Cut Halo 4 weapons

This page discusses elements of deleted material and cut content. Some information on the page is sourced from game files and may not be verifiable through external sources. Where possible, such information should be clearly-marked and replaced with a proper external source as soon as one is available.

During the development of Halo 4, a number of various weapons were concepted and prototyped by 343 Industries for inclusion in the game, though were ultimately cut for various reasons. Some weapons were concepted but never reached 3D prototypes, and others were left in the game files as leftovers from the previous game, Halo: Reach.

In-engine prototypes

Attach beam

The "attach beam" is an early version of the Binary Rifle, and uses an early model of the weapon. It uses the final game's Binary Rifle HUD but the reload sounds and animation of the Sniper Rifle, and an early model of the LightRifle.

With the release of Halo 4 on PC as part of The Master Chief Collection, files for this weapon - now named the "storm attach beam" - were added to the game's shared file directory, allowing them to be spawned in via modding..

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  The attach beam.

Bishop beam

The "bishop beam" is a seemingly-Forerunner beam weapon, similar in operation to the Sentinel Beam and Focus Rifle. It can be found in the files for the level Shutdown. When fired at vehicles, the beam locks onto the vehicle in question even if it outside the player's reticule, and will destroy the vehicle after a few moments of firing.

Notably, the Promethean Watcher enemies were named bishops during the early stages of Halo 4, indicating they may have been intended to use this weapon, akin to the Sentinels and their use of the sentinel beam. This weapon was one of several made available for use in modding, following the release of Halo 4 on PC in The Master Chief Collection.

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  Profile of the bishop beam.

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  The bishop beam lying on the ground.

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  A first person view of the bishop beam.

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  The weapon firing.

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  The weapon overheating.

Burst pistol

The "burst pistol" is a weapon which can be in the files for the Lockup map in Spartan Ops. It can fire a single shot or up to a six-round burst. This weapon is notably similar to the iteration of the Bolshot found in Halo 5: Guardians.

This weapon was one of several made available for use in modding, following the release of Halo 4 on PC in The Master Chief Collection.

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  The burst pistol.

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  Firing the burst pistol.

Disintegrator

Not to be confused with a cut Halo 2 weapon of the same name, the disintegrator was intended to be a Forerunner equivalent to the Spartan Laser. The weapon requires a charge-up before firing, and fires a blue beam. It uses the model of the UNSC Spartan Laser, though is buggy in first-person and has various parts of the geometry rotated in odd directions.

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Hunter LMG

Using the model of Jorge-052's machine gun from Reach, Etilka, the Hunter LMG fires a bolt similar to those fired by the assault cannons of the Hunters. When held by the player, the player uses the weapon in third-person similar to other support weapons, indicating this may be an early version of the assault cannon weapons featured in Halo 5: Guardians - notably the Beserker's Claw and Wicked Grasp. This weapon can be found in the files of the Fortress map in Spartan Ops.

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  Jorge's machine gun as seen in Reach.

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  The Hunter LMG on the ground.

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  Holding the Hunter LMG (The invisible player model is a side-effect of the methods required to get the weapon to spawn).

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  Firing the LMG.

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  The explosion created by the bolt.

Stasis rifle

The "stasis rifle" appears in the game files of Halo 4, unused on the Two Giants Spartan Ops map, among others. The weapon fires a green projectile which creates a purple sphere upon impact with geometry - similar to that of the regeneration field ability. The field appears not to damage players or vehicles, but does slow them as they walk through it - though crouching while in the field does not apply this effect. It can also scare Covenant out of turrets, as if it was a harmful projectile.

This weapon was one of several made available for use in modding, following the release of Halo 4 on PC in The Master Chief Collection.

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  The stasis rifle.

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  The untextured stasis rifle lying on the ground.

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  The stasis rifle generating a stasis field.

Concept-only weapons

SMG

Found in Awakening: The Art of Halo 4 is a concept design for the M7 SMG previously featured in Halo 2 and Halo 3. This weapon does not appear to have made it into 3D stages.

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  Concept art of the SMG.

Early light rifle design

Early in development, the design that would ultimately be used for the Light Rifle was originally intended to be the Binary Rifle. In these early stages, a unique design was concepted for the Light Rifle, which ultimately went unused.

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  The unused concept.

Halo: Reach leftovers

Halo 4 was built on the engine previously-used for the creation of Halo: Reach. Due to this, many aspects of Reach are left in the game files of Halo 4. In some cases, such as the Scorpion tank, the Reach model was re-textured and fully-integrated into the game. However, several weapon models from Reach remain unused as leftovers within Halo 4's game files.

DMR

The M392 DMR from Halo: Reach remains in the files of Halo 4, found in the files for the multiplayer map Harvest. The weapon model in the files is known as xsr_proto. This weapon was one of several made available for use in modding, following the release of Halo 4 on PC in The Master Chief Collection.

The loadout menus of both Halo 4 and The Master Chief Collection incorrectly use the M392 icon instead of that of the M395 featured in-game, despite the icon being used in pre-release footage.

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  The M392 DMR in use in The Master Chief Collection on Forge Island.

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  The M392 icon in the menus.

Energy sword

Found in the files of the Harvester Spartan Ops map, or Halo 4 on PC, this is the leftover of the energy sword as found in Reach. The model is missing most of its visual effects and HUD.

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  The energy sword in use in The Master Chief Collection.

Target locator

The model of the H-165 target locator from Reach can be found in the files of the Quarry map. The weapon functions exactly as it did in Reach, though does not call in the artillery strike. This was likely used to test the H-295 target designator used to call in MAC strikes from the Mammoth in the Reclaimer level.

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  The H-165 in use on Forge Island in The Master Chief Collection.