HALO BEFORE HALO

2000

The new millennnium was beginning and Bungie was working on two large up and coming games with Oni and Halo. One of the first things on the new year's agenda was to attend MacWorld San Francisco to show off Oni since it was closer to release. To appease the fans asking about Halo, Bungie decided to give fans a little extra treat. Peter Tamte luckily had a computer with a build of Halo on it. Joseph Staten took his digital camera and recorded a few off-screen videos that were shown to convention goers and streamed online through BTV (Bungie TV).

At the annual Game Developers Converence, Microsoft confirmed one of the worst kept secrets in gaming: they were going to attempt the console market with their console aptly titled the Xbox. Unknown to the general public, Bungie had already met with Microsoft in late January of that year. Xbox team members Seamus Blackley and Kevin Bachus went on a tour of different game publishers and developers to pitch the Xbox. Jason Jones and Alex Seropian sensed an opportunity with the Xbox.

The E3 2000 trailer shows a game much closer to the Halo we'd come to know on November 15, 2000 but with notable differences.
E3 2000 Trailer
The trailer for Halo: Combat Evolved shown at the 2000 edition of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).

E3 Y2K

Bungie had been teasing a large presence at the 2000 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). It would be the first public appearance at the convention since its behind closed doors press showing from the year prior. For the expo, they brought a brand new 9-minute trailer played off a DVD for groups of about 20 at a time. Like the MacWorld showing, music was finished at the last minute. According to Marty O'Donnell himself, the final mix was completed and burned to the trailer with the DVD just 2 hours prior to leaving for E3.

The new trailer featured a completely overhauled game that was even more graphically impressive than the game shown at MacWorld with an art style much more similar to the final retail game. The trailer was a small scenario of a human assault on a Covenant held outpost of a structure on the Halo ring. It begins and ends with a green armored cyborg taking out several aliens with utmost pricision. This would be the first public appearance of the character that would later be come to known as the Master Chief.


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