Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto has shared some of the unreleased prototype weaponry once considered for Halo: Combat Evolved.
In a post on Twitter earlier today, Lehto uploaded a short video of an old PC build of Halo: Combat Evolved, showing off some of the weird and wonderful weapons that were cut from the final version. These weapons include a concussion gun, excavator, particle beam rifle, and even a microwave gun.
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Lehto then began to run around the environment and show off some unreleased enemy designs, one of which would apparently go on to inspire the design of the Engineers, a race of non-combative Covenant that the player would occasionally run into throughout the game.
As you'd expect, Halo fans have been having a field day with the video, pointing out interesting differences between the models seen in Lehto's video and the final version. One keen-eyed fan noticed the strange-looking tank at the beginning of the video and asked Lehto whether this was an early version of the Scorpion.
Lehto then replied explaining that the tank is actually a stealth tank that had to be cut from the final version of the game before the team "started dev for Xbox." Halo: Combat Evolved was originally planned to be an RTS and then a third-person shooter on PC. It's likely a bunch of these designs were scrapped when the game transitioned to a first-person shooter on Xbox.
I found these Covenant weapon prototypes in my old 2000 Halo PC build that you might like.
c concussion gun
c excavator
c particle beam rifle
c microwave gun
I like the meter cooldown on the concussion gun.
The microwave gun would have been hilarious.#Halo pic.twitter.com/qGQO0XFn3R— Marcus Lehto (@game_fabricator) July 8, 2021
And if you can't get enough of these prototype Halo designs, you might want to follow Lehto on Twitter. When asked whether he'd be sharing more videos of this old build, Lehto replied "I'll try to set something up soon," meaning that we could get a look at some more unreleased assets in the future.
As for Halo in the here and now, Halo Infinite is still expected to launch this holiday season, although a specific release date still hasn't been announced. According to Phil Spencer, the reason for no date is that Halo Infinite is waiting for other big releases to decide upon their release dates first, likely to give the game the biggest chance to succeed as possible.
Halo Infinite will launch for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and will launch day one on Xbox Game Pass. Multiplayer for the game has been confirmed to be free to play.
Source: GameSpot
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