have been rushed. Obviously these are just early storyboards but I don’t think it would have been a great experience having all that stuff crammed into the end of the game
I really like this Master Chief ending tbh aside from the random Miranda interest in Chief. It feels well earned for him and I think Arbiters fits pretty well too. He's completely freed from the lies of the Prophet's and the entirety of the Covenant's purpose/belief and he can be at peace with himself for once. Even though the sequel bait is still somewhat present by saying Arbiter and the elites are going to finish the Civil War in the Covenant but it's still pretty cool
Johnson calling Tartarus a gorilla is a line I’m sad was cut
What I fucking hate is how it turned out. Forerunners and Humans as a separate species. All this knowledge I have now about Halo 4, 5 and Infinite ret-conning Halo 1, 2, 3, ODST and Reach. I love the atmosphere of this, it feels like Halo, more so than everything 343 managed to make.
Thank you for making these!
YOU’RE WELCOME FOR MAKING THESE.
@@C3_SABERTOOTH
Now we wait until someone turns these story boards into reality :)
i have a feeling you read each comment, no need to reply. i have a lot on my mind but i just want to say thank you for making these. as a big time halo fan since 2004, i love seeing more bungie era content. im happy someone made this, and you made it very well, great voice to listen too and you make funny quips and good editing and pacing. hope too see more from this channel
Haha I _do_ read every comment because I’m desperate for validation!
Thank you so much! It really means a lot.
(and I do have more planned)
@@C3_SABERTOOTH hahaha i am the same and take care i will share this with my halo friends
Way better ending to the Halo Story than we got with Halo 3!
Man this woulda been a great tie up of the series and I'm loving all the callbacks to the start of Halo 2. Really woulda added another layer of thoughtfulness to the story.
You deserve an award for this.
This still could’ve worked if this story was spread across two games, seems a bit much for just one, plus that only leaves the Flood as an Antagonist and they’re pretty unfun to fight on their own
Yeah that would be the one unintended consequence if we got the original halo 2 story. Narratively I think it could still work, but gameplay wise [unless the remnants of the covenant lead by the brutes is in the story] could cause the gameplay to feel stale as flood levels with them as the only enemy were more of a chore to get through
Just sat through most of your recent videos and I've gotta say, you've done some phenomenal work here. As someone who is pretty disenfranchised with the story from 4 to current, this stuff has literally given me some much needed closure and I feel like I've seen the true canon story of Halo here (minus the Chief + Miranda thing. That was... yeah). I still like a lot of what resulted in Halo 3, but seeing what could have been is just... awesome. The Forerunner lore is just absolutely convoluted and confusing now, I really wish there was some way to fix it... maybe Joe can work some magic, but probably not with 343i's team in charge of 'canon'. Again, great work man.
I think the two storyboards have "fade to credits" because Bungie wanted to alternate the cutscenes like at the beginning of the game.
-You fight Truth in a final boss battle (like Tartarus) and defeat him
-Cutscene starts and Chief and Arbiter split up. Chief makes it out, but not Arby
-Arby follows Guilty Spark and that whole scene plays out. It ends with him ascending into the light
-From the bright light is the zoom out from Chief's name tag. He's awarded and saluted
-Camera slowly moves through rows of elites. One salutes. The camera turns and shows Arby
-UNSC applaud and whistle. Chief tugs on his cap
-Arby walks up to Vadum, and Vadum asks what's next. "Take us home." Slow pan away from window
-Ships zoom away and fireworks. Chief contemplates at the window as Johnson and Miranda approach. She asks if that's it. "It's finished." Slow pan out from the window, showing the covenant as they leave. Fade out
Now a part of me wishes we can get these deleted levels in MCC.
343 Industries has invited modders to look through their archives and port what they can to the final builds. What sucks is they’ve implied their records aren’t complete.
Well there is a huge difference between storyboards and level design. Sometimes the ideas never get past the paper.
@@alexanderrobins7497 We know some of these did.
Wouldn't really work considering halo 3 exists
@@peterlavery8830 I seen some pretty impressive Halo 3 mods ngl
10:32 is got to be one of the most epic halo moments!!
Man I really wish we got this version of Halo 2, would have been a whole different Halo 3 but that's fine with me, this ending was so much better and I absolutely love that the Forerunners were ancient humans. And the Oracle's final words to his creators plus the Arbiter's recaction to it is just chef's kiss. Also makes much more sense why the Elites would so easily form an alliance with Humanity and so fast
I think that Halo 3 is a Far more epic and Far more fitting conclusion to the Halo trilogy
I just watched through all the parts of this and I have to say that you did a fantastic job! Makes me hope one day we can see some of these storyboards as cutscenes
Damn. If only halo 2 had been launched as a 360 title
I know, it would have been Epic.
Hold up so forerunners we’re originally meant to be humans?
Holy fuck
No. Rewatch it again at 28:45.
“Ah, the holotype. A reference for their development.”
Human evolution was nudged by the Forerunners to resemble each other, but are still two separate species that never met. I think this interpretation is phenomenal compared to what we got in Halo 3 or with 343 Incompetencies.
What? This was still the case in Halo 3
343 guilty spark literally says to master chief "you are forerunner" in the final mission
The "... .. ... YEAH." was perfect lol
i started freaking out in my head at 11:00 imagining the camera doing the zoom in from CE when chief receives cortana and cuts to gameplay
If HALO ever gets the big screen movie treatment properly I pray that it is faithful with Bungie's vision and follows many of the story beats in this HALO 2 original ending minus the Chief x Miranda plot.
Absolutely Amazing Quality, so much work.
Thanks C3 for this unparalleled series
Personally loved the Notes
This was absolutely incredible. An amazingly well put together project, sound, animation, everything. Even though I knew about human's being forerunners in Bungie''s OG vision, that ending was still a WTF moment. I can only imagine how good that ending would have been if it ever made release
Hey dude, I know everyone has given this series the highest praise already but seriously, thank you so much for this. I can’t imagine how much work this must’ve taken, the production value is incredible.
Hopefully one day Halo gets a faithful adaptation as a film trilogy like it deserves. If it does, man I hope they draw as much inspiration from the best of these videos as they do the actual games. The lost ending here is the finest narrative moment in the history of the franchise. I totally get why Bungie were always salty about how Halo 2 turned out now.
6:55 Actually Marty once appeared to me in a dream and said the gameplay mentioned here was a three round game of Halo-themed Candy Crush. Yeah Candy Crush is a Forerunner invention.
In all seriousness though, I love the through-line of Chief landing on Delta Halo with a bang and then doing the same back on Earth. What a cool moment.
Wow I’ve known about halo ever since I was 6 years old back in 2004 , and been obsessed with its story .. this is the first time I ever hear about another ending , at this age of 24 yo now!
subbed
this was incredible
SERIOUSLY THIS WAS FUCKING AWESOME I hope it inspires some people to come together and Mod this into Halo 3s Engine as a whole "Halo 2 Lost Cut"
Seriously would be awesome.
Damn, well I'm downloading the mcc again on Monday, need some halo 2 and 3 in my veins thanks for this, it was immense.
I was late to the halo party. I played Halo CE in 2019 and fell in love with that game. I beat it several times before moving to Halo 2.
I loved the first few levels and sure was confused about that was happening in Halo 2. I felt like the game dragged on a bit and I remember beating it and was really confused about why it ended like that, Like I was missing something. I read story summaries but eventually moved on to Halo 3 but the story just seemed to be such a mess by that games' conclusion.
It was only recently I learned about the Earth Ark and the final cut act. Someone told me the story continued into 3 but I never felt great about it's conclusion. I stumbled upon the story boards and this video (Thank you for putting this together man, you did a great job) However, this cut act closes so many loop holes and finishes up the story much better than Halo 3 did.
As they are released it makes little sense to have the arbiter have so much play time and screen time but with this ending you really see what they were going for.
With Halo 2's release for the 2004 Holiday season, they could have released a second disc (containing the final cut act) in March or April for an additional cost $20-30 or free downloadable (To the HD) dlc via xbox live. But god damn this ending is way better. Enough rambling. Thanks for the video man. I appreciate it.
Thank you so much, your work means a lot to me. It's a shame we didn't come to see this storyline
Is anyone else glad that when 343i made Halo 2 anniversary, they just pasted new graphics over the old game without rebalancing legendary difficulty? I mean imagine if they gave us a completed version of what Halo 2 was supposed to be. This isn't the biggest missed opportunity since Disney didn't have a reunion of Han, Luke, and Leah in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Best company ever.
They couldn't have done the latter as these story boards were long gone and it would conflate with Halo 3. Now the former they definitely could have done. Simply reducing some numbers in the code would have been simple. Best company indeed.
@@spartanq7781 the only changes id make would be the gravemind starting fight (you die as the game loads in, make a script stop the brutes from firing for atleast 2 or 3 seconds), and reduce legendary damage multiplier from enemies from 1.5 to 1.25. This will prevent jackals from one shotting chief.
id also add a script to make the ai not shoot immediately after you get off regret in his boss fight, its very RNG based.
@@halinaqi2194 Halo 2 cranked the damage and the enemies rate of fire way too much. Halo 2 on heroic is a bit too easy so there is no perfect difficulty. Halo 1 nailed difficulty perfectly but later Halo games always got one or two things wrong.
Halo 2 way too hard.
Halo 3 and Odst way too easy
Halo Reach way to frustrating
Halo 4 a pain in the ass
I don't know about the later games.
On the one hand I’m glad the halo 2 story got split as we wouldn’t get the improved halo 3 gameplay. But on the other I wish the story ended with halo 2 as the cut script of halo 2 is just so much better as wrapping up the story
Fantastic job on animating these! Super beautiful work! Also so cool to see what the original ending was and how many similarities it has to the final version of Halo 3.
I've been waiting for this, and it didn't disappoint! Excellent work as ever, it's great to see Halo history brought to life in such an entertaining way!
That was interesting. I do think the Ark being just a buried building on Earth would have been rather unimpressive. Though maybe what we got in Halo 3 is colouring my perception.
I really love the paperdoll depictions of hypothetical levels.
Yeah this would have been awesome.
It's makes more sense as why forerunners were human, and the "reclaimer" reclaiming the mantle. Now if we can get some modders to recreate the campaign in halo 2's engine to reimagine their original intent, the journey would be complete.
Great video, you've put a lot of time into this! Shame that we most probably won't ever see Halo 2 done as Bungie first envisioned it. Imagine if they would do a remake of Halo 2 with all this.. Greatest single player experience ever.
Also, I would love to get my hands on the lore how Forerunners thought Data Vault would affect humanity. I study theology and this just opened a possible research in my mind. That would be so fun to connect the dots between Abrahamic religions and Halo!
It should be a Fracture.
@@velshu
I think Joseph Staten majored in theology which makes sense. It sounds like the original intended lore in Halo 2 was that humans were not Forerunners or spacefaring cavemen, but our evolution was nudged by the Forerunners which I find to be a phenomenal idea compared to what we got.
Thank god you got recommended to me again - I forgot to subscribe like a month ago
Man seeing guilty spark saying goodbye to his makers and saying that they would be proud kinda teared me up a bit
wonderfully animated. thank you for bringing this to life
Absoloutely fantastic work on this.
While I do adore the Halo 2 and 3 we got, I would have loved beyond measure to see this play out. I think this is a far better way to conclude the Arbiter's story arc. It's a far more devastating realization than just finding out what Halo truly did and carries a lot more emotional impact.
I love this. It’s like I’m experiencing halo again for the first time
It wouldn’t have been that easy for 343 to retcon the original lore if we had gotten the original ending
Man, what a trip. Even just the animatics just blow me away like if it was the real deal. The team at Bungie really knew how to plan out a masterful story, no doubt the gaming landscape would be notably different if Halo 2 was the ending of the covenant - human war with that ending.
Regarding the profets nuking the universe, I'm not well versed into this conversation but I do recall the profets knowing about the humans direct relationship with the forerunners. They had their people safeguarded in from the ring's blast in shield locations, I'd assume they wanted to be the true gods of a restarted universe and built however they saw fit. However I'm not sure if this matches with the old lore or if Bungie had this story planned out or thought out in some way or I'm just mixing new lore with old one.
At any rate, this whole video was amazing, and it just feels like if Bungie released a new alternate story in current year, well even if it was known for a while, I'm sure animating all the animatics was a lot of work.
That 2nd paragraph would make more sense because why do forerunners not exist anymore... doesnt make sense that they would obliterate themselves out of existence and preserve everything except themselves. Not sure what the lore reason given is but i'm sure it's a stretch to cover that plothole.
@@randomhiphop5055 I'm guessing it was part of removing the food sources for the flood but keeping themselves as the ones with the mantle of responsibility, hence destroying themselves in the process. But we can only speculate so much on alternative lore, fascinating nonetheless.
@@XradicalD Actually we have a reason, and it's even stated in the Terminals of CEA. The reason why the Forerunners chose extinction was to atone for the sins of creating the Flood outbreak to begin with. The reason why Humanity are the Reclaimers is because we were chosen by the Precursors to hold the Mantle of Resonsibility, causing the Forerunners to become jealous and spiteful, and then committed genocide on the Precursors, the ancient gods of the Halo universe, who then turned themselves into a dust form to try and escape the massacre. This dust corrupted and became the Flood, which began to infect Human planets and when humanity tried to run they wound up in Forerunner territory, burning an infected Forerunner planet to stop the plague from spreading, which sparked off the Human-Forerunner war. Weakened by the war against humanity, and with humanity unable to focus on the Flood, the parasite became too powerful and took over everything. The Forerunners' war avainst humanity without giving them a chance to explain and genocide against the Precursors were the reason why the Halos were needed.
Great video as always, you always put so much effort into these!
25:52 "No ... I think we're just getting started."
Would of been a perfect line to put there as a callback to CE and also with the implication of the flood still being loose.
This was great. Thank you.
Thoroughly enjoying seeing these alternate aspects. Thanks for making this!
29:59 looks like he's ballin
With MCC mods, we might still get a chance to play this version of Halo 2
Maybe when Halo 2 Anniversary Multiplayer Mod tools come out, maybe we can see a remake of the Halo 2 Campaign as it was originally envisioned!
@@Finger112 I like to envision an alternate timeline with this version of Halo 2
but we'd miss out on Halo 3, ODST, and probably Reach, I'm happy with what we got but sometimes I wonder
also what would come of the 343 games they would be massively different, could they be better or worse
Just need to get some talented game designs together and pay the voice actors to reprise their rolls for a few days.
Mate, your work here is fantastic. These animatics have totally revitalised my love for the original Halo series. I'd love for modders one day to bring these to the game some day. Props to bungie for such an amazing story, and no props to 343 for killing it.
I love how 11:00 just exemplifies the fact that everyone sees Chief as the solution to their problems. Like dude just shows up all ex-machina like and the Marines get an instant morale boost