The legendary E3 demo of Halo 2 is finally playable twenty years later
Sometimes it takes twenty years to settle a bet. The Halo 2 The demo shown at E3 2003 is finally playable by the public. As part of a wider celebration of Halo 2In celebration of the game’s 20th anniversary, the demo will be available as a Steam Workshop mod for Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Xbox announced today in a blog post.
Certainly, long-lost game demos are not a rarity, thanks to the Beyond good and evil 2 Rule. But the Halo 2 The E3 2003 demo holds a higher esteem in the hearts and minds of Halo fans, having achieved godlike status over the years. Although the demo was only nine minutes long, the Halopedia page because it alone includes thousands of words and dozens of archive images.
The demo showed series hero Master Chief fighting the Covenant in a metropolitan area on Earth. At the time, the demo offered the series its first glimpse of human life at home, while also showcasing innovative (also for the time) gameplay mechanics such as the ability to drop an enemy from a moving vehicle. The demo ends with Master Chief activating a plasma grenade while surrounded by a small army of enemies. “Betcha can’t hold on,” says Cortana, Master Chief’s AI companion. “You’re busy,” he replies. Fade to black. (You can watch a version of the demo here.)
It was a tantalizing way to sell a vision of what players could expect Halo 2. But the demo never made it into the final version of Halo 2. Instead, the game started with a battle on a space station.
The demo itself remained unplayable for decades, something that muddies have chalked to missing source files. But developer 343 Industries announced in 2022 that it had found the source files and was in the process of releasing a playable version of the demo. Since then, however, the Halo series has gone through several years of turbulence.
The 2003 E3 demo isn’t the only way Halo Studios is celebrating Halo 2‘s 20th. The studio is also adding seven Halo 2 cards to Halo Infinity‘s multiplayer mode: Ascension, Turf, Lockout, Warlock, Sanctuary, Beaver Creek and Midship, a staple of almost every Halo multiplayer mode of the past twenty years. All seven cards were created in Forge, Halo Infinity‘s card making tool. While a bastardized version of Midship already exists Halo Infinity with the Starboard map, this newer version (known in matchmaking playlists as Inquisitor) is more faithful to the Halo 2 original: Yes, this one is actually purple.