Out of Bounds Secrets | Halo 3 - Boundary Break

Use code POGSHESEZ60 for 60% off your first box at strms.net/ShesezFactorOctober...
Lets take the camera absolutely anywhere we want to learn more about Halo 3!
Every episode I have - • Boundary Break
Patreon Support Boundary Break: / boundarybreak
🐦Shesez Twitter: / boundarybreak
📺 Shesez TWITCH: twitch.tv/boundarybreak
Twitter: / snipeyfox
Twitch: / snipeythearcticfox
KZbin (if you want): / snipeyfox
Fans have made a discord chat room if you guys like that stuff. Heres a link: discord.gg/boundarybreak
Intro Theme remixed by F1NG3RS - / f1ng3rsmusic
Logo by rainbowcupcakemonster.com ( / rcm_art , pixel design by Clay Burton: www.clayburton.ca
Outro art sourced and repurposed from Startropics, animated by Clay Burton: www.clayburton.ca
MASSIVE thank you to GeneralKidd for his patience and help with teaching and troubleshooting the Halo 3 Mod Tools. This video would not have been possible without him. Go support his channel at / generalkidd
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Commenting corrections and vulger/constructive criticism is accepted. However, due to misinformation being a rampant tool for online trolling. Anyone posting incorrect corrections as fact will be removed. Anyone commenting additional(supplemental or complimentary to the existing content) information and dressing it up as a correction/gotcha moment will be removed.

[@BoundaryBreak]

Use code POGSHESEZ60 for 60% off your first box at strms.net/ShesezFactorOctoberYT60

[@LocalSandEater]

_o k_

[@Cliffordlonghead]

Ok

[@Cliffordlonghead]

@@LocalSandEater CRIMINAL

[@Cliffordlonghead]

@@LocalSandEater DELETE YOUR COMMENT CRIMINAL

[@Cliffordlonghead]

@@LocalSandEater You getting life in my prison for cheating bad friend CRIMINAL

[@brooksviola5]

A lot of this explains how a lot of us managed some of those insane lighting trickeries in the Halo 3 file sharing community. The nostalgia is unreal.

[@Bittamin]

I remember breaking under one of the map areas doing forge tricks, probably two or three different ones and just the time it took and the fun had can never be forgotten

[@casedistorted]

yeah i used to spend a lot of time doing that stuff, I found my old pictures from 2007 and downloaded them to my hard drive lol.

[@Fosi94]

Exactly.

[@Xqvt]

The "ring things" at 19:35 were parts of the Space Elevator that gets destroyed in Halo 3: ODST, which is pretty cool.

[@AarieaaronFTW]

Beat me to it!

[@JamesTDG]

I've been wondering that for the last 10 years. How much do you wanna bet that 343 did not know that?

[@Srcsqwrn]

I would love to see some ODST Boundry Break. It has a lot of weird stuff in it!

[@Espartanica]

@@JamesTDG How much do you wanna bet that people can't not make everything about 343?

[@Dennis19901]

I was expecting that, but never knew for sure. How sure are you about this? The elevator was in New Mombasa. How far is that from Voi?

[@Booksds]

I loved that intro, felt very “Red vs. Blue”! I remember reading somewhere that once Bungie decided they were going to include a free-cam in the Theater mode, they put a lot more effort into the areas players wouldn’t normally see during gameplay.

[@MASTERCHIEF1062]

i literally thought "is that agent Washington's voice actor?" the second i heard him start talking.

[@misterdrprof]

@@MASTERCHIEF1062 fucking same! Holy

[@os-zodiac]

@@MASTERCHIEF1062 SAME

[@uberogg]

and me, I must admit

[@___joez]

Arrbeeder

[@krauserduke1234]

I love the Machinima-style third person shots. Really nails my nostalgia of the Halo 3 era as a whole 🥲 Awesome episode!

[@SnipeyFox]

I loved filming them! Grew up on that style of content so it was fun to pay a little homage

[@GabePuratekuta]

@@SnipeyFox Do you ever wonder why we're here...?

[@SnipeyFox]

@@GabePuratekuta It's one of life's great mysteries isn't it? Why are we here? I mean, are we the product of some cosmic coincidence, or is there really a God watching everything-- you know, with a plan for us and stuff? I don't know, man, but it keeps me up at night.

[@GabePuratekuta]

@@SnipeyFox No, I mean why YOU'RE here? You say you hate it but you don't leave.

[@Dargonhuman]

@@SnipeyFox What? No, i mean why are we out here, in this canyon? What was all that stuff about God? Do you wanna talk about it?

[@THICCTHICCTHICC]

Halo 3 genuinely has such an insane scale to it. Everything is enormous.

[@ThisBirdHasFlown]

Its fake, though. The actual playable spaces are quite small. CE easily has the biggest playable spaces in the Bungie series.

[@KayJay01]

@@ThisBirdHasFlown Yes, but if most of it is empty and dull, does it matter?

[@_John_Johnson]

Including the rats

[@protocetid]

Bungie must’ve been awestruck by the increased capabilities of the X360 and sought to illicit the same reaction from gamers with the first H3 trailer. They did prototype large scale battles, can’t recall why they didn’t pan out. They also attempted real time reflections as was shown on the MC’s visor while he stared at the Portal at Voi activating. Bungie went with cube map reflections which are quite inferior but necessary for performance. The final code still has the real time reflections, a KZbinr modded them back in. Very impressive for the time, I’m not aware of another console game that tried to pull it off. Don’t know if a PC game did either, could’ve happened as an experimental ray tracing mod. That’s right, it existed long before Nvidia.

[@MrMegaMetroid]

@@protocetid real time reflections and raytracing are not nessesarily the same. Raytracing is ONE way of doing real time reflections, and without taking a single look at the code, i can confidently tell you that halo 3 did NOT experiment with raytracing. They probably went with screenspace reflections or something similar

[@DrHotelMario]

You can just feel the love baked into Halo 3. It feels like people made it, not just a company assembly line. Seeing behind the scenes of how Bungie did it all, makes me appreciate it so much.

[@Espartanica]

Funny because Bungie literally hated having to work on Halo 3, lost all their passion for working on the franchise after they screwed themselves over with Halo 2, and this is why the story is so bland

[@ltraltier6009]

@@Espartanica Halo 2 was a buggy shitty mess. It was the community that these bootlickers never mention being the real draw to it. Halo 3 was better overall and no BXR full auto BR/Carbine cheaters even in quickplay.

[@Espartanica]

@@ltraltier6009 Halo 2 and both have glaring flaws and 3' story is an atrocious downgrade from Halo 2's. It's literally in interviews that Bungie was burnt out after Halo 2's development and just wanted to be done with it.

[@DerNomade1871]

​@Espartanica it really is, though it's game that really doesn't deserve the pedestal it constantly gets placed on

[@AJ-qg7bx]

Halo 3 was a great game. Whether Bungie hated it or were burnt out, doesn't matter. They made a wonderful game that I still love to play.

[@sslingo]

never thought i'd see a generalkidd and shesez crossover. i've been watching him for god knows how long

[@lucask4377]

They did for Halo 2

[@CHIEF_420]

"god" - an unproven claim & hilarious lie created by insane, caucasian men to troll the public for centuries. #REALITY

[@CrispyGFX]

Amazing how beautiful halo 3 still looks all these years later.

[@roddydykes7053]

Nailed a timeless aesthetic. Bit heavy on the bloom, but just the right amount of detail and resolution so to not distract from the actual gameplay

[@worldsboss]

The first three Halo games had a big impact on me growing up, so this is really cool to see 😃

[@Spartan_Tanner]

15:37 Fun fact: Those hornets and banshees are flocks which have their own very simple AI that makes them fight each other.

[@TABBYMUSIC]

_I've been waiting for this all my life..._

[@kornweed]

Beyond me too Tabby lolz

[@_X1M_]

Never forget

[@WhimsicalLittledawg]

So tell me How do you do italics

[@leetri]

Those 3rd person shots were a neat touch, really brings me back to the good ol' Machinima days. I haven't watched any of them for over a decade and I still can quote them word-for-word.

[@vedde7309]

Why are there 6 pedals if there are only four directions?!

[@saphricpcgaming5182]

Yup. definitely an homage

[@OldSchoolDudeGaming]

12:09 I always assumed it was a visual trick where it starts out shrunk and then they scale it up as it moves forward. Actually surprised by this.

[@EllTeePDC]

Ive been itching for a halo 3 boundary break since the last halo one, this was peak gaming

[@roddydykes7053]

Absolutely peak gaming for anyone born in the 90s. So glad to be part of it before the negative parts of Cod and Fortnite lootbox style stuff took over

[@Liggliluff]

I appreciate that you recognise that you aren't Shesez, because you aren't. I appreciate you as your own content creator here on this channel, and you have your own style. I like both of your styles for different reasons

[@foxbird123]

They have the same type of content but cover different stuff, so they supplement each other pretty well.

[@notsure1969]

I think he fits in really well and he is a great cohost.

[@spiral7399]

I didn't even notice

[@xoshaow3]

Regarding the Marines that run through the cave on 117, as a Speedrunner, I thought I'd share. If you get to the next area where you'd free Johnson, before he makes it through that little cave entrance and has a chance to despawn, your game will softlock, likely because it's pulling resources from Johnson not having hit his despawn trigger, thinking he still is in the previous, now unreachable area. We see silly things like this in various forms throughout the game, the undead scarab as an example, or even worse, the half alive scarab that won't soft lock you like the undead one can. These are achieved by doing events before the game thinks it should happen. 🙃

[@Stryxo]

It’s so sick to see all of these things that made up my childhood from this perspective

[@AmeHart]

Loved the classic RvB effects at the beginning. This was a super fun episode ! Halo 3 is one of my favourite games of all time, so it's always fun to see the little tricks that go into it. Loved the third person animations. I would love to see a sequel to this episode, maybe a mini-sode, covering the multiplayer maps !!

[@Shalashaska_XOF]

You’re a fantastic addition to the channel Snipey. I’ve really enjoyed your contributions so far and loving the new pace of the channel as a whole!

[@foxbonesmulder]

The intro is exceptionally well done, very RVB inspired and I love the effect placed on the vocals to make it sound more authentic. Love you guys!

[@adumbcanadian773]

Favourite game of all time, grew up playing this on the 360. Absolutely don’t regret it at all.

[@ikarouyt]

Awh man Halo 3 was one of my first FPS games so it's awesome to see the detail, and care put into the game

[@SUMDUMMEH]

finally halo 3!! I'ma see if my dad wants to watch this haha, we used to co-op it up like crazy in Halo, always loved exploring out of the maps in Halo 2

[@svenbtb]

This is so great. I have a huge soft sport for the original Halo Trilogy + Reach, it's been really fun seeing the OoB stuff for these!

[@OlilittleCoUkAbout]

The reason the normals are rendered in the colours you see is because each component of the normal (e.g the x, y, and z direction) is converted into the RGB component of the pixel

[@RadicalEdward2]

I love how stylized things look with just the lighting map. Every shot could work as a wallpaper

[@Magplar]

Okay I’m like 40 seconds in but I just gotta say how much I LOVE the intro. The machinima style talking with the mic effect, pure nostalgia. I can tell this is gonna be great EDIT: This video was in fact great. earned my sub without a doubt!

[@Axoe]

i did not expect this, i’ve played halo 3 since 2007 and loved doing out of map glitches

[@VELI-Productions]

This was amazing. Halo 3 is one of my favorite games of all time, and to see a more in def behind the scenes was beautiful.

[@ArkaneStephanie]

Halo is so good. I would definitely love to see the whole series on here. They are all so unique I would think they would all have interesting stuff to look at in them

[@icantthinkofagoodusername4464]

Fun fact: the "lighting reference object" is actually called "my_balls" in the game's files/tags, because Bungie was an incredibly professional development studio with a very mature sense of humour.

[@KopperNeoman]

Unironically. Making crass jokes like that is a sign of maturity. It's the immature ESG hires that screech about such things.

[@icantthinkofagoodusername4464]

​@@KopperNeoman Ehh, it's easy to understand why they crack down on it nowadays. Get too relaxed with what jokes are allowed in the office and you might get a situation like Acti-Blizz where people feel comfortable saying or doing things that are way out of line and leave the company open to legal issues. Don't get me wrong, things like Bungie's proprietary format for BSPs being called .ASS, and all of the instanced geometry inside the .ASS being referred to as "poops" in-engine, is hilarious and likely doesn't harm anyone. Other things like certain tooltips in certain tags might be a tad far though.

[@sonicartist91]

Hey Snipey, when you use the audio filter to sound like you are speaking through the helmet. You sound SO much like Agent Washington from Red vs Blue. Which brings back wonderful memories! Thank you!

[@brainnnnz]

I did not know Shesez was on vacation, but holy shit that made me so happy to hear! That man has had such a wild ride, he deserves some time off! ❤

[@Skylancer727]

God what a masterpiece of a game.

[@MajoraZ]

I think it's a shame the multiplayer maps weren't gone over at all here. Would love to see you come back to the Halo games for that!

[@cameronnorton5898]

Halo 3 really was such a special game. One of the very best.

[@IzumiChenmeiru]

yo great video snipes! I always find the halo stuff really interesting, shows how game designers can squeeze every detail out of something without sacrificing performance. A very delicate dance indeed.

[@CapnSparto]

Thank you. Seeing all this love and care put into these videos, especially about Halo easily slaps a big smile on my face. I needed this.

[@mmmm-et8tq]

there are actually low poly birds in Halo 3, specifically on the map Guardian :)

[@arithmetic7105]

The golden era of Halo, I miss this period so much.

[@themightycrixus1131]

Golden era of gaming in general

[@ORkYYGreENS]

I literally discovered this channel a week ago with Halo 2. After going through your channel, I was seriously hoping to see you do Halo 3. Lo and behold, here we are.

[@philo23]

huh, I always figured the animation for the Forward Unto Dawn swooping in at least had a little bit of scaling trickery going on, but it seems like it actually just spawns really far away!

[@StuntedSnail]

Ever since I subscribed to your channel years ago, this is the video I’ve always been secretly waiting for. My personal favorite video game of all time.

[@ArnieMcStranglehold]

I really enjoyed out of bounds stuff for the Halo games. It's a pasttime for me and my sisters. Your opening voice modulation for the radio and line delivery made you sound uncannily like Washington from Red vs. Blue.

[@4bidn1]

Real OG's knew bubble shields were spheres from throwing one into a grav lift B)

[@benhemphill1390]

Great Video! Glad to see the channel grow so much Shesez needed help, and your doing a fantastic job. Loved the intro giving some Red vs. Blue vibes and even changing the audio like you were in the helm.

[@theseatoad]

It is crazy how much detail the put into animating this game. I always wondered if you could save those marines as well

[@nicole9volt]

18 years old. First year moved out on my own. Put in the middle of some of the most insane scenarios a young person can face.. yet come out of it still remembering Arby n’ the Chief 17 years later…I didn’t do too bad, ma!

[@SpartanUruk]

Spartans never die, they're just missing in action.

[@swansong487]

This game is still incredible and absolutely holds up. I love seeing the creativity to get the most out of the tech they had at the time.

[@alexanderackerman3807]

I love Halo 3. It's one of my top 10 favorite games.

[@Dargonhuman]

I've just started working my way all the way through the Master Chief Collection, so these videos are interestingly timed for me haha.

[@casedistorted]

Halo 3 is my jam. I bought the legendary edition on launch day (lost my cat helmet though in a move many years ago) and played the game until I got every achievement within the first 6 months of launch so I could show off my Katana to everyone in MP. Then Bungie just gave it away to everyone when they closed their servers down. Really drove me to insanity. The bubble shield was like the coolest visual effect to me back in 2007 when this game came out, really blew my mind. I never thought Halo 3 had great graphics but it was good enough. The thing I always loved about Halo games and Halo 3 was that you never felt like you were fighting alone, but you being the OP main character and a super cyborg made sense as to why you could beat so many more aliens than your fellow marine teammates, etc.

[@elijahrunyon3347]

When I played through Halo 3, on one of the last levels of the game, their was a phantom that lands & the sangheili hop on it, & roll out, to another location. I was confused & thought I needed to follow them inside the phantom. I hopped in, The gate began to close. My game saved. Then the ship took off towards the ocean with me in it. It slowly turned invisible except for Master chief. & then collision went away & I fell in the ocean. & I repeated this a few times before I escaped. LOL

[@katiarepublic7057]

Halo 3 was my ENTIRE childhood (that and Animal Crossing....) so I appreciate this episode so much!!

[@asdfadfafsdfa]

15 years later and still one of the best looking games ever created!

[@giygas9305]

19:34 those “ring debris objects” are from the space elevator that gets destroyed in Halo 3 ODST.

[@MrCeratix]

Goddamn seeing those spartan headbobs takes me back

[@bananajoe4203]

Love how the mag pops out then goes back in during duel wield reloads

[@TrueYankeeFan]

I think Halo 3 is just an all-time immortal graphic design man. It has aged so well.

[@jensuvr]

God I miss the halo days. Used to spend hours getting on top of pelicans or getting out of bounds and finding new spots. I'm surprised in the Halo 2 video you guys didn't show the Scarab gun and a few out of bounds areas that were pretty well known but may have only been well known to my friend group. Also NO Soccer Ball! I know everyone remembers the giant soccer ball!

[@Xsroa12345]

At 19:34 I believe the ring debris objects are the remains of the space elevator you see get destroyed in ODST

[@overdev1993]

fun fact: there is a metal band which is based on the Halo series and their lyrics are also about Halo, they are called 'Shadow of Intent'

[@notsure1969]

Cool. I didn't know that.

[@frankieepurr]

When I was young, I never knew how games worked and thought there was an entire planet that could be explored out of bounds, every door led somewhere etc lol

[@glasssawsslipperstraws7410]

halo 3 is like in my top 4 favorite games ever, and the forward unto dawn scene on the ark is my favorite moment in any game ever

[@mononoke721]

I'm LOVING these deep dives into the Halo campaigns - looking forward to more and maybe you could also consider doing an episode breaking out of bounds of some of the multiplayer maps as well just for funsies?

[@SnipeyFox]

That would definitely be worth looking into! I had time for the Halo 2 video process, but not for Halo 3 unfortunately. Would definitely look forward to returning to check them out. Maybe in a short or something!

[@cz2124]

I remember using the pan cam to explore outside of maps on this game, like in stand-off where there was the guy in boxers or the guy on the moon. I spent so much time boundary breaking on this game in campaign, it was so damn fun

[@robertanna2693]

I just want to say you've been a fantastic addition to the channel, you're doing fantastic.

[@HoveringNebula]

You automatically get a thumbs up for the RvB helmet filter.

[@mayro4803]

That is some insane piloting skills with the the Forward on to Dawn.

[@AngryWildMango]

been waiting for this episode for a long time!!! I remember breaking out of certain levels with the ghost and other means.

[@JasonLihani]

I LOVE the games you've been covering. Huge fan of the FPS episodes.

[@PosthumanHeresy]

19:52 Something interesting: the portal is covered in symbols that look like energy swords.

[@NEWGHOST9]

Always love seeing how animations are animated to what the camera can see, no need to make it perfect if it cant even be seen xD perfect aspect of work smarter not harder

[@Yesnaught]

That shotgun knowledge is cursed. I will never unsee that now.

[@Machoman50ta]

The amount of hours I would spend exploring halo 3 by my self in my brother's room It actually hurts to remember those memories 😂

[@Fizzsama]

Those ring things are actually remnants of the space elevator that was destroyed earlier

[@mashedpotatos3750]

Nothing like the friends I made playing different infection custom games. I miss those days.

[@cyqry]

10:34 An interesting thing to note here is that while a lot of vehicles that crash do crash just *wherever*, Halo CE's Assault on the Control Room actually has a full flightpath for the starting Pelican from where it drops its marines right to where it crashes, almost perfectly lined up and everything.

[@SIRKlLLALOT]

BEEN WAITING FOR THIS SINCE 2007! SO MANY EASTER EGGS FOUND BY PLAYERS, SUCH A LONG TIME AGO - The Golden Era ❤

[@protocetid]

Generalkidd has been doing this type of content since the 2000s, and if you love learning about Halo obscurities check out C3 Sabertooth. Dude has brought to life the Halo games we didn’t get to play, lots of development mysteries have been solved.

[@takoshihitsamaru4675]

Okay, now I need, NEED to see an episode on Modern Warfare 2019, a game so stuffed with details and 3rd person animations. You can see a little bit of OOB with the spectator camera (lets you fly surprisingly far out).

[@RANK_SRU]

Don't know if this is a well know fact but you can enter the water at 10:00 without dying. You can explore the underwater area, also audio gets muted as well , but beware going away from land will trigger a death barrier, also there's fish in the water with derpy fish ai. (This works on MC and H3.)

[@Psicough]

8:10 Legendary Halo 3 Rat moment right here fellas. Love to see it!

[@jakebatty530]

12:33 holy shit I didn't realize the frigate came in from so far away and that all the sky box is actual space not just an image, I thought it used the shrink/grow animation to give the illusion of traveling from distance but it actually does come from really far away, awesome!!!!

[@SnipeyFox]

I used to think it was shrunken down and grew too, but was surprised to see otherwise! A lot of the skybox does end up being flat images though! I think most of the skyboxes in Halo 3 are domes

[@notnever7452]

by far my favorite game of all time, so glad you did a boundary break on it!

[@HaloVFX]

Love these Halo boundary Breaks!

[@SnipeyFox]

Thank you so much! Huge fan of your channel btw!! You're super talented, love seeing your animation and modeling stuff in my feed :)

[@licoix]

I love the intro you did, really makes a good throwback to early halo machinimas!

[@williamwoodruff1800]

Great vid! Loved the little RvB style bits with the helmet mic effect

[@tamezzodiac2862]

A few of these I already knew like the vehicle tires having the spinning texture and the Spartan laser. It’s just amazing how when there is a talented crew they can make things look so real even though they are actually so fake and so low in actual design. It really shows the difference in talent. It explains why bungie was able to pull off a game that still holds up well today like halo 3 in 07 which was absolutely mind blowing at the time yet almost everything you see is nothing but tricks to make everything look way cooler then it actually is. It’s just like the bubble shield. To this day the bubble shield looks amazing with how it effects and pulses in everything yet it’s actually pretty squarish and break the layers down and it isn’t even impressive at all. It’s all about talent and how it’s put together. It’s why they could get away with so much. To this day the game has the best water physics in all of halo and still some of the best of all time, but if it was broken down it probably would be the most kinda anticlimactic thing ever individually, but put it all together just right and it is just insane looking. This just shows the difference in talent, and really good thinking. Other companies would probably spend time making a model of chief without a head to pull the in person camera off, but instead bungie just does simple fixes to a problem and yanks it away saving resources, time, and it’s such a easy fix for something the players never will see or no. It also makes their games so interesting to explore too because how cleaver everything was. Exploring the outside of halo or how it works is still one of my most favorite things cause it’s so damn interesting. Other games unfortunately don’t do that.

[@trooper7160]

awesome video, along with your halo 2 one. but on halo 2, multiplayer map backwash. beyond the invisible barrier, there is a secret message written in a blood red text, I forgot what it said. This was one the Halo 2 disc back in the day, not MCC, I do not know if it was removed from MCC or not. but it was really cool having someone show me way back in the day over xbox live and I honestly haven't seen anyone cover this specific message on YT.

[@AntiJewluminatiDwarf]

Think it was not sid was here. I may be wrong tho

[@trooper7160]

@@AntiJewluminatiDwarf yeah, that does sound about right tbh

[@zachary5412]

Please please PLEASE do this for halo reach. There is a large amount of detail in the world of reach and I was able to discover just 2 out of map tricks for 2 missions and what I was able to see from just those 2 was impressive. It would be amazing to see all of reach out of bounds

[@johnornelas]

oh! i know why the cpu allies take a long walk before despawning! its because sometimes the allies are talking, making callouts, or generally just having banter, and you wouldn't expect that to stop right as they turn the corner. giving them a path before they despawn lets the in-game audio realistically fade out as they get further away from the player

[@djlaw56what]

I remember doing glitches to get out of the map by watching 140p videos on youtube wayy back in the day

[@Rat_King_Covenant]

That intro brought me back to the Red vs. Blue days

[@codysvlogdays]

Oh a video on one of my favorite games and most nostalgic game in my collection and youtube didn't notify me about it? Thank you youtube 😐

[@beeslikesteve]

so wait. someones first person reload animation is different than what another player would see if they were looking at you

[@xproflipscarab]

Straight up Red VS blue nostalgia from that intro their... I generally thought You got Geoff Ramsey as a guest for a second but realized it was you

[@AvidCat5000]

That intro gave me "Red VS Blue" flashbacks. 🤯

[@DavidJCobb]

another fun thing about first-person arms is that they just don't match the third-person anatomy even slightly. i still remember a developer diary from Raven Software, makers of Singularity, where they pointed out that to have the view of your weapon that you see in-game, your arms would have to be bolted onto the side of your head. it's a design convention meant to help us keep track of what we have equipped, and meant to give the weapon a sense of presence in an environment where we have no peripheral vision, no sense of touch, no "sense" of the weapon otherwise. and even knowing this already, it's just fascinating to see it deconstructed -- not something i expected on this channel, but very well done and very thorough! 17:20 the roof of the phantom interior almost looks like a rail and a set of grabbers... like covenant personnel are supposed to be hung up, slid along the rail, and then dropped into the grav lift, instead of walking up to the hatch and hopping in. it's an interesting detail, especially if we imagine the process in reverse. imagine being a covenant soldier being picked up by a phantom: levitating into midair and having to hop down onto the floor and stick the landing, versus being grabbed by a machine and dropped in a more predictable way. phantoms deploy several species, and the grav lift might not quite accommodate all sizes and strides without a mechanism like this rail. of course, i could be off-base. i think halo 3 odst shows a phantom interior at one point. don't remember if any of this comes into play there.