20 Years Later, Halo is Celebrating the Most Important Game In The Series
Relive the classics.
Halo Infinite has been quietly making a comeback from its troubled launch in 2021. By fixing its battle pass progression and matchmaking issues, Halo Studios’ (formerly 343 Industries) fantastic multiplayer shooter finally shines as it should have. Now, just in time for the 20th anniversary of the most important entry in the series, Infinite is adding some faithful recreations of Halo 2’s best maps alongside some brand-new features to spice things up.
This week, Halo Infinite rolled out its newest update. The update includes a new weapon, a new playlist meant to recall the feel of Halo 2, as well as seven recreations of classic multiplayer arenas made by the community.
“Halo 2 is a major pillar for the franchise that catapulted the series and community to new heights,” Halo Community Director Brian Jarrard said of the classic FPS on the Xbox Wire. “The gameplay innovations, esports competitions, storytelling, online connectivity, and the overall cultural permeation fostered a new level of global fandom and community that elevated Halo beyond ‘just a game.’”
Ascension is one of the returning Halo 2 maps that looks just how players remember.
The recreated maps included Ascension, Turf (now known as Boulevard), Lockout (now known as Canopy), Warlock (now known as Conjurer), Midship (now known as Inquisitor), Sanctuary (now known as Serenity), and Beaver Creek (now known as Beaver Canyon). Some maps like Inquisitor, retain the original art style, while others like Canopy add a twist on the old aesthetic.
The maps will be playable on a new playlist called Delta Arena where sprint and clamber are disabled, jump height is increased by 120 percent and friendly player collision is enabled. The starting weapon on the playlist has also been changed to the brand-new MA5K Avenger, a rifle inspired by Halo 2’s standard-issue SMG. These tweaks and limitations are meant to revert Infinite to Halo 2’s more limited move set.
“While utilizing custom game settings to recreate Halo 2’s movement is relatively easy, capturing that classic ‘feel’ was a bit harder to nail down,” Infinite’s designer Evan Colson said. “Considering all the subtle differences between Halo Infinite and Halo 2, a 1-to-1 recreation was never quite in the cards, but what we did come to was that of an amalgamation between the two, with settings that move like legacy Halo, but plays with elements of the modern sandbox.”
The new rifle called MA5K Avenger replicates the feel of Halo 2’s default SMG.
Halo 2 deserves the recognition it’s getting. It is arguably the most important game in Xbox’s history, perhaps only second to the original Halo. The 2004 sequel not only solidified the franchise as an entertainment transcendent blockbuster, but it also helped bolster Xbox Live as a premium service. It’s safe to say that without Halo 2, Xbox Live couldn’t have forced the rest of the console industry to embrace online play in a more thoughtful and considered way.
Halo Infinite isn’t the only game getting in on the celebration. Halo: The Master Chief Collection is adding a long-lost Halo 2 level featured in the game’s first E3 presentation back in 2003. While the level didn’t make the final cut of the game, digital archivists and the community tracked down the demo’s original assets, which Halo Studios was able to recreate as faithfully as possible in the current version of the game.
The Halo 2 E3 Demo will be free on Steam Workshop on November 9, exactly two decades after the game’s original release.
It’s been an eventful few weeks for Halo fans. Last month, Halo Studios revealed that it’s working on a new Halo game using Unreal Engine 5. It even showed some early footage of what the game will look like, featuring some photorealistic recreations of Halo iconography.
