Halo: The Master Chief Collection Update Adds Cut Content, But Only for PC

A team of modders called Digsite has been working with 343 Industries to restore old and cut content from Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2. The teams have been planning to add this content to Halo: The Master Chief Collection through a new title update, but the catch is that the patch will only be available on PC.

What’s in the Halo: The Master Chief Collection Digsite title update?

As is the case with most games, the early Halo titles had their share of cut content. Over the last year, the Digsite modding team has worked to complete or update some of this content in order to add it to Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

The content is intended to be used and possibly improved by modders on PC, hence why the content will not be made available on Xbox. It includes maps, weapons, enemies, and vehicles. As noted by the first Digsite blog, here is the list of maps that have been revealed so far:

• Maps cut from Halo: Combat Evolved
  • Underground – based on the Indoor map
  • Abyss – based on the Dusk map
  • Ruined Pain – a map variant from “the very early stage of Halo FPS-era development”
  • Swampthing
  • Spasm – made famous in the Macworld 1999 demo and originally used to test different game mechanics
• Early versions of Halo 2 maps
  • Arcology – an early revision of Outskirts/Metropolis
  • Ascension Revision
  • Burial Mounds Revision
  • Colossus Revision
  • Headlong Revision
  • Lockout Revision
  • Midship Revision
  • Waterworks Revision
• Maps cut from Halo 2 on Xbox
  • Anchor Point
  • Convict
  • Grotto
  • Shaft
• Maps cut from Halo 2 Vista
  • Artery
  • Backwoods – a cut multiplayer map from Halo 2 Vista
  • Convergence
  • Convergence Revision
  • Rodentia
• Unreleased example maps for Halo 2 Vista
  • Covenant Sample
  • Forerunner Sample
  • Human Sample
  • Soccer

There are going to be a few weapons but Digsite only showed two: a submachine gun and an assault rifle with a grenade launcher. It did, however, show far more vehicles and enemies. Some of them are recovered from the third-person and real-time strategy era of Halo, meaning they are just models meant for other modders to tinker with. These creatures are:

• Vulpard
• Keelbug
• Rockworm
• Quadwing
• Thorax
• Eye Bug

The incomplete vehicles are:

• Leech
• Spectre
• Viper Stealth Tank (Green Camo)
• Warthogs (E3 Chaingun, Troop Transport Hog, E3 Rocket)
• Kestrel
• Doozy
• Viper Stealth Tank (Blue Camo)
• Shadow
• E3 Pelican

There are also three drivable vehicles — the Mongoose, Uberchassis, and Piglet — and three cut Halo 2 weapons — the Battle Rifle, Sniper Rifle, and SMG — all of which are in the above picture. The weapons even have melee attacks and reload animations that didn’t make it into the full game.

And finally, Digsite revealed that it had brought a few foes back from the grave: Slugman, Sharquoi, Neo, and Covenant Masters. Sharquoi enemies are hulking brutes, Slugman enemies are cyborgs with sniper rods, and Covenant Masters are like Elites that can use a wide variety of weapons.

The title update does not have a release date just yet, but more information is promised for July 10 when the team will be sharing a preview of what’s to come. More content will also be revealed in the next blog that’s set for July 14.