For its 20th anniversary, Halo 2's infamous E3 2003 demo that never made it into the final game is coming to Halo: MCC

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343i and The Digsite team are excavating Earth City on November 9

Halo 2
(Image credit: Microsoft)

That famous Halo 2 demo from E3 2003 is finally going to be playable later this year.

More than a year before Halo 2 hit store shelves, publisher Microsoft debuted a full-fat nine-minute demo of the game at E3 2003 that made the already hyped shooter an even bigger event. But the entire demo's mission and ideas like the winding city highways never saw the light of day and were scrapped as Bungie made last minute changes to the game.

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There was never any reason to think the scrapped 'Earth City' mission would rear its head again - that is, until 343 Industries and Digsite, a team focused on restoring content from the fabled FPS series, announced that the demo's contents would be making a free comeback in Halo: The Master Chief Collection via Steam workshop.

At this weekend's Halo World Championship Series 2024, 343i revealed the demo would be revived for Halo 2's 20th anniversary on November 9, alongside a first look at its remade Earth City linked below - a fun little peek at what could've been. The updated demo will also come with overhauled lip sync in the demo's cutscenes, added waypoint markers to the map in case you want to go off-script, and will obviously use assets from Halo 2's release build. 

That wasn't the only exciting announcement from the Halo-centric event either. 343i unveiled an upcoming third-person mode for Halo Infinite, satisfying a decades-old prophecy from when Steve Jobs first revealed Halo 1 at MacWorld 1999 in all its once-third-person glory. A team of Forgers also set a date for their Helldivers 2-like mode in Halo Infinite.

Halo: Combat Evolved is reportedly getting “some form” of a remaster as Xbox considers bringing the FPS series to PlayStation. 

Kaan Serin
Freelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.