Halo 2 Cut Campaign Mission Moonbase

[@Spartan472]

There was this one kid I knew in middle school who told me that his dad worked in Halo 2's production. He told me that there was a moon base mission in development. Of course by the time Halo 2 was released, it revealed there being no mission on the moon; so I figured that the kid was just B.S.ing me at the time. Twenty years later I stumble across this video, and now I'm all like "huh... well look at that?!"

[@Turtle3000]

It’s pretty cool seeing Halo 1 assets, like the elevator buttons and lights on the walls, but in Halo 2. Oh and the light sticks!

[@kabob0077]

Moonbase, as with the other M1 missions, are less cut content and more concept and milestone levels. Also, Heed, the lore for this level is on the Digsite article.

[@dootscoot1324]

Thats all that the digsite content is. None of it is unreleased assets. Its just remade stuff going off info that they know.

[@zilentis1835]

I think Heed has gotten this confused with “Alpha Moon”, which is the cut concept for the original heretic mission in Halo 2. Instead of going to a gas station on Halo’s gravity anchor and fighting Sesa, you’d instead go to the moon Basis and fight heretical Hunters.

[@kabob0077]

@@dootscoot1324 Well, there IS actual cut content such as the Falcon, Alpha Moon, Earthcity, and other stuff in other Digsite releases but a fair amount of the content in this release is Milestone content.

[@blckbeauty4406]

​@@zilentis1835Alpha Moon was far more advanced than just a "cut concept". Even Joe Staten said they reused the geometry of Alpha Moon for "Quarantine Zone".

[@Leftysrev3nge]

Mission: Go down to go up.

[@ihazcheese]

"The mission's stay the same. They always do."

[@CobaltSanderson]

So the same as 343 Guilty Spark in CE

[@LegoMaster_7778]

whats funny is that the grunts and jackels are not even wearing suits in space but the elites are

[@Kangoatrilla]

@LegoMaster_7778 To a degree I have to wonder how much space gear grunts need with their tolerance to cold and their exoskeleton. I'm guessing they'd still need full coverage though

[@gohsk1512]

grunts breathe methane from the tanks on their backs. Its why they explode with gas coming out sometimes.

[@ATP2555ify]

They didn't make ranger models for them

[@xboxgamerJ16]

Id love to play the Halo 3 pre-release high charity mission from the Halo 2.5 build.

[@voli6570]

i once saw a picture of it on the internet and never again

[@TessTickles1]

Vadam has some more work to do on uncut

[@turnpikeike1242]

🤣

[@joelkreiser9851]

Wish mods were on Xbox so everyone could play this cut content that’s been releasing

[@RANDOMPEPSIBOTTLES]

Ikr

[@CantRead1]

Or they could just straight up put this content in the game itself on the main menu.

[@shreksnow1918]

Stalker just barely got mod support on console. The devs behind that game are living in a country that’s currently at war. 343 on the other hand has no excuse not to give MCC mod support. Especially since they’re funded my Microsoft.

[@LegoMaster_7778]

im a xbox player and i wish i could play this stuff

[@sharkapuppet]

Mcc is functional on lower end lap tops these days

[@Kevaca]

Waiting for AlphaGasGiant restoration surely

[@Kangoatrilla]

I have had reoccurring dreams about a videogame structure almost exactly like what is seen here and it trips me out. I'm certain I've never seen this cut content before.

[@bruggs5654]

Right? I feel like I’ve seen this too. It makes me think that this level or map could have been leaked at some point in the last 20 years, sinking into our subconscious?

[@kabob0077]

I strongly encourage everyone to take a look at the Digsite article, it's a fun read and gives amazing insight into the purpose behind these maps among other things. Personally I really want to see M1 Assault.

[@Legitti]

That has parts feeling like they're from so many other levels, very nice

[@Voxiiit]

If my memory's correct, this mission was supposed to take place with the arbiter I remember in a dev talk about Halo 2 they mentionned a mission that was supposed to be on the moon right before Sacred Icon, it might be this one

[@Jose_Doe]

Well jt was more like this WAS supposed to be the first arbiter mission and the heretics were all gonna be hunters, they realized that would suck changed it to what we got now

[@Voxiiit]

@@Jose_Doe ok my bad, I haven't saw that video in ages

[@Jose_Doe]

@@Voxiiit I was half right, what I mentioned was arbiters moon mission not this specific moon level

[@SquirrelCaptin]

You're thinking of AlphaMoon. AlphaMoon shares a lot of visuals with the multiplayer map Burial Mounds. This level, M1 Moonbase, was more of a concept or tech demo.

[@kabob0077]

That's AlphaMoon which is a different level. Moonbase here is a Milestone map (I think the M1 in this map and others means it's Milestone 1 to be specific, if we get M2 and M3 maps later on then that "M[Number]" designation probably does denote what milestones they are) and was used to test things and concepts.

[@waede116]

1:21 STRIKE!!!

[@Omega4Productions]

Title’s a bit clickbait-y. Moonbase was a milestone concept-testing level. The concepts tested on this level, such as zero-G, would later be incorporated into Cairo Station. This level was never going to be part of the retail campaign.

[@TinkyWiwinky]

You are absolutely wrong in every possible ways that exists in this world. Fyi stop posting crappy videos in your account. No one watches your contents.

[@Jose_Doe]

Oh really? So is the arbiters cut moon mission a different moon level then?

[@Omega4Productions]

@@Jose_Doe Completely different. Alpha Moon is coming but Digsite team is still working on it.

[@MOONSTORMMUSIC]

@@Omega4ProductionsThank you.

[@XXPYR0XX]

not really zero g if it was then when u jump u would keep going and not fall back down.

[@Iridescent_Astraea]

Really interesting level design, it's like a mix of Silent Cartographer and Oracle

[@americankatyusha1917]

The fall down the hill while killing elites and grunts reminds me of the mission in 5 where you run down a guardian killing crawlers and soldiers.

[@HyperKilljoy112]

It seems more like a forerunner type mission that’s meant to mirror the Arbiter’s Scared Icon level. Honestly if this made it into the game instead of the Gondola ride I would very much prefer it. Here’s my alternate take on how the story goes from that mission: Like the attempt to kill Regret went south and instead he got away leaving behind the super Carrier that blows you into the water. Or if not that another nameless marine,similar to Echo 419, comes to the rescue, and pulls you out in just the nick of time. Your objective remains the same, to kill the Prophet of Regret, and maybe extract some information out of him. It cuts away to the arbiter level and that proceeds just about the same way. Only difference is that he doesn’t get blasted down to the grave mind because well there’s no tension for the great schism just yet. We’re back to the Chiefs side of the story and they’ve somehow track regret to this remote forerunner base, and with some recon they find it’s some kind of saferoom like structure that prevents you from being obliterated by the halo array. Regret thought he keep that for himself but then chief comes along and essentially wreck the whole base trying to find him and at the end of this moon mission kills him in a cutscene. In some badass way. And in his dying breath, regret issues a command to truth and that’s when the great schism begins. Chief is then picked up by the same nameless marine and together they get word that Johnson and Miranda are captured and they’re going to High Charity to save them. The story then cuts to the Arbiter handing the Prophet of Truth the Index, this is the exact same second regret Sends truth that message and boom, instead of Chief being on High Charity it’s an Arbiter Level. The arbiter goes around high charity and rallies the elites and grunts who are now being hunted. Along the way, Rtas, reaches out and tell him where the Prophet is headed and that’s when he picks you up and fly in a phantom to the activation room. As they leave, they both witness the In Amber of Clad slipspace rupture. And Rtas says that same like again, “That Stench I’ve smelt it before” The Chief and nameless marine has flow into space and is on their way to High Charity and they realize that they’re in the middle of the great schism, they try to fly around the chaos but is shot down, barely hanging onto power they manage to crash the pelican onto the same platform where Johnson and Miranda was held captive before they were sent to surface. That’s where Miranda drops something, a distress beacon. After coming to the Chief and the nameless marine comes around and Cortana detects multiple marine iff transponders including the commander and they go on a rescue mission. That’s when they the Witness the In amber Clad flying in and notices the crash and flood essence start to pour out of the ship. Similar to Halo 3 Chief becomes stunned and Cortana says we need to get out of here. Essentially the rest of the story would play out very similarly just like High Charity and The Great Journey did. Cortana sort of chooses to stay behind because there’s some controls that need to be controlled and they were running out of options all the marines would die off one by one to the flood encounter and Cortana sees that she needs to save John at the very least. That’s when she forcibly sends Chief through that Power Coupling and we still get that memorable quote, “After I’m through with Truth” exchange. The Chief and Arbiter would never meet until at the start of Halo 3. It would kinda make a little more sense since at the start of Halo 3 Chief literally sticks the magnum up Arbiters Jaw instantly. I remember back then at the start of halo 3 I was like why did he did that don’t they know they’re pals since the gravemind cutscene.

[@kabob0077]

This isn't even a proper mission, it's a development Milestone that was used to test ideas and mechanics.

[@HyperKilljoy112]

@@kabob0077 I’m just imagining what if. Would’ve been cool if they used it but there were a lot of cuts

[@taliats]

The UNSC door was probably just a placeholder

[@entertheabzu]

Seems like they just transferred this over to the Arbiter's first mission on the gas giant.

[@nurzac]

We got zero gravity in halo 4's first mission when you send a gift in form of a bomb to a covenant ship

[@drummerAVA]

I remember reading an OXM article that mentioned there would be a mission on Earth’s moon… this must have been it, but clearly wasn’t given the level of polish to integrate into the game… still very cool!

[@l9m241]

This must've been during the time when the engine resembled Halo CE's engine than 2's. Considering the Halo CE assets being used. Also Pillar of Autumn Door!

[@kevinblackbird8302]

The interior looks like it can be used as the Forerunner Dreadnought when Chief boards it from high charity.

[@mutegamer98]

So many maps and things for the old halo games awesome

[@tomahawkm4687]

This would have been fun

[@sluggerbutter]

i would’ve loved this mission as a kid

[@WatermelonEnthusiast9]

This sounds alot like the types of levels in a 1994 game made by Bungie called 'Marathon'.

[@knowtheplan472]

I badly want to see the forerunner tank level I hope they release it one day

[@genericwhitekidthesecond4330]

As far as we know the Forerunner tank level never made it past conception. You can kinda tell this because whenever Bungie devs talked about the level they never really had anything concrete just "it would have been awesome. Big tank go boom."

[@kabob0077]

@@genericwhitekidthesecond4330 Well, the Gondola for Quarantine Zone is actually the geometry OF the titular Forerunner Tank so there is still the very slimmest of possibilities and hopes that there is some rough blockout or untextured level out there that the Digsite Crew have yet to see. They ARE going through decades worth of data. Also the level(s) made it to Storyboarding and again there is the Quarantine Zone Gondola as an adaptation of Forerunner Tank so I say that's past conception.

[@kabob0077]

@@genericwhitekidthesecond4330 The Gondola in Quarantine Zone is reused geometry for the Forerunner Tank itself, it at least got that far into development. Remember, the Digsite Crew are going through YEARS worth of stuff that are in utterly ancient drives and we don't know just how far along Forerunner Tank was in development outside of what was used for the Gondola and the storyboards but with that much known we can assume it had at least SOME work done that could very well be as much as a simple blockout or it could be a mostly done if untextured level. The thing is we just don't know and the Digsite Crew are only a few people, in addition who is to say there's not more drives out there with more content on them that Forerunner Tank may possibly be on?

[@JamesTDG]

This cut map reminds me a lot of the flood level we got in the release version

[@genericwhitekidthesecond4330]

Since we know this was more just a proof of concept than genuinely cut content i wonder what exactly Bungie were going after on this. Maybe a part of it was they were trying to expand the scale of Halo levels since that whole opening is impressive to imagine running on an Xbox.

[@kabob0077]

These M1 levels all feel like they were testing the waters with things and working things out with where they were taking the engine. M1 Assault has actual Stealth and Alert Level mechanics as part of some of its concepts, the documentation on the Digsite article is just insane.

[@ihazcheese]

@@kabob0077 Alright, you've convinced me to read the Digsite. -- Now this is erring on the side of negativity, but it has to be said because clearly there is a disconnect between the original vision and whatever is going on nowadays: Meanwhile the absolute doofuses behind what has ultimately manifested itself as Halo Infinite have decidedly gutted stealth and slow steady methodical play from the game entirely. My MP play-style has been completely undermined by ridiculous features like outlines and glint and a lack of flank and cover objects, among other glaring issues like being unable to hit players from a distance due to the wildly unrealistic strafe and dodge "mechanics" if you can call them that. I have debated doing an essay on the gradual stripping away of stealth as a practical play-style in Halo since Halo 4, but every time I start I realize it's a decision they've made, and we are working with a company that takes five games and a decade of mismanagement to realize something very clearly isn't working. Bah-humbug.

[@joshfoustcommunity8928]

Halo 4 has a gravity section on the forward unto dawn mission where you see requiem!

[@bmxdude1337]

Hmmm thats cool how the triggers still work

[@tumblrvictim]

If I were to guess, I'd imagine this was a precursor to before Cairo Station was in orbit, I think we saw that during the C3 Sabertooth storyboards?

[@outmindbeats]

you have the best halo content 🙌

[@stormslice3308]

It would be a fun flood containment breach map

[@ShadowDragon-cw7wb]

Id like to see a mod where this is fleshed out and you go on a side mission to retake a forerunner research base from the covies.

[@PandaJerk007]

This mission seems cool! I can imagine a huge fight with buggers would be fun/challenging in low gravity if you're jumping around and maybe there's a countdown timer so you can't camp too long :)

[@ihazcheese]

It is possible this could have been simply a testing ground for the low gravity sections of Cairo Station. I see some similarities to Delta Halo as well in the elevators and general geometry and layout of the underground areas. Fascinating. Thank you for the walk-through. Good to see you're back as well. :)

[@kabob0077]

That's literally the purpose of this map, they were testing things like low grav.

[@ihazcheese]

@@kabob0077 Well I suppose my hypothesizing skills are still up to snuff. Was that posted in one of the Digsite entries?

[@kabob0077]

@@ihazcheese It's on the most recent article, it includes a LOT of stuff related to the most recent release's content. The maps all have design docs for them for example.

[@TheN7Spartan]

I wonder if it’s Basis which is also the setting for the map Burial Mounds

[@--mr4yo]

Almost definitely is a very early version of Basis

[@marscaleb]

It would be pretty sweet if they had a moon multiplayer level with reduced gravity.

[@raymondjiang3978]

Bungie and 343 kept this deleted mission a secret until you found it

[@ihazcheese]

Huh?

[@BimodalCecar]

The digsite team found it, not Heed

[@ForsakenSandpaper]

I see this map as try to get same plot twist from halo 1

[@the_not_real_bigboss]

NX1 ahh level (NX1 is a cut Call of Duty game, the only files remaining off it are of a mission on an invaded Moonbase)

[@OffBrandToaster]

Nobody has mentioned the blue barnacle creatures yet

[@texel76]

Will you make a video showcasin the recently released H2 cut weapons and "equipment"? (The Flamethrower, Disintegrator, Mortar, Satchel Charges, Plasma Charges)

[@gysghost5126]

good mission

[@rm25088]

I can see why it was cut.

[@Ryanj2552]

Is there any content from the forerunner tank cut mission?

[@SIXminWHISTLE]

This video is like 10 times more watchable than most of your map overview because the footage isn't in fast forward. Maybe consider it for more videos. Not every second of footage needs to have narration over it.

[@aliveintruth]

Playing it on my series X right now

[@BladesDark]

Why wouldn't it be earths moon?

[@gradeadirector7138]

Was this supposed to be the cut alpha moon level ?

[@homelesshobo34561]

No, but this mission could have definitely inspired it

[@kabob0077]

This is a Milestone level, basically a level the Devs threw together to test things.

[@Hunter-jo8ud]

I would like it if someone would finish these missions.

[@bmxdude1337]

Give it some time

[@PineApple-vq9xv]

Anti gravity could be used to toture people's put person in room and slowly increase gravity to crush persons dark in no but true

[@Skatphilia]

Hey man, I don't know where to ask you this personally besides here. But do you remember a Halo channel known as CM Nier? Or CN Nier?? Idk it's been so long since I've seen them. They used to showcase tricks and glitches way back. You've been in this space as long as I can remember, I can't find any trace or talk about them online. It's been driving me nuts, I feel like I'm the only one who remembers.

[@eyeballpapercut4400]

So uh it's literally Moonbase Alpha

[@nikolai4828]

looks like halo infinite levels

[@andresitolujan4513]

Vengeful vadam restore this cut mission

[@ericbooth3393]

Missed opportunity to have this place be a flood containment facility, deeper you go you find the covenant struggling to keep them locked up. Pretty cool concept

[@kabob0077]

The design doc mentions "proto-creatures" so there was presumably something other than the Covenant to fight but also not Flood... Which honestly would have been interesting to see.

[@VenomPURP]

Where can we download and play this?

[@Notpoop906]

whoever is in charge of 343 objectively killed halo but the fact they have a team for stuff like this is really cool. it's just a shame there's people like Kiki Wolfkill(ed Halo) running the show. She should have been fired years ago. Her and Bonnie Ross destroyed the franchise.

[@Spawn3X5]

Man this is cool this y H2 needs a ultimate edition with all the added stuff no need for remake And have H3 remaster

[@PineApple-vq9xv]

Mod for halo 1 svp 3.3

[@barbedwiredbones]

SECOND?

[@JayJay-yy5xz]

FIRST?

[@Kevaca]

Woah It's a first spamme-

[@APerson-ni1gb]

1:15 yeah because after H2 Bungie got Lazy, and Reach is Mid but made the vehicles and weapons art Retconned like the Fugly Banshee 👎

[@TinkyWiwinky]

Womp womp 0 likes you flopped

[@Emll_117]

Boring aah level no wonder it was cut

[@kabob0077]

It's a Milestone level, it's a thing to test stuff with.