Huge Halo leak lets you sample Xbox history including rare third-person perspective
Over 25 years of Halo's history has leaked including a playable version of the 1999 reveal of the series which showed it before it was going to be a first-person shooter at allTech17:01, 27 Dec 2024Halo is now an iconic FPS, but it wasn't always that way(Image: Microsoft)There are few franchises more synonymous with Xbox than Halo, and it's been around since the very beginning of Microsoft's console. And, thanks to a surprising leak earlier this week, much of that history is available for all.As reported by VGC, modding site Digsite had been working with current custodians of the Halo IP, 343 Industries (recently rebranded to Halo Studios) to restore content that had been cut from prior games.The work began last summer but a new leak has dropped a whole host of content onto the internet including one of the most infamous game reveals of the nineties in all of its untouched glory.Content cannot be displayed without consentBack in 1999, Bungie's Halo was initially revealed at the Macworld expo, an Apple event centred around the Macintosh lineup of computers.Apple trumpeted Bungie's project as a big 'get' for the Mac, but it's not quite the same as the Halo we know today. While the initial reveal showed the hero we'd come to know as Master Chief, it was shot from a third-person perspective (and, prior to that, had been a strategy title).The first Halo title is Combat Evolved, which saw an Xbox 360 remaster(Image: Microsoft)Less than a year later, Microsoft acquired Bungie to put them to work on its upcoming console, the Xbox, and Halo then pivoted to become one of the most famous first-person shooters today. And, thanks to this new leak, the initial Macworld demo is now playable.As for how the leak happened, one member of the Digsite team posted a thread on X (formerly Twitter) saying that the Digsite team wasn't responsible for the uploads, even saying some of the files included weren't accessible by the team working on the project.Halo is now an iconic FPS, but it wasn't always that way(Image: Microsoft)Another member said many of the team had quite because Microsoft wanted more but with no resources offered to Digsite.Article continues belowThe series' latest entry, Halo: Infinite, launched in 2021 and was built using the bespoke Slipspace Engine, but Halo Studios will now work in Unreal Engine 5 going forward.For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.RECOMMENDED