Development of Halo: Combat Evolved: Difference between revisions

On July 21, 1999, during the Macworld Conference & Expo, Steve Jobs announced that ''Halo'' would be released for Mac OS and Windows simultaneously.<ref>[http://pc.ign.com/articles/068/068975p1.html ''IGN: Heavenly "Halo"'']</ref> Before this public announcement, game industry journalists under a non-disclosure agreement had previewed the game in a private showing during [[Electronic Entertainment Expo|E3 1999]] - mid-May of that year - and were reportedly amazed.{{Ref/Reuse|untold}}<ref>[http://halo.bungie.org/pressscans/display.html?scan=pcgamerusoct99 ''PC Gamer: Your first look at... "Halo"'']</ref> However, the game was still nameless and thus Bungie hired a branding company to help them name the game. The company and Bungie generated hundreds of names{{Ref/Reuse|untold}} including "The Santa Machine", "The Crystal Palace", "Solipsis",<ref name="solipsis" group="Note">Solipsis was the original name for the planet the ring orbited, now known in canon as [[Threshold]].</ref> "Hard Vacuum", "Starshield", "Star Maker", "Age of Aquarius"{{Ref/Reuse|OriginOfHalo}} and "Red Shift".<ref name="AOH73">''[[The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World]]'' - ''p. 73''</ref> However, the name the team ultimately settled on was "Covenant", and this name was given several logo treatments.{{Ref/Reuse|untold}} However, one artist - [[Paul Russel]] - thought the name was "stupid" and came up with five or six other names,{{Ref/Reuse|untold}} including "Project: Halo".{{Ref/Reuse|AOH73}} Few people at the studio liked the name at first, as some thought it was too-religious and that it didn't particularly sound like an action game.{{Ref/Reuse|untold}}{{Ref/Reuse|AOH73}} However, when Russel wrote down the name on the whiteboard in the studio, the name "clicked" in a way that was simple, and described the intent of the universe while maintaining a sense of mystery.{{Ref/Reuse|untold}} Bungie also teased fans with a Blam! mention on their webcam,<ref>[http://halo.bungie.org/bborgarch/bborg_072199/e3.html ''halo.bungie.org - E3 Shenanigans'']</ref> and on May 20 a ''Myth II'' fan site was suddenly updated with what would become the Blam! project's final name - ''Halo''.<ref name="MBO">[http://marathon.bungie.org/story/blam.html ''marathon.bungie.org - Blam!'']</ref> The trademark for ''Halo'' was filed in February 1999.<ref>[https://inventively.com/trademarks/halo/microsoft-corporation/75638523 ''Halo trademark'']</ref>

Even amidst the negotiations to move to Xbox, Bungie once more showed off ''Halo'' at E3 in May 2000, showing off a [[Halo E3 2000 trailer|new trailer]] showcasing a deployment of Marines on the titular ringworld. Like the Macworld conference, the demo was finished at the 11th hour, with Marty O'Donnell finishing the music and burning the DVD just two hours before departing for the conference.<ref name="matrydiscuss">[http://halo.bungie.org/news.html?item=1840 ''halo.bungie.org: Marty O'Donnell discusses Halo's sound'']</ref> This trailer would mark the appearance of several new vehicles and equipment; the [[Sangheili|Elites]], [[D77-TC Pelican|Pelican dropship]], a sniper rifle, the [[Type-1 energy sword|energy sword]] and the first appearance of the Master Chief. Previous builds of the game had featured multiple SPARTAN supersoldiers as merely one type of infantry, but now the Master Chief was a singular character. The Master Chief shown in the E3 2000 build would also bear armour much closer to resembling the [[MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor/Mark V|MJOLNIR Mark V]] found in the final game, albeit with a small antenna and other slight differences. The trailer would also mark the first appearances of the Covenant [[Type-26 Wraith|Wraith]] tank and the [[Wuzum-pattern Spectre|"Spectre"]], the latter of which would later be cut from the final game. The Warthog additionally featured a mounted rocket launcher later reminiscent in design of the [[M12G1 Gauss Warthog|Gauss Warthog]] featured in ''[[Halo 2]]'' and the [[M12A1 Rocket Warthog|Rocket Warthog]] later featured in the ''Halo: Combat Evolved'' [[Halo: Combat Evolved (PC port)|PC port]].<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgUfN7x7BSA ''Youtube: Halo: Combat Evolved E3 2000 trailer'']</ref> A press kit handed out at E3 2000 estimated the game was "60% complete",<ref>[http://halo.bungie.org/news.html?item=1429 ''halo.bungie.org: Press kit says Halo 60% done'']</ref> while a later article claimed that the only components now missing were mission design and AI.{{Ref/Reuse|gamestar}} At this time, the team did have code to generate geometry on the fly as the player explored the world, and "stupidly" discussed this aspect of the game to magazines at E3 with the map being set in an archipelago created in an ancient asteroid strike. As the game later began to evolve into a linear shooter, this style of open world was ditched as it was deemed too RPG-like and the team wanted the player to spend less time exploring and more on shooting.{{Ref/Reuse|jones}}

[[File:HCE EarliestFlood Concept.jpg|thumb|right|The earliest known concept art of the Flood, by Robert McLees in roughly 1997 during the RTS days of the game's development.<ref name="AOH52">''The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World'' - ''p. 52''</ref> The full resolution was lost during the shuffle of years at Bungie, and the colour resembles human skin more due to McLees' colour-blindness.{{Ref/Reuse|feast}}]]

When developing games prior to ''Halo'', Bungie's method of development was to develop their engine, then make their multiplayer gameplay feel good. This was only followed then by campaign as the final element to take place.<ref>[http://halo.bungie.org/pressscans/display.html?scan=cgw1199 ''halo.bungie.org: Computer Gaming World 1999 scan'']</ref> The development of ''Halo'' was no exception, as the rough story for the game didn't even begin to take shape until mid-199, following the Macworld trailer premiere. The first seeds of the franchise were sown following [[Robert McLees]]' creation of the then-"future soldier" (the predecessor to the Master Chief) and the Warthog vehicle, at which point he began to place himself in the year 2500, with the player at war with alien factions.{{Ref/Reuse|untold}} In the early stages of the game's development, the game's setting of a "fortress world" was to be a hollowed-out planet, though this soon evolved into a [[dyson sphere]] and later the titular ringworld.{{Ref/Reuse|AOH73}}<ref name="jones">[http://halo.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?cid=6 ''Bungie.net: Jason Jones Interviewed By You'']</ref> This planet was to have been named "Solipsis", one of the names suggested as the game's title during development.{{Ref/Reuse|IGNhistory}} The evolution of the setting to the ringworld, however, inspired Paul Russel to come up with the name ''Halo'', which was then applied to the ring itself.{{Citation needed}} The earliest drafts of the structure that would later become the [[Portal at Voi]] were concepted by [[Marcus Lehto]]<ref>[https://twitter.com/game_fabricator/status/1088274744456159232 ''Marcus Lehto on Twitter:''] ''These are the oldest drawings of the Ark. Started playing around with this idea during Halo CE development''</ref> and implemented into an early build by around 1998.<ref name="LehtoWireframe">[https://twitter.com/game_fabricator/status/1198285568712441858?s=19 ''Marcus Lehto on Twitter:''] ''This is the very first Warthog I designed for Halo back in 1998. Old pc build only runs in wireframe now. Master Chief could go prone, crouch and drive this somewhat unwieldy vehicle around the map. Even had an early Forerunner Ark in the background! #warthog #halo #cybertruck''</ref><ref group="Note" name="Ark">This concept would later be considered for inclusion in ''Halo 2'' as the Ark, before later being relegated to ''Halo 3'' as the Voi portal.</ref>

[[File:HCE ShotgunEngineers Screenshot.jpg|250px|right|thumb|A later build of a near-final Master Chief with a Covenant Engineer.]]

In planning out the game's campaign, Marcus Lehto built a number and letter system on 3x5 index cards pinned to a board. There were around 40 of these cards, with numbers and letters such as A10, A20, A30 and so forth. The mission "[[Halo (Halo: Combat Evolved level)|Halo]]" had the name A30, while "Truth and Reconciliation" had the name A50. A40 was the name given to an eventually cut mission, possibly one referenced to be set near a volcano involving "heavy machinery".{{Ref/Reuse|campaigndecember}} Later on, twenty five missions were planned in total, but only ten made the final cut - with heavy asset and layout reuse included.<ref>[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/better-than-halo-the-making-of-halo-2-article?page=4 ''Eurogamer: Better Than Halo: The Making of Halo 2''] - ''Page 4''</ref>

[[File:PreXbox Ring.jpg|right|thumb|200px|In the 1999 builds, the ring had the appearance of being broken or unfinished, a concept later reused for [[Installation 08]] in ''[[Halo 3]]''.]]

One of the early distinctions made about ''Halo'' in development was for there to be a clear distinction between The UNSC and Covenant design aesthetic, with the UNSC employing traditional ammuninition-based weaponry to differentiate from the aliens' high-tech [[plasma weaponry|plasma weapons]]. Artist [[Shi Kai Wang]] was employed to define the look of the Covenant, taking curvilinear forms from sea creatures, shells and iridescent textures from a horseshoe crab carapace, eventually defining the Covenant with a blue, purple and green colour scheme.{{Ref/Reuse|untold}} This direction took the form of the three "design schools" of ''Halo''; the aforementioned human and Covenant, and the Forerunners with large cavernous and mysterious structures. This idea was spearheaded by Paul Russel.<ref name="AOH71">''The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World'' - ''p. 71''</ref> The Covenant environments were primarily showcased in the level "[[The Truth and Reconciliation]]", with the original plan for the level involving a ramp the player would walk up to access the ship, intended to be low to the ground. However, the art team didn't want to have the player be able to inspect the ship up-close due to the low resolution of the in-game asset, so the [[gravity lift]] technology was conceived to to help provide the player with a way of entering the ship while keeping the vessel airborne. This idea proved to be more visually interesting that the level was structured around the gravity <ref name="AOH85">''The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World'' - ''p. 85''</ref>

To develop the characteristic feel of the Forerunners, Marcus Lehto treated the setting of [[Installation 04]] as a character or entity unto itself - the team started with an idea of the ring's scale and function, and from there began to develop the Forerunner visual language. The ring's external surface and internal landmasses were created by concept painter [[Craig Mullins]], who created a series of images showing the ring in various tages of dissamebly with one pristine and new, one damaged and one on fire and coming apart. The ring's surface texture was gleaned from these paintings and later applied to the in-game 3D model.<ref name="AOH77">''The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World'' - ''p. 77''</ref> Lehto felt that the structures on the surface of the ring were simply the tip of the iceberg, with each structure unique and filled with increasingly complex machinery beneath the surface. The Forerunner architecture was created through a process of trial and error, with the original style concepted in the old Chicago office a mix of Aztec and Louis B. Sullivan. The style was broken through with roughly five months before the game reached "content complete" status due to concept art created by Eddie Smith, who would produce several pieces of art depicting Forerunner structures.<ref name="AOH79">''The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World'' - ''p. 79''</ref> Smith had little mandate or direction when he first started doing sketches of the Forerunner environments, but wanted to give the environment art team a starting point to begin their work on the levels. There was a vague notion of how things ''could'' look but nothing concrete, so Smith began to sketch based on the story synopsis, trying to differentiate from the existing Human and Covenant environments in a style he referred to as "streamlined industrial".<ref name="AOH80">''The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World'' - ''p. 80''</ref>

The human aesthetic - primarily that of the interiors of the {{UNSCShip|Pillar of Autumn}} - was driven by Paul Russel's inspiration from the works of the artist Ron Cobb, who had done a number of instrumental work on developing the look of the ''Nostromo'' in ''[[Wikipedia:Alien|Alien]]'' and the colony in ''[[Wikipedia:Aliens|Aliens]]''. The interior of the vessel was designed to look believable and interesting, with drink vending machines, [[bulletin board]]s, and signed denoting various areas of the ship for the crew and the player. Paul tried to take the industrial look developed by Cobb for ''Alien'' and riff on that without turning into a blatant copy, wanting to show things in a functional way that looked like it fit together. The final result was a design direction which looked like it had been built by human hands.<ref name="AOH75">''The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World'' - ''p. 75''</ref> Smith also provided concept artwork for the interior of the ''Autumn'', with [[Lorraine McLees]] developing some of the exterior look. McLees' involvement in the game's production was primarily to do with visual branding and marketing and began working on the ship as everyone else on the team was too busy to do so. Griesemer and Lehto specified they wanted the vessel to look distinctly human, but the only human designs in the game at that point in time were the Warthog, weapons and a now-cut boat. McLees did a handful of sketches, and the team was drawn to one reminiscent of the shape of the assault rifle. At the request of Lehto, the ship was lengthened about three hundred percent to make it longer than tall.<ref name="AOH125">''The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World'' - ''p. 125''</ref>