A massive 90GB leak has surfaced containing development builds, tools, and internal documents spanning from Bungie’s 1998 work.
The Halo franchise has gone through significant changes recently. After the mixed reception to Halo Infinite‘s live service model, 343 Industries underwent a major transformation earlier this year, rebranding to Xbox’s “Halo Studios” while maintaining its role as the franchise’s steward.
The studio also announced its transition to Unreal Engine 5 for future Halo projects, moving away from its traditional Slipspace Engine. This change promises to streamline development and potentially open new possibilities for the franchise’s future.
Now, a significant leak has surfaced containing internal Halo documents, spanning from Bungie‘s original titles through to the recent Halo Digsite project.
Massive 90GB Halo Digsite Leak Detailed
On December 25, 2024, a massive 90GB (according to VISCERAL) archive of development materials appeared on 4chan. This leak, known as the “Halo Digsite Archive,” contains an extraordinary collection of development builds, tools, and internal documents spanning from Bungie’s early work in 1998 to recent work.
The leaked content appears to originate from the Halo Digsite project, where 343 Industries had enlisted community modders to help restore cut content from previous Halo games. Among the leaked materials is the E3 2000 build, which was famously used to create the original Xbox version’s trailer, despite not being compatible with the console itself.
A user familiar with the Digsite project posted on X (Twitter), confirming the leak’s authenticity while clarifying that recent project departures weren’t responsible. They noted that some of the content, such as Halo 2 E3 work, was at least six months old.
Internal documents revealed in the leak include detailed campaign overviews, mission descriptions, and environmental design documents from the original Halo trilogy. One particularly interesting find is a comprehensive mission breakdown showing the evolution of iconic levels and their gameplay elements, as well as Bungie’s Technical Manual. (which can be seen above)
The archive’s contents are still being examined by the community, and there’s likely much more to be discovered. A cryptic readme file included with the leak suggests additional content might be getting leaked soon, using a modified conversation from Deus Ex as a teaser.
In addition to the above images, dedicated fans have managed to put together playable beta builds of Halo 1 from its early development phase, back when the game was radically different from the iconic first-person shooter it would eventually become.
Check out the leaked gameplay video of this build below.
Playable beta builds of Halo 1 just dropped today, from before the game became an FPS pic.twitter.com/SLMy2cfo7r
— Vinícius Medeiros (@VinciusMedeiro6) December 26, 2024
In other Halo-related news, we finally have an answer to why there was no Master Chief present in Halo Wars, the real-time strategy (RTS) game. According to the game’s lead designer Dave Pottinger, the decision to exclude Master Chief from the 2009 RTS game was entirely deliberate and not due to any restrictions from Bungie, contrary to popular rumors.
The development team at Ensemble Games chose to omit the iconic character because they feared his presence would overshadow other characters in the game, making it difficult for players to connect with the broader cast.
“We didn’t want to use Master Chief,” the developer said in an interview with VideoGamer. “We were telling the game that needed you to care about everybody else. We thought as soon as Master Chief shows up, that’s all anybody’s going to [care about].”
“[It was] one of the hardest things was we had these conversations seriously with people internally and externally. How can it be an RTS? Clearly Spartans are the best unit. Our challenge is making Spartans not the best unit, but making them an equal option for the other units. That’s what a strategy game is.”
Interestingly, this wasn’t the only major gaming leak this Christmas. In related news, Nintendo fans were surprised by an apparent leak of the highly anticipated Switch 2 console, reportedly providing the first genuine look at both the system and its dock.
What are your thoughts on these leaked materials? Let us know in the comments below.
