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Earth Ark

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Earth Ark
Concept art for the "Ark" as it was known in Halo 2.

Game:

Halo 2 (Cut)

File name (?):

Earth_Ark_09

Player:

Location:

"The Ark", Mombasa, Kenya, Africa, Earth

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"All that stuff was going to culminate and end on Earth. And it was going to be the end of Halo. We had no plans to do another game after this. It was like: this is how Halo ends."
— Martin O'Donnell describes the intended Earth Ark level.[1]

"Earth Ark" was the working title for a series of three campaign levels cut from Halo 2. The three missions would have served as the penultimate in the game, showcasing the Master Chief's return to Earth and the final stand of the Prophet of Truth.[2]

Overview[edit]

While making Halo 2, Bungie developed pairs of levels under single names - such as Outskirts and Metropolis being originally created as one level named "Earth City". Earth Ark was seemingly similar in this regard, seemingly intended to comprise of three individual missions in which the player would alternate between playing as Master Chief and the Arbiter (then-known in development under the name Dervish).[3]

Battle on the plains[edit]

Concept art of John-117's descent to Earth at the start of Halo 3.
While the Master Chief's re-entry sequence would be cut from Halo 2, it was later re-concepted by Dorje Bellbrook for Halo 3.

In the first of the two levels under the "Earth Ark" heading, the player would play as the Master Chief. The mission would open with the Spartan aboard the Prophet of Truth's Forerunner ship as it emerged from slipspace over Earth, having just escaped the Fall of High Charity to the Flood. Master Chief was to communicate with Lord Hood, before using a grenade to blast a porthole off the Forerunner ship and jump out of the ship over Earth.[4]

  • H2 ChiefJump Storyboard 1.jpg
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  • H2 ChiefJump Storyboard 9.jpg
  • H2 ChiefJump Storyboard 10.jpg
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On Earth, the next cutscene would depict a group of Marines fighting in the deserts of East Africa, besieged by Brute forces and their artillery cannons. In the distance can be seen a mysterious Forerunner structure - the Ark.[4] In this early revision of Halo 2, the Ark was to be a Forerunner structure buried under the city of New Mombasa, and by this point had been excavated by the Covenant fleet in the wake of the departure of the Prophet of Regret earlier in the game