In 2001, the world of console gaming and first-person shooters was forever changed by the release of Microsoft’s Xbox platform with a launch title named Halo: Combat Evolved—a bold subtitle that the game wholly lived up to.

As the Master Chief, we set foot on an ancient ringworld named Halo, fought against the Covenant alongside our ragtag Marine allies and trusty guide Cortana, and uncovered the horrifying secrets in the depths of this alien megastructure before blowing it to smithereens. It seemed like the fight had been finished, but as the Chief himself said at the end: “I think we’re just getting started.”

It is November 9, 2004. It’s a Tuesday morning and you know that you’ve got to go to work or school, but that’s the last thing on your mind right now. Your eyes are bleary and bloodshot, your mind utterly scrambled, but it was totally worth it to have queued up at midnight outside your local retailer and stayed up all night playing Halo 2.

The Master Chief and Cortana returned to Earth to a hero’s welcome, but the Covenant aren’t far behind as the fight arrives in the city streets of Mombasa. But, what’s this? There’s another character whose story we follow—a disgraced alien warrior who is punished for his failure to protect the Halo ring discovered in the first game, given a chance at redemption, and– wait… is that an energy sword in my hand? I’m playing as him?!

And that was just the campaign. In short order, you and your friends are playing together, not by lugging your chunky CRT television and Xbox around the corner to a friend’s house for another bout of system link screenwatching, but from the comfort of your own home through the advent of online play.

If you can believe it, that was twenty years ago.

As we mark this grandiose milestone for the series, we wanted to share with you everything that’s going on to celebrate all things Halo 2.

---

Kicking things off, we launched Operation: Great Journey in Halo Infinite earlier this week, thematically centered around Halo 2.


A new dedicated Halo 2-inspired playlist has arrived, featuring classic maps and movement. Here are some of the settings that have been adjusted to recreate that old gameplay feel.

• Sprint: Disabled
  
• Clamber: Disabled
  
• Jump Height: 120%
  
• Starting Weapon: MA5K Avenger
  
• Secondary Weapon: None
  
• Friendly Player Collision: On

The Delta Arena playlist brings us back to beloved battlefields from the past which have been remade in Forge. These include Ascension, Beaver Creek, Midship, Turf, Sanctuary, Lockout, and Warlock.


The free 20-tier Operation Pass features the Thremaleon armor set, inspired by the iconic and beloved Rtas ‘Half-Jaw” ‘Vadum, who we meet in Halo 2 as a Special Operations commander of the Covenant—going on to become the legendary shipmaster of Shadow of Intent.

Upgrade to the Premium Pass and you will additionally secure the Veteran SRS99 weapon model, based on Halo 2’s sniper rifle, and Damascus Alchemy weapon coating.


“Your new suit’s a Mark VI, just came up from Seongnam this morning.”

The Rocket Reclaimer bundle is available in the Halo Infinite Shop and includes:

• Master Chief Mark VI armor kit
  
• Green Man armor coating
  
• Veteran SPNKr weapon model
  
• Veteran Metal weapon coating

Step into the iconic Mjolnir Mark VI armor of the Master Chief in Halo 2 and prepare to finish the fight.

---

In celebration of Halo 2’s twentieth birthday, the Digsite modding crew has released their latest content drop for Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC, which includes two cut missions from the retail game.


Both iconic and infamous, the E3 2003 demo for Halo 2 was a pulse-pounding hype engine where fans saw the campaign of the then-upcoming sequel for the first time. The Master Chief battles against the Covenant through the city of New Mombasa alongside Marines and ODSTs, showing off a new arsenal including a single-shot battle rifle and dual-wielded submachine guns.

However, the mission did not make it to the retail release.

The Digsite crew have been working hard to restore this mission so that it is not only in a playable state but fit to be released so you can finally get your hands on it as well. Massive improvements have been made to the visual quality and overall stability of this experience, and so—after two decades—it can finally be said that the Halo 2 E3 2003 demo is yours to experience!


This mission was cut from the Arbiter’s story, where his pursuit of the heretic leader Sesa ‘Refumee would have taken him from the gas mine on Threshold to the hardscrabble moon Basis where huge chunks of Alpha Halo’s wreckage have landed. Indeed, this environment formed the basis for the multiplayer map Burial Mounds.

This mission has been rebuilt from existing tags and is now playable. Note, however, that the showdown with ‘Refumee was only finished to a blockout stage and is not included in this reconstruction. The main issues that led to this mission’s removal from Halo 2 were problems with lightmapping (difficult to solve even with modern hardware), lack of environmental variation, and negative playtester feedback on the encounters. As this mission was still in heavy revision when it was cut you may encounter glitches and bugs!


To install and play these experiences, you need follow only three simple steps!

STEP 1 – Head to the Steam Workshop page[aka.ms] and subscribe to the mod.

STEP 2 – Boot up MCC on PC with Anti-Cheat disabled (this can be selected on start-up).

STEP 3 – Enter the campaign menu for Halo 2 and load up the level you want to play.

That’s all it takes! And if you want to mix up your experience a bit, you can enable Skulls in the campaign menu as well for both of these levels.

---

Just yesterday, we released a new short story set during the events of Halo 2—specifically around the onset of the Great Schism, where the Brutes usurp the position of the Elites within the Covenant.

Halo: Age of Retribution is available here on Steam, on Halo Waypoint[aka.ms], as a free PDF[aka.ms], and in audiobook format on YouTube[aka.ms].

November 3, 2552. After the Prophet of Regret is assassinated by the Master Chief, the Covenant is shaken to its foundations as the feud between Brutes and Elites reaches a violent turning point.

---

To commemorate this milestone, we got a bunch of folks at the studio to send in their memories and stories about their time with Halo 2. Got stories and memories that you’d love to share with us? Tag them on social platforms with #H2Memories for the opportunity to be featured in our next Community Spotlight!


My dad was a helicopter pilot in the Navy. When Halo 2 came out, the entire squadron was talking about it and who was the best. My dad overheard some of the younger guys talking about it and said he bet his ten-year-old son was better than any of them. Later, around twenty pilots came over to the house and we wired up two Xboxes over LAN and did tons of 1v1 and 2v2 rounds of Halo 2.

Ten-year-old me, plus my friend, versus two Navy pilots. We ended up destroying them multiple times over. The next day, my dad got on the intercom at his base and told the entire squadron that their best Halo 2 player got whooped by a ten-year-old. They never lived it down.


By the time Halo 2 released, software-based exploits for the original Xbox were figured out. I think I originally used the 007: Agent Under Fire gamesave exploit to get a custom dashboard installed on my Xbox (I was *NOT* playing on XBL with mods). This allowed me to load arbitrary executable code (compiled from x86 assembly) for specific games, called “trainers.” A friend and I in the modding scene, xbox7887, started working on “Project Yelo.” This was a “trainer” for Halo 2 that other people could use to take control of the game’s camera, take screenshots, control game speed, toggle skulls, etc.

Halo: CE and Halo 2 were early vessels for me to start exploring assembly code, debugging without source code, and just game engine design in general. Many people probably have some core memories of Halo 2 multiplayer over XBL, but as someone that did not have broadband internet (at least, in my room), all my early memories of Halo 2 are from reverse engineering to make the game do stuff it couldn’t or wouldn’t normally let a player do.


My old gamertag back in the Halo 2 days (and for many years after) was NYSTOFMIND23, which comes from the song by Nas titled “New York State of Mind,” and I had an old high school friend whose gamertag was “protectyaneck12” named after the old Wu-Tang song, “Protect Ya Neck.”

One day, while playing BTB on Headlong, thanks to the powers of proximity chat, we ran into some fellow hip hop fans who called out the songs and started playing them through their speakers and into the game.

Many players from both red and blue teams gathered in a circle (inside the tower that the teleporter takes you up to) and began crouching to the song and rapping together. Such a silly and fun moment that I’ll never forget—and, unbeknownst to me, I was now fully part of a community for the first time.

Thank you Halo 2, and happy birthday!


Me and my friends were hungry for more Halo and were very hyped by the ad campaign, so of course our first playthrough of Halo 2 was co-op… but in French. I don’t speak French, and neither did my friends. I must say, the plot made A LOT more sense once I got the game in English.


When Halo 2 shifted our perspective from the Master Chief to the Arbiter, and the consequences that he had to face, my love for Halo was cemented.

I really enjoy a story that forces you into the shoes of your “enemy,” giving us the opportunity to understand them better and sometimes maybe even make us second guess our own missions throughout the story.

Watching Thel ‘Vadamee made an example of, shamed, while the Covenant put him on a course that should ultimately end in his death, had my heart change for him. The Arbiter slowly uncovers that what he had believed in so strongly is no longer something he agrees with. I think that we all experience a revelation like this in one way or another in our lifetimes.

I have revisited the Arbiter’s story throughout the years since Halo 2 released in 2004. Twenty years later and I find that his lessons and change of heart have remained relevant in my own life from childhood to now.


Halo 2 was the first game I ever stood in line for.

The midnight release was on a school night, so it felt pretty special to be staying out so late. When my dad and I arrived at the store there was a HUGE line of folks already there and though I remember feeling intimidated when we approached, that all seemed to quickly melt away.

The shop people were doing giveaways, there was merch, someone was playing music, and there was such a sense of occasion. I remember looking at all the folks in line—seeing their expressions and the way they were all excited—and felt myself get swept away by that sense of community. I didn’t know anyone there, but at the same time, we clearly were all fans, and there was something neat about being around so many other folks that shared that love of Halo.

It remains one of my core gaming memories and is my reminder of how special Halo is to so many people.


I vividly remember the first time I played Halo 2. It was the summer of 2005, and I was twelve years old, spending the night at my friend’s house. We had just finished playing Brothers in Arms, dropping behind enemy lines on the morning of D-Day. After watching him play for a bit, he mentioned a game called Halo 2. I had a Gameboy at home and had played plenty of GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64 at other friends’ houses, so I was familiar with FPS games, but as soon as Halo 2 booted up, I knew this was something else.

The menu music pulled me in right away, creating an atmosphere that felt bigger than any game I’d played before. Before I knew it, we were locked in a 1v1 Slayer match on Turf, racing to 50 kills. The excitement of each fight, the sound of shields recharging, and running around spraying bullets with dual-wielded SMGs kept us going for hours.

By the time we finally quit, the sun was coming up outside. We had spent the entire night on the streets of New Mombasa, racing around Zanzibar, and having tank battles on Coagulation.


Even just saying “Halo 2” conjures up so many memories for me. Countless hours spent messing around in online customs like Tower of Power; the emergence of “zombies” on Headlong and Foundation; hunting for the alleged “ghost of Lockout” that had been glimpsed in blurry videos like it was the Bigfoot or Nessie of Halo… and I could wax poetic about the story for hours. But the memory that comes to mind as I sit down to write this is the summer of 2005, approaching the end of the school year, where my ten-year-old self decided to be uncharacteristically mischievous.

In the school’s IT room, my friends and I were watching a Halo 2 music video, a machinima set on the multiplayer map Terminal—the one with the train that occasionally speeds through the middle. The music in question that was playing over the video of an escalating number of Spartans waiting on the train platform was “London Underground” by Amateur Transplants.

I highly recommend looking that song up to understand just how much trouble I managed to get myself in for loading this video up across a dozen computers while the IT room was empty, setting the volume up to maximum on all the speakers, and hitting play on them all.

Happy birthday, Halo 2.


Custom game lobbies were the best. Sometimes we played, other times we just talked. It didn’t matter what ethnicity you were, what school you went to, your GPA, or where you were from. All that mattered was having fun playing Halo 2 together.


Halo 2 is the game that really started my Halo journey. I’d played Halo: CE, but I was pretty young at the time and hadn’t quite latched onto it. When I first played Halo 2, I remember being really surprised by how bright and beautiful the world was and how unique the music felt.

In the years that followed, I had countless late nights playing the campaign again and again, and getting destroyed in splitscreen 1v1s (I didn’t have Xbox Live back then). I also loved driving the Spectre up the walls of Containment, flipping the Scorpion onto the roof on Zanzibar, and Banshee-launching out of Headlong. Headlong is still one of my all-time favorite Halo maps and I even remade it in Halo 5‘s Forge mode before I worked at the studio.

Throughout all of these experiences, I never would have guessed that I would one day have the privilege of working on the game, but with MCC I got to do just that: building new features for my favorite games was incredibly fulfilling. As a designer (at the time), I partnered with Sean Cooper to develop our Yappening event for Halo 2 in 2019. This was one of the first experiences I got to own as a designer on MCC and it was a ton of fun to work on because it was all about being silly and over-the-top.

Bringing Skulls into multiplayer and working on game variants like Brute Shoot and Methane Moshpit was a blast. Our first iteration of Methane Moshpit spawned players with unlimited grenades with increased blast radii but no weapons and no shields and was a single-hill King of the Hill variant played on Foundation. Our test lead disliked it so much that he recommended we force matchmaking quitters to play it rather than receive quit bans!

More recently, it’s been incredible and inspiring to see what our mod community and Digsite teams have done with Halo 2.


I moved to a new town my first year of high school, and one of the first chances I had to meet new friends was getting invited to a Halo 2 LAN party. I had played a lot of Halo: CE, but I hadn’t played any Halo 2 at that point, so I remember being a little nervous.

A few matches into the LAN party, I was on the beach on Relic, low on ammo, and an enemy Spartan was bearing down on me with a Ghost, while another player was trying to get an angle with the sniper. I strafed left, then right, trying to keep the Ghost between me and the sniper, when suddenly, I spotted a dropped rocket launcher on the ground. This could be my chance!

It had only one shot loaded (of course), but I hit the Ghost square in the nose, blowing him up into the sky. As I went through that painfully slow reload, I looked at the sniper hopelessly, knowing there was no way I was going to live. He stopped strafing and I knew the shot was imminent… until the wreckage of the Ghost came down from the sky and splattered him, for my first ever double kill!

An incredible feeling, and that stunt definitely got me invited back to future LAN parties. The best part is, I am still very close friends with those people to this day.


For me, Halo 2 was the pinnacle of Halo in terms of fun. It wasn’t just the gameplay, but coming from lugging CRTs around to being able to play on Xbox Live with my friends at a time in my life where I got to focus on playing—it was the king.

Clan battles, MLG, getting mixed up in customs and the pro scene, and just narrowing in on what I wanted to do with my career in games.

Halo 2 brought this amazing world to you building off the foundation of Halo: CE in so many ways. I miss the BxR and the BxB button combos a lot. I had too much fun ripping faces with sweep snipes too—Halo 2 sweep sniping is KING in all of Halo and you can’t change my mind.


My story with Halo 2 was a long wait until Christmas 2004. I remember seeing it on the store shelf with my parents, seeing the crisp and sealed cases that just made the wait just a little bit longer.

When the time finally came, I remember playing Coagulation with my brother via system-link whilst he was in the other room. He was in a Warthog, trying to hunt me down, all while I was using active camo, waiting for him to pass me by. When he eventually drove towards me, I boarded the driver’s seat and kicked him out, only to hear a shout come from the other bedroom!

Unfortunately, I cannot remember who won that match, but for me, that cemented how cool Halo 2‘s new mechanics and refinements were.


I’m not going to say there’s a best time to have appendicitis. But I can definitively say that coming home from the hospital on November 9, 2004, after having my appendix removed was certainly not a bad time!

My parents picked up my pre-order on the drive home from the hospital, I got into a nice and cozy pillow and blanket spot to rest for the next few days (no school either!), loaded up Halo 2 multiplayer, and immediately got into an Ivory Tower match and had some ferocious sword duels with my fellow Spartans.

Thanks for the memories, Halo 2!


My first experience with Halo 2 came well after its release, during work on Halo: The Master Chief Collection. I had grown up with Halo: CE and played Halo 3 at the occasional friends’ get-together, but Halo 2 wasn’t easily accessible to me at the time.

I loved being able to dive back into the legacy of the Master Chief’s story and see how Halo 2 served as its own super important, but super unique shift in how Halo played. It was an amazing experience.

These days when I think back, it’s still my favorite Halo. I loved seeing the Arbiter’s side of the legend, how his path crossed with the Chief’s, and how he eventually led their own rebellion from within the Covenant. I love how those side stories eventually shaped other framed tales in ODST and Reach, and how much of the world that Halo began to establish that makes it so entertaining and interesting to see more stories be told—from our studio, and from the fans and community at large.


Looking back, you could say Halo 2 is the reason I wound up here at the studio. The matchmaking, the gunplay, and the fun gripped me in a whole new way. I was already a fan of Halo: CE, but Halo 2 evolved that passion into something deeper.

My dad and I would play matchmaking together (he really loves SWAT) when he was home between deployments and it was a really fun bonding time with him. Then later, I started playing on my own, meeting others online, and forging friendships through the game. Eventually those friendships blossomed into a larger foray into the general Halo community which ultimately led me to here!


The LAN parties my older brother brought me to were where I became part of a group of lifelong friends instead of just being “Karlos’s little brother.”

When we were playing Halo 2, everyone was equal, and we were all there to have a great time. When a great moment happened, we were all celebrating or laughing together.

Defending the base on Zanzibar. Discovering the best jump paths on Lockout before YouTube existed to see them all. Getting killed by “A Pencil” and all the other creative and hilarious names my friends thought up. My brother finding me leaning up against a wall completely asleep because I was so tired after an all-night LAN party…

That is the time in my life when I truly fell in love with gaming, and knew it had to be a part of the rest of my life. There’s no history of my life that can be told without including Halo 2 as part of it, and I am forever grateful for the experiences it created.


Halo 2 will always have a special place in my life, and in the history of gaming. Who knew how easy it could be to burn through an evening gaming, by randomly partying up and chatting with some new friends in matchmaking, all who happen to live hundreds of miles apart? Having that be so fun and readily accessible was pretty reality bending at the time, and gaming truly hasn’t been the same since.

I’m glad to have had the chance to help shape Halo 2‘s continuing legacy, with updates to MCC after the release on PC. Happy tenth anniversary to you too, MCC! A younger version of myself would have been so stoked to know that one day I’d get to help release full modding tools and other general fixes for a game I once dreamed about working on. Long live Halo 2!


My favorite Halo 2 moment was getting to play as the Arbiter for the first time in the campaign. Fighting alongside your fellow Covenant comrades, using the armor camouflage ability, and taking on the heretic forces is something that I’ll never forget.

There was just something special about playing as an Elite in the campaign. As the Sangheili say: “WORT WORT WORT!”


I wasn’t able to get my hands on Halo 2 until at least a year or two after Halo 3 was out. I would play the campaign over and over, looking for skulls, trying tricks and glitches I sneakily would read about on the school’s internet. I would also run around and explore all the multiplayer maps too—all offline of course. I had no internet at home for a long time!

For some reason, none of those memories of playing alone in the game that really revolutionized the multiplayer experience ever felt lonely. The whole game and world has a magic to it that is personally unquantifiable.

They should make a sequel, people would love that!


Halo 2… Sheesh, what a time. There are so many elements that go into what made that experience so great. The original E3 demo and all the hype that it created—seeing articles and speculation splashed across the covers of my favorite gaming magazines.

Going to my first midnight release at the local shop and procuring my first steelbook that housed the Collector’s Edition like a modern media cylix. Eagerly thumbing through the game manual (remember those?!) and poring over details from the “Conversations from the Universe” booklet that accompanied it. Having a blast with family and friends toting flags on Zanzibar, dislodging stalactites on Waterworks, or careening Headlong over ramps in a Warthog. And the story… How much I adore thee.

Halo 2 was the moment truly became more than just a game; it became a universe. The confirmation of the potential hinted at by Combat Evolved and The Fall of Reach. The solidifying of the franchise’s firm foundation. Halo 2 changed the lives of so many of us—connecting communities, creating canon curiosity, and changing the course of career trajectories. A pivotal synchron in gaming’s Great Journey.


Halo 2 was my first Halo game and will always be my favorite. If you missed being an early Xbox adopter with Halo: CE, Halo 2 was the ground floor for the universe and your first full experience as the Master Chief, and the Arbiter besides, as the narrative greatly matured.

The Gravemind’s trochaic heptameter and some of the line readings from Halo 2 are burned into my mind forever. As I lay dying and the last synapses in my brain spark out, they will probably be echoing the sound of Michelle Rodriguez’ line delivery saying “Rockets, fifty cal… didn’t do a thing!” or the Prophet of Truth intoning “There are those who said this day would never come. What are they to say now?”

The story was incredible, but the addition of Xbox LIVE alongside splitscreen co-op made Halo 2 a fundamentally social game. My friends and I would play Halo 2 until way too late, realize the only food place still open was some disgusting Jack in the Box (serving alleged “tacos”), come back to some basement TV, and just keep playing Halo 2. And if I could go back, I probably would!

---

Twenty years of Halo 2—of friendships forged, of memories made, and good times had.

Of course, Halo 2 hasn’t gone anywhere. You can jump into MCC today and play its incredible campaign and multiplayer like 2004 hasn’t gone anywhere, which is the perfect way to spend this weekend!

Got fond memories of Halo 2 you’d love to share? Send your stories our way across our social channels with #H2Memories to be featured in our next Community Spotlight. Otherwise, go forth and experience the E3 2003 demo, jump back into some Halo 2 campaign and multiplayer, and explore the offerings of Operation: Great Journey in Halo Infinite.

Happy twentieth birthd– hang on, is that a Jackal sn–

The Purple Heart honors heroes that have been wounded in service of their country.

Today, we remember our heroes and their sacrifices. 💜

Commemorate Purple Heart Day by grabbing the Purple Heart Day nameplate simply by logging on before August 14th!

Ahoy! It’s #InternationalPirateMonth 🏴‍☠️

Channel yer inner Kig-Yar pirate and hunt for treasure in MCC! Log in now to snag the International Pirate Month nameplate—or risk the plank!

Light up the night with celebrations, Spartan!

Happy 4th of July! 🎆🦅

July is Disability Pride Month. 💚🩵🤍💛❤️

We celebrate every Spartan as they are. Whether a person’s disability is visible or hidden under the surface, Halo is a universe where anyone can be a hero!

Log in to MCC between now and July 31 and you'll automatically unlock the Disability Pride Month nameplate!

Commemorate a day of freedom and humanity.

Juneteenth celebrates the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans on June 19, 1865 reminding us to unite to fight oppression for a better future.

Log in to MCC between now and July 1 to unlock the Juneteenth nameplate.

This June, we celebrate with our LGBTQIA+ Spartans near and far. Halo is a place where everyone can be themselves and we strive for unity and inclusion for all 🏳️‍🌈

Celebrate with the Unity nameplate by logging into MCC all month long! 🫰

May is both Mental Health Awareness and Asian Pacific Islander Heritage month!

Mental Health Awareness Month is a time to learn and reflect.

Be sure to take advantage of opportunities for education, advocacy, and awareness about mental health – whether that's to look after yourself or those around you.

---

May also marks Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

We at 343 honor our colleagues and community members who celebrate Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and acknowledge the rich culture and contributions they bring to both Halo and the world.

---

By logging in between now and May 31, you'll unlock both the MHA 2024 and the APIHM 2024 nameplates!

Get 'Hog Wild' this Earth Day! 🌍🌿🐗

Log into MCC by April 29 to claim your exclusive nameplate and show your love for our planet's wildlife! 🌎