HALO BEFORE HALO

Gamestock 2001

Besides two promotional videos made mostly for laughs, Bungie was tight lipped on new footage or screenshots of the game since E3 2000. Bungie was notably absent for the big reveal of the look of the Xbox during Bill Gates's 2001 CES keynote. There was also a rumor that an Xbox Superbowl commercial featuring Halo would be a thing but that rumor turned out to be false. Through late 2000 to early 20001 the Halo team was slowly taking members from the Oni team. In February the entirety of the Oni team was assimilated into the Halo team. Bungie also confirmed what fans were eager for, a proper showing of Halo on the Xbox at the 2001 Gamestock showcase.

The level The Silent Cartographer was chosen to be the demo for the Gamestock presentation. Internally named "b30," the level was essentially a test environment for the game that showed off the many aspects of the game whether it be the combat dialogue system, dynamic artificial intelligence, the vehicles, and the detailed environment. Behind the scenes the game was still very much coming together.

Microsoft hosted their annual Gamestock conference for years but nailing it for 2001 was especially important. Microsoft at this point needed to have a good showing to impress a still skeptical game industry to show they could bring the heat against competitors like Sony, Nintendo, and Sega. At the end of the Gamestock keynote, Xbox head Ed Fries brought out Jason Jones and Joe Staten to show off Halo. Joe played the game live in front of a room full of journalists, flying around the level in a Banshee, driving around in a Warthog, and fighting aliens in first person. The dynamic music system of the game wasn't up to par yet so Joe had to hit his marks precisely to prerecorded music from Marty O'Donnell.

The Gamestock presentation shows a Halo much more familiar to fans of the retail game.
Gamestock 2001 Demo
Joe Staten shows off The Silent Cartographer to the Gamestock 2001 audience.

E3 2001

For E3 2001, Bungie came out in full force having the game be playable on the show floor. Multiplayer anc campaign were offered to the public alongside the studio's famous "Fan Fests" where more gameplay with live commentary was shown. Press reaction however was less than stellar, Halo being named the biggest disappointment of the expo from numerous outlets. Due to the under powered Xbox development kits, the game rand poorly on top of the numerous bugs that were still in the build. A few bugs were actually fixed specifically for the expo but somehow the wrong build of the game was brought to the show.

Long story short, Bungie couldn't dwell on this poor showing. From here onto the game's release on November 15, 2001, Bungie was in full crunch mode to get the game done and polished. The Bungie team was practically working until the last minute. Beyond what was said in interviews from the past and present, the leaked builds indicate this crunch as well. The most recently leaked 1749 build of the game only was 3 months older than the shipped game and is still very unpolished and unfinished in numerous areas. Many things such as the flying Banshees were almost cut due to bugs and resources had to be fought over just to keep both the sniper and the shotgun in the game. Luckily, the game passed certification on October 24, 2001, and later released to critical and commercial acclaim. For the game to come out as polished as it did is half a miracle and half a show of the talent that was in the team at Bungie.


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