A few days back, the Digsite team dropped Halo 2’s E3 2003 prototype level as a free mod to ‘Halo: The Master Chief Collection’ via the Steam Workshop. This level, famously put together through gum, duct tapes, and dreams showcased just what the series’ former developer Bungie was aiming to bring to the table to a sequel to the original XBox’s swan song ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’. This prototype map takes players through the streets of New Mombasa during the Covenant invasion of Earth. When the game launched, this level was wildly different from what was shown—and for good reason: this level was prone to breaking if you veered off script just a teeny tiny bit.
This rebuilt version aims to bring the long-forgotten stage demo to MCC’s framework, with several elements adjusted to have it work with the currently supported Halo games. And now you can give it a try if you have the Steam version of Halo: The Master Chief Collection (with the ‘Halo 2: Anniversary’ DLC). Simply head this way and subscribe to the mod and Steam will download the necessary files to get the level up and running. When starting MCC, make sure to run the game with EasyAntiCheat disabled, or the mods you download simply won’t show. Unfortunately, this mod will not work with the Game Pass version of MCC on Xbox nor PC due to the locked down nature of the platform. That and, well, the Xbox PC app kind of sucks.
As for the Digsite team, they’re not stopping with just Halo 2’s E3 level (they’ve already put out tonnes of stuff for curious historians). Working with Halo Studios, more maps from the series’ history are on the way, with the next release being “Alpha Moon”, a cut map that would have been a continuation of the gas giant environment you’d see in Halo 2’s The Arbiter level. The pursuit of the Heretic leader continues on Basis, a moon among remnants of Installation 04 and will be available in the Digsite team’s Digtacular Map mod pack.
