Incredibly, that thread title might even be underselling it. Lee Wilson was a storyboard artist and cinematic designer and lead who contributed to Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 as a freelancer before becoming a Bungie employee and working on Halo 3, Halo: Reach, and Destiny. Well, a couple of days ago he unloaded a ton of storyboards from work-in-progress versions of Halo 2. They cover not just the entire game, but multiple versions of the entire game, and there are all kinds of differences and new things in here. An intro and an outro to the cut "Covenant Ship" mission! The Chief and the Arbiter seemingly meeting on Delta Halo! And then getting attacked by a "Flood Hulk!" Cortana appearing to die after Chief jumps for the Forerunner key ship on High Charity! And probably most importantly, the cut ending! For any Halo obsessives, this is one hell of a Christmas gift. If you're going to dive in, some notes before you do:
Before we get to the ending, here are some things of interest I've noticed going through the other boards:
Master Chief is in the Forerunner key ship as it exits slip-space and flies towards Earth. He makes contact with Lord Hood and they discuss their next moves. The ship hurtles towards the Covenant fleet and into the atmosphere. As the ship begins to enter the atmosphere, the Chief throws a grenade at a hatch, blowing it away. He then runs and jumps out of it.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, a group of Marines is pinned in a shallow creek bed by Covenant cannons on the African Savannah outside New Mombasa where the Ark has appeared. The Forerunner ship appears and flies over their heads towards the ark and the artillery. Suddenly, there's a small explosion behind them. They look back to see a cloud of dust. And from the dust walks the Master Chief. After a moment of shock, the Marines jump out of the creek bed to attack the Covenant, led by the Chief. Fade to gameplay.
The Chief crests a ridge close to the Ark. There's an army of Brutes on a narrow plain between him and the Forerunner installation. They look at him and the Marines that have joined him and roar. They prepare to charge and the Chief readies his weapon. Just then, a group of Covenant cruisers shimmers into existence above them. Particles around the Chief and the Marines start rising as the cruisers' plasma beams charge. The humans dive to the ground and cruisers open fire. But they're firing at the Brutes. The entire army is wiped out by the powerful plasma bolts and the Chief and the Marines watch in amazement. This triggers seven gigantic pillars to erupt from the ground around the Ark. Each of the pillars begins emitting an umbrella-like shield from their tops. The Covenant plasmas blasts smack into the shield but don't penetrate it. Chief turns to see seven Covenant dropships speeding towards him. This is Miranda and Johnson arriving with reinforcements. They dive down to the ground as they rocket towards the rapidly growing shields, which are now starting to link up with each other. The first three dropships make it under the shield. Miranda and Johnson's ship just barely scrapes in. The last three aren't so lucky. They slam into the shield and explode. Miranda and Johnson bring their dropship over to the Chief as the others pass over his head. In the back of one stands the Arbiter, with 343 Guilty Spark floating alongside him. Their ship dives into a trench surrounding the Ark. Fade to gameplay.
In the control room of the Ark of the Forerunners, the Arbiter approaches the Prophet of Truth, who's staring at a holo-display. Truth turns around to face his former warrior. The Chief and 343 Guilty Spark appear behind the Arbiter. The Prophet and the Arbiter get into a heated discussion. The Arbiter takes off his helmet and tosses it at Truth's feet. He then raises his gun at the Prophet. Fade to gameplay.
The mortally wounded Prophet of Truth lies on the floor as the Arbiter approaches him and puts a hand around his neck. The Arbiter snaps his neck then gets up and looks at the Chief, who's at the holo-display, an excited 343 bobbing around him. Symbols for five active Haloes blink rapidly. The Chief looks back at the Arbiter, who nods at him. He slams his hand on a control on the display to deactivate the Halo array. Outside, the energy shield being projected by the seven pillars flickers then disappears. The tops of five of the pillars slowly open to reveal massive energy cannons. The control room shudders as they do this. The cannons then each fire a gigantic energy flare into the sky. The flares race through the atmosphere, towards the Covenant fleet situated about the Ark. One of the flares appears to pass right through a Covenant ship, leaving it unharmed. But its shields flicker and fade and it starts falling to the Earth. As the flares pass by the human orbital stations, they each disappear into five separate slip-space ruptures. The Chief and the Arbiter watch on the holo-display as five lines representing the flares approach the five Halo rings. In space near Gamma Halo, all is quiet. Then a flare appears from a slip-space rupture and streaks towards the ring. It reaches the center of the ring, but for a moment nothing happens. Then the flare explodes into thousands of energy bolts that shoot out to points on the surface all over the halo. The halo shudders and deactivates in a giant flash of light. The Arbiter and the Chief watch on the holo-display as all five rings are deactivated by the flares. After all five icons change status to indicate that they are offline, a deep metallic groan fills the control room. The central generator is collapsing, dragging all the pillars with it. Outside, one-by-one each of the pillars tumbles to the ground. Back in the control room, 343 flies towards a passageway as debris starts falling all around. The main door to the room opens to reveal a squad of honor Brutes. The Chief and the Arbiter give each other a brief look before going off in separate directions, Chief towards the Brutes and the Arbiter towards the monitor. Fade to gameplay.
The Chief races through the entry hall to the Ark as it collapses around him. He sprints towards the bright light of the exit. As he runs, the white light slowly engulfs him. Cut to a big ceremony in the assembly hall of the orbiting station, just like the beginning of the game. Only this time, the Chief is out of his armor and in a dress uniform. Lord Hood pins a medal on his chest, then stands back and salutes. There are Marines in the crowd cheering and Sergeant Johnson whistles. Outside, space fighters deploy fireworks. The Chief is looking out the window at the fireworks. Johnson walks up and briefly talks to him before Miranda shows up. Johnson leaves them alone. Both of them stare out the window as the Covenant fleet departs Earth. Fade to credits.
The Arbiter enters the data vault in the Ark as it continues to collapse. The room seemingly has no ceiling, rising over a kilometer into the air. 343 Guilty Spark flits from one data array to another. An explosion rocks the vault causing a giant piece of rock to come tumbling towards a sarcophagus in the middle of the room, smashing into it. Dust fills the vault. The Arbiter searches through it for the monitor. He takes a couple of steps and bumps into the sarcophagus, which is now broken and open on the floor. He reaches towards it to find... a human skeleton. 343 finds the Arbiter and they have a brief conversation. Then there's another rock slide and this one blocks the entrance. 343 looks around and tells the Arbiter to grab onto him. He flies up the shaft as the Arbiter holds on. The screen fades to white. Cut to the main hall of a Covenant carrier. The Arbiter heads down the hall, which is filled with Spec-Ops Elites saluting him. He walks to a viewing platform where the Spec-Ops commander waits for him. He places a hand on the commander's shoulder as they both look out the viewing window at Earth. Fade to credits.
The Cortana/Gravemind stinger from the final game is also included in the ArtStation page, but I left it out. I don't entirely know what to make of the duel fades to credits. Maybe the credits would have been split in two. Maybe the player would get to choose who to play as for the final mission, or maybe the credits would be shown twice like this was a Hideo Kojima joint. Several things Bungie employees have mentioned over the years as part of the ending aren't here. There was a medallion that figured into the ending in some way, but doesn't appear here. Joe Staten, the cinematic lead, talked about there being Scarabs on top of the Ark, but they're not here. It's possible he was conflating the multiple Scarabs from the earlier version of The Great Journey with the missions on the Ark. But maybe not. Now we just need Marty to post either the original script he has or the dialogue that was recorded for the ending :P
- There's no dialogue in any of the boards. Just shots, action, and camera movements.
- Scene numbers appear to increment whenever there's a location change.
- There are intros, outros, and "intras," i.e. cutscenes that happen in the middle of levels. In the final game, there are a lot of mission pairs that are essentially one big level. Think Outskirts and Metropolis. These "intras" usually take place between the two missions.
- Because "intra" comes before intro alphabetically you'll see the "intra" for a mission before the intro, if you're going through the ArtStation page.
- There appear to be at least two different versions of the game represented in the storyboards, if not three. So the level numbers get a little screwy at times, I think because some storyboards come from when the level Alpha Moon still existed. Most appear to be from after it was cut, though.
- About halfway through the ArtStation page, the level numbers start beginning with an "X" and go back to the start of the game. I believe these are from later in the development process as the events they depict are closer to those in the final game, but there are still differences and even entire alternate versions. And this has the full cut ending.
Before we get to the ending, here are some things of interest I've noticed going through the other boards:
- In many of the boards, the orbital station from the beginning is called the Torres Vedras instead of Cairo.
- There are two different intros for the cut Covenant Ship mission.
- There's an outro for that mission that includes the Chief driving a Ghost out of the ship as it careens towards the Earth. He jumps out of the Ghost and kicks it away just like he does in Halo 4, except this time he's free-falling to Earth when he does it. Then he skydives into a Pelican where he's greeted by Sergeant Johnson.
- The Warthog run at the end of High Charity is here.
- There are two Scarabs patrolling in front of the control room on The Great Journey. At one point you were supposed to fight them in the Scarab that Johnson commandeers.
- There are storyboards for an "intra" for The Great Journey that show an early design for the Scarab. That same design pops up in other storyboards for the outro to Metropolis.
- There's an outro for an unknown level 09 that makes my head spin. It's Chief and Arbiter meeting and nearly coming to blows before being interrupted by a "Flood Hulk" who crashes into the "thermal outtake platform" they're on, sending all three falling into a pit. The best guess is that this is an alternate version of the cutscene that takes place in the index room since both Johnson and Miranda Keyes are there and not in Covenant custody. Except the Chief is there. And there's that Flood Hulk thing.
- There's an alternate outro for what appears to be the level High Charity. Instead of the Warthog run, or the cutscene in the final game, this would have had Truth stranding Mercy (who's still alive in this version) outside the Forerunner ship. The Chief then defeats Mercy in a boss fight. After that, the Chief jumps onto the Forerunner key ship as it starts to leave. But Cortana has been plugged into a docking arm nearby and is left behind, although it appears to be unintentionally this time. Spartan 117 reaches out for her, but just as he's about to grab her chip from the plinth it's in, a pack of Brutes blows it to smithereens and she fades away. Chief then tucks himself into the ship and it enters slip-space.
- At one point there was going to be some type of gameplay in the control room after the boss fight with Tartarus. It almost appears to be a fight between the Arbiter and Johnson/Keyes.
Master Chief is in the Forerunner key ship as it exits slip-space and flies towards Earth. He makes contact with Lord Hood and they discuss their next moves. The ship hurtles towards the Covenant fleet and into the atmosphere. As the ship begins to enter the atmosphere, the Chief throws a grenade at a hatch, blowing it away. He then runs and jumps out of it.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, a group of Marines is pinned in a shallow creek bed by Covenant cannons on the African Savannah outside New Mombasa where the Ark has appeared. The Forerunner ship appears and flies over their heads towards the ark and the artillery. Suddenly, there's a small explosion behind them. They look back to see a cloud of dust. And from the dust walks the Master Chief. After a moment of shock, the Marines jump out of the creek bed to attack the Covenant, led by the Chief. Fade to gameplay.
The Chief crests a ridge close to the Ark. There's an army of Brutes on a narrow plain between him and the Forerunner installation. They look at him and the Marines that have joined him and roar. They prepare to charge and the Chief readies his weapon. Just then, a group of Covenant cruisers shimmers into existence above them. Particles around the Chief and the Marines start rising as the cruisers' plasma beams charge. The humans dive to the ground and cruisers open fire. But they're firing at the Brutes. The entire army is wiped out by the powerful plasma bolts and the Chief and the Marines watch in amazement. This triggers seven gigantic pillars to erupt from the ground around the Ark. Each of the pillars begins emitting an umbrella-like shield from their tops. The Covenant plasmas blasts smack into the shield but don't penetrate it. Chief turns to see seven Covenant dropships speeding towards him. This is Miranda and Johnson arriving with reinforcements. They dive down to the ground as they rocket towards the rapidly growing shields, which are now starting to link up with each other. The first three dropships make it under the shield. Miranda and Johnson's ship just barely scrapes in. The last three aren't so lucky. They slam into the shield and explode. Miranda and Johnson bring their dropship over to the Chief as the others pass over his head. In the back of one stands the Arbiter, with 343 Guilty Spark floating alongside him. Their ship dives into a trench surrounding the Ark. Fade to gameplay.
In the control room of the Ark of the Forerunners, the Arbiter approaches the Prophet of Truth, who's staring at a holo-display. Truth turns around to face his former warrior. The Chief and 343 Guilty Spark appear behind the Arbiter. The Prophet and the Arbiter get into a heated discussion. The Arbiter takes off his helmet and tosses it at Truth's feet. He then raises his gun at the Prophet. Fade to gameplay.
The mortally wounded Prophet of Truth lies on the floor as the Arbiter approaches him and puts a hand around his neck. The Arbiter snaps his neck then gets up and looks at the Chief, who's at the holo-display, an excited 343 bobbing around him. Symbols for five active Haloes blink rapidly. The Chief looks back at the Arbiter, who nods at him. He slams his hand on a control on the display to deactivate the Halo array. Outside, the energy shield being projected by the seven pillars flickers then disappears. The tops of five of the pillars slowly open to reveal massive energy cannons. The control room shudders as they do this. The cannons then each fire a gigantic energy flare into the sky. The flares race through the atmosphere, towards the Covenant fleet situated about the Ark. One of the flares appears to pass right through a Covenant ship, leaving it unharmed. But its shields flicker and fade and it starts falling to the Earth. As the flares pass by the human orbital stations, they each disappear into five separate slip-space ruptures. The Chief and the Arbiter watch on the holo-display as five lines representing the flares approach the five Halo rings. In space near Gamma Halo, all is quiet. Then a flare appears from a slip-space rupture and streaks towards the ring. It reaches the center of the ring, but for a moment nothing happens. Then the flare explodes into thousands of energy bolts that shoot out to points on the surface all over the halo. The halo shudders and deactivates in a giant flash of light. The Arbiter and the Chief watch on the holo-display as all five rings are deactivated by the flares. After all five icons change status to indicate that they are offline, a deep metallic groan fills the control room. The central generator is collapsing, dragging all the pillars with it. Outside, one-by-one each of the pillars tumbles to the ground. Back in the control room, 343 flies towards a passageway as debris starts falling all around. The main door to the room opens to reveal a squad of honor Brutes. The Chief and the Arbiter give each other a brief look before going off in separate directions, Chief towards the Brutes and the Arbiter towards the monitor. Fade to gameplay.
The Chief races through the entry hall to the Ark as it collapses around him. He sprints towards the bright light of the exit. As he runs, the white light slowly engulfs him. Cut to a big ceremony in the assembly hall of the orbiting station, just like the beginning of the game. Only this time, the Chief is out of his armor and in a dress uniform. Lord Hood pins a medal on his chest, then stands back and salutes. There are Marines in the crowd cheering and Sergeant Johnson whistles. Outside, space fighters deploy fireworks. The Chief is looking out the window at the fireworks. Johnson walks up and briefly talks to him before Miranda shows up. Johnson leaves them alone. Both of them stare out the window as the Covenant fleet departs Earth. Fade to credits.
The Arbiter enters the data vault in the Ark as it continues to collapse. The room seemingly has no ceiling, rising over a kilometer into the air. 343 Guilty Spark flits from one data array to another. An explosion rocks the vault causing a giant piece of rock to come tumbling towards a sarcophagus in the middle of the room, smashing into it. Dust fills the vault. The Arbiter searches through it for the monitor. He takes a couple of steps and bumps into the sarcophagus, which is now broken and open on the floor. He reaches towards it to find... a human skeleton. 343 finds the Arbiter and they have a brief conversation. Then there's another rock slide and this one blocks the entrance. 343 looks around and tells the Arbiter to grab onto him. He flies up the shaft as the Arbiter holds on. The screen fades to white. Cut to the main hall of a Covenant carrier. The Arbiter heads down the hall, which is filled with Spec-Ops Elites saluting him. He walks to a viewing platform where the Spec-Ops commander waits for him. He places a hand on the commander's shoulder as they both look out the viewing window at Earth. Fade to credits.
-=*=-
The Cortana/Gravemind stinger from the final game is also included in the ArtStation page, but I left it out. I don't entirely know what to make of the duel fades to credits. Maybe the credits would have been split in two. Maybe the player would get to choose who to play as for the final mission, or maybe the credits would be shown twice like this was a Hideo Kojima joint. Several things Bungie employees have mentioned over the years as part of the ending aren't here. There was a medallion that figured into the ending in some way, but doesn't appear here. Joe Staten, the cinematic lead, talked about there being Scarabs on top of the Ark, but they're not here. It's possible he was conflating the multiple Scarabs from the earlier version of The Great Journey with the missions on the Ark. But maybe not. Now we just need Marty to post either the original script he has or the dialogue that was recorded for the ending :P
