Bungie dev comments on scrapped Halo Reach global battles prototype

Original Bungie dev shares quick details about a behind-the-scenes Halo Reach prototype that never made it into the final game.

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Like any game, Halo is full of cut content and went through many changes throughout development. Some of this is documented in Bungie's excellent Vidocs, but other info kind of gets lost to time. Unless, of course, the people who made these classics continue to openly talk about them.

In a recent Twitter thread, OG Bungie dev Niles Sankey talks about an interesting battle sequence prototype for Halo Reach. The game's so-called global battles (seen here at the 1:32 mark) show a more widespread and open theater of war, with banshees soaring the skies and scarabs stomping the ground.

Sankey, who served as mission design lead for Halo Reach, worked alongside other Bungie devs to create the quick 30-second concept video. It wasn't a mode, though, and was more to establish a feel for the campaign's battle structures.

"Reach pre-production big-battle exploration. It only took maybe a week to build and I was really happy with the results. To be honest, I was always a bit disappointed that we never delivered this in the actual game, not in this open-world feel," Sankey said.

In response to a fan, Sankey clarified that it wasn't just him who worked on this clip:

"It was definitely a team effort. Some core ideas came from me (or others) and then those ideas were debated, made better, etc. I'd hate to give the impression these were 'my ideas'."

Sankey, who has published multiple Halo 3 campaign design videos on his YouTube channel, also says that the video isn't for an actual game type. Reach already had Firefight and it also added new spartan abilities into the mix--Bungie might have been capped out, tech-wise, when it came to content for Reach.

"It wasn't a game mode, it was more a vibe proposal for the game, specifically the campaign. So yeah.. there's actually not that much to know. 😅

"In fact I kinda remember feeling like not that many people on the team were that excited about it. I was like "Guys we should make the game feel like this!!" And it felt like the response was "I guess so, sure" and I was thinking "wtf why aren't people more excited about this??" 😂 idk, maybe I just imagined it. it was a strange dev cycle [sic]."

Maybe Halo Studios will return to this at some point--the group is remaking Halo Combat Evolved in UE5, and is said to also be working on a Halo 2 remake as well. Nothing has been confirmed, but we could see more remakes over time and eventually leading to a fully-fledged Reach remake in the team's new hybridized engine.