Halo 2 developer commentary

The developer commentary for Halo 2 is a commentary track that can be enabled in the "Halo - Halo 2 Cinematics" menu on the Halo 3 Legendary Edition bonus DVD. It plays over the cinematics and gameplay scenes, with commentary from Bungie staff:

• Project Lead Jason Jones;
• Writer, Director of Cinematics Joseph Staten; and
• Composer, Audio Director Martin O'Donnell.

Transcript

The Heretic

Main article: H2:The Heretic

• Joseph Staten: Woohoo!

• Martin O'Donnell: MGS logo. A little Steve Vai. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, Jason Jones.

• Jason Jones: I didn't hear what you said, Marty. What was that? Hey everybody, welcome to the farce that is the Halo 2 developers commentary. I'm Jason Jones. I'm here with Joe Staten, director of cinematics, and Marty O'Donnell. What did Marty do, Joe? I know he wrote something.

• Joseph Staten: The music.

• Jason Jones: The music. Some of the music. And, we're going to talk about our favorite game that we've ever developed, Halo 2.

• Joseph Staten: And here... Ah yes, mellifluous tone.

• Martin O'Donnell: Some new actors. Wow. David... Keith...

• Joseph Staten: Keith David, yes.

• Martin O'Donnell: Keith David. David Keith.

• Joseph Staten: Now, if you were watching before, the Halo 1 stuff, it's just amazing the instant increase in graphic fidelity between these two things.

• Jason Jones: Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

• Joseph Staten: Actual cross-fades in Halo 2, I have to say.

• Jason Jones: Cross-fades were...

• Martin O'Donnell: Did you make it so things don't freeze anymore, Joe?

• Joseph Staten: Well, yes. This is what's known as the director's remastering of the Halo 2 cinematics, because if you actually played Halo 2, you might have noticed that there were some graphic glitches, some popping textures, some depth of field that wasn't quite in there. So, what I thought I would do, you know—and I know you audio guys went back and did a little bit, too—is really go and create the cinematics the way that we really wanted them to look. But it's all still in-engine; all still playing back from the engine.

• Jason Jones: I saw you in After Effects at least once.

• Joseph Staten: Shhh. This is called the "Developer Diary," not the "Cheaters' Confessional."

• Martin O'Donnell: I love it.

• Jason Jones: Truth...

• Martin O'Donnell: Wait, here comes a good line. Here it comes. Bob O'Donnell, ladies and gentlemen.

• Joseph Staten: Marty's dad.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes. Cameo appearance.

• Joseph Staten: We pretty much sneak him into every single game.

• Martin O'Donnell: Also known as the Surly Dwarf from Myth. And he was the Prophet of Denial. No, what were we calling him? Prophet of something.

• Joseph Staten: Yeah, we did do that. Good stuff. And one of the bugs that I could never fix in Halo 2, and I still couldn't fix it.... Riiight there. Bang. Arbiter's helmet pops every single time. And I could never figure that out.

• Jason Jones: Even in After Effects?

• Joseph Staten: Even in After- Hey... That's it. I'm going back and fixing it.

• Martin O'Donnell: It is nice to see all these cinematics without any popping at all.

• Joseph Staten: Mhm. Well, I mean, so what was that all about, Jones? The popping that we shipped with.

• Jason Jones: Cairo. I was just in Cairo last month. We guess... we guess code.

• Joseph Staten: You know how it was a hardware problem, too, right?

• Jason Jones: It was 'cause we landed the plane in like an 89-degree power dive.

• Joseph Staten: ...onto fire. Exactly.

The Armory

Main article: H2:The Armory

• Joseph Staten: But I mean, I remember that distinctly just being heartbreaking for everybody on the team when, you know, when we realized it was just too late.

• Martin O'Donnell: "Chilly hole?!"

• Joseph Staten: There wasn't that time to put that polish on the game. That was pretty heartbreaking for everybody.

• Jason Jones: Yeah, that was pretty... that was pretty hard.

• Martin O'Donnell: Here we go. How did he?

• Joseph Staten: "Classified."

• Martin O'Donnell: That's good writing.

• Joseph Staten: Thank you. Oh, wait. There's a a grand tradition in Halo games of never really explaining how we get from one to the other. Almost, but not really. Like we hadn't actually planned to make the next one.

• Martin O'Donnell: What?

• Joseph Staten: I mean, we always do. I'm just saying it's like we hadn't really planned it.

• Martin O'Donnell: I remember when we were doing the Cortana Letters years ago, where we had the entire plan from the beginning of the Cortana Letters to the end of the trilogy. Remember that whole story arc? Yeah.

• Joseph Staten: Right. I think we might have lost that plan.

• Martin O'Donnell: Okay, let's look at it.

• Joseph Staten: Marty, that's some nice martial stuff.

• Jason Jones: Oh, the arm-pumping repeat animation.

• Joseph Staten: He is extremely excited to see the Master Chief.

Cairo Station

Main article: H2:Cairo Station

• Joseph Staten: Now, there was no addition of any post-effects in this scene.

• Martin O'Donnell: I don't remember seeing flashes like that in the game. What happened here?

• Joseph Staten: There were flashes in the game, but it—one of the things that we had to cut, unfortunately, from the final version was a lot of the effects work. So, all the flags were in there. All the scripting was in there, but we just couldn't... We just brought it back.

• Martin O'Donnell: Okay, that's good. For historical purposes.

• Joseph Staten: For historical purposes. Little Grunt standing on top of the thing. Extremely happy bystander.

• Jason Jones: That's my favorite line. "Heretic." This entire cutscene.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oooh, the Brutes.

• Joseph Staten: The Arbiter. He takes his punishment like a man. Look at him. Good old Tartarus.

• Martin O'Donnell: Boy, these voices are amazing.

• Joseph Staten: Put a little depth of field in. Sure, why not? Ouch. I mean, one of the challenging things, I mean—between—I mean, you see how quickly we're—the timing of this hasn't changed, but swapping back and forth between these environments. I mean, all Halo cinematics are in real time, right? So, you got to be running the stuff and loading textures and all that sort of thing, and we just couldn't quite do it. And the white flashes that you see in the game are actually hiding some stuff behind the scenes. So, yeah, went back, took out some of the white flashes.

• Joseph Staten: Uh-oh. Oh yeah, little comedy.

• Martin O'Donnell: Comedy! And that was cool because we had two voices saying something at the same exact time, which was not easy for us to do in the cinematics.

• Joseph Staten: That's true. See, that Grunt wasn't quite tall enough. He had to stand on the other guy's shoulder.

• Martin O'Donnell: Ah, got it.

• Joseph Staten: There was an idea at one point to have little Engineers—the character that we never put in the Halo game, sort of floating gasbag character—float by on Legendary with a little ballpark tray of wieners and caramel corn.... and cotton candy.

• Jason Jones: Next time we'll leave a month for the Easter eggs.

• Joseph Staten: Yeah, we really should.

• Martin O'Donnell: Well, hey Jason, how did the skulls come in at the end?

• Joseph Staten: There she blinks. The only time that she blinked, ever.

• Martin O'Donnell: Did the skulls come in at the last minute, or were you always planning on doing skulls?

• Jason Jones: Actually came in after the last minute.

• Joseph Staten: I forget who modelled this, but I didn't quite realize how big and fiery that effect was going to be. But I love how the Arbiter sits here and takes that huge burning thing.

• Martin O'Donnell: He could take it.

• Joseph Staten: He's tough. The Arbiter is tough.

• Martin O'Donnell: Cortana looks slightly different than she did in Halo 1. What happened there?

• Joseph Staten: Cortana changes her appearance. A girl's got to stay fashion-forward.

• Martin O'Donnell: Ron Perlman. Oooh, he almost said "Cortay-na".

• Joseph Staten: Oooh!

• Martin O'Donnell: What's on the back of his head?

• Joseph Staten: Well, just like Captain Keyes in the first game, he too has a neural interface. Just in case someone needs to punch him in the head and take his code.

• Martin O'Donnell: "I need a weapon." Once again, great line.

• Joseph Staten: Again, if you did watch the first part with the Halo 1 cinematics, there were no playback animations and very little AI work in the Halo 2 cinematics. It was almost entirely—well, 99%, I'd say—custom animated, keyframe animated, which was a big change for us from Halo 1 to Halo 2.

• Martin O'Donnell: Hey, you know, it looks like the gameplay section of this particular sequence is edited, and scored, and all sorts of things are happening. What's going on here?

• Joseph Staten: Marty.

• Martin O'Donnell: It's alright.

• Joseph Staten: I think what we were trying to achieve was a more full representation of the game.

• Martin O'Donnell: Okay. Alright. Which meant more work for me.

• Martin O'Donnell: The Aussie. Oh, here's the scene that no one actually ever saw. That's why we're showing you right now.

• Joseph Staten: Well, it's a real challenge in Halo games because we do have this cinematic storytelling. And we put a lot of our storytelling in the cinematics to get people to pay attention.

• Jason Jones: ...to anything except a Grunt.

• Joseph Staten: Right.

• Martin O'Donnell: Looks like there were more ships in the sky than I remember.

• Joseph Staten: Particles was one of those things that was a real challenge for... to a lot of them on screen.

• Jason Jones: Oh, a stuck Grunt.

• Joseph Staten: Miranda's little hat.

• Martin O'Donnell: This is cut like an MTV thing. What? This is quick. I can hardly follow it.

• Joseph Staten: Oh, just let it go.

• Jason Jones: I remember hearing you guys bicker about this.

• Joseph Staten: Boom!

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, see. The carrier that no one ever sees. There it is. Beautiful. I like that.

• Joseph Staten: I think no one ever saw it, Marty, because you never attached a sound to it.

• Martin O'Donnell: That's 'cause I never saw it.

• Joseph Staten: Now...

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, the pickle.

• Joseph Staten: Do you remember, Jason, why we put the Covenant space pickle in Halo 2?

• Martin O'Donnell: Okay, Jason, explain this one.

• Jason Jones: I just remember you were supposed to hitch it to the back of a Jeep and drive it.

• Joseph Staten: That's right, I forgot about that.

• Jason Jones: You're supposed to drive it all the way across the ship. That would have been awesome.

• Martin O'Donnell: That would have been awesome.

• Joseph Staten: The Warthog—the space—original space station, right, was supposed to be a zero-G training facility, where there was a big open environment with Warthogs and all that sort of stuff, right? And you were supposed to put the bomb in the back of a little trailer, right, that attached to the Warthog and then drive it through the human space station.

• Martin O'Donnell: That would have been fun.

• Joseph Staten: That would have been a good time.

• Jason Jones: That would have been awesome.

• Joseph Staten: But the reason why we have the bomb...

• Martin O'Donnell: Well, that looks fast. What- That-

• Joseph Staten: That's because the original plan was to have a level after this one...

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh yeah.

• Joseph Staten: ...called "Covenant Ship."

• Martin O'Donnell: Covenant Ship.

• Joseph Staten: And the Master Chief, much like he did in that announcement trailer for Halo 2, there was no bomb. He would just man-up, pop the airlock, bam, land on the Covenant ship, tear it apart from the inside.

• Martin O'Donnell: Right. But instead you did probably one of the most amazingly ridiculous cutscenes in the history of games.

• Joseph Staten: Well, I figure if you're going to cut a level, this is the way to cut it.

• Martin O'Donnell: "I won't."

• Jason Jones: ...by creating just as much work.

• Martin O'Donnell: ...based on this cinematic alone.

• Joseph Staten: No, no, no. You just add a giant Covenant space pickle.

• Martin O'Donnell: So somehow...

• Joseph Staten: Yep.

• Martin O'Donnell: ...the airlock depressurization shoots the pickle...

• Joseph Staten: Yep.

• Martin O'Donnell: ...perfectly towards the Covenant ship.

• Joseph Staten: That's right.

• Jason Jones: The Chief's good.

• Martin O'Donnell: And then who exactly, while he's floating through the air, who blasts this open for him?

• Joseph Staten: The bombers come in. Don't you see? It's all—see, here they come.

• Martin O'Donnell: Is somebody telling them to do that? Like Cortana, maybe?

• Joseph Staten: Let's just say that Cortana, she talks to other people while you're doing stuff.

• Martin O'Donnell: And the music is too loud for us to hear that. That's good.

• Joseph Staten: I think the music is definitely too loud.

• Jason Jones: Wow. The Covenant Ship level was going to be awesome.

• Joseph Staten: You were going to go in there and...

• Jason Jones: ...eventually steal a Wraith and end up shelling, like, the power core of the Covenant ship.

• Joseph Staten: That's right. And it was one of the missions where Miranda played a big part, too.

• Martin O'Donnell: Here's what I love.

• Jason Jones: Yeah.

• Martin O'Donnell: His legs themselves propel him enough out of here, and then he knew that the explosion would then also shoot him in exactly the right direction.

• Joseph Staten: It's almost like Marty thinks we're not making epic sci-fi space opera.

• Martin O'Donnell: And that's it. Comedy always distracts. That's good.

Outskirts

Main article: H2:Outskirts

• Joseph Staten: But yeah, Miranda, I mean, unfortunately, some of... she really had her big introduction in the Covenant Ship level.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yeah.

• Joseph Staten: ...where she was inside the ship, you know, running around with her ODSTs for a little bit, too.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, yeah. These two cinematics in a row. It's interesting. They both represent two different—the announcement trailer for Halo 2 was sort of what we just did, and now this is very similar to the E3 trailer.

• Joseph Staten: Right.

• Martin O'Donnell: Interesting. And we got it in the game anyway, yeah.

• Joseph Staten: Some of the same elements. But I mean, the one thing we didn't have in the E3 trailer, right, was the huge giant Covenant walking tank.

• Martin O'Donnell: That's right. Or the pickle.

• Joseph Staten: Or the pickle. That's true.

• Jason Jones: I remember how many times that guy missed his gun with that clip.

• Joseph Staten: Little sync problem.

• Jason Jones: That was like three months of...

• Martin O'Donnell: Whoa.

• Joseph Staten: Here it comes.

• Martin O'Donnell: There it is. What is that, ladies and gentlemen? This should have been a surprise to all the fans.

• Joseph Staten: Giant Covenant walking tank. A Halo 1 idea executed in Halo 2. Hey, it's good stuff. And Jen, you remember that in the recording studio?

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes.

• Joseph Staten: We say, "Hey Jen, Jen, could you just—" and she grabbed the lamp that she was—that was lighting up her script and just gave it a little tap. Oh, Marty, you're a huge jerk. Killing that poor little guy.

• Jason Jones: Grunt.

• Joseph Staten: Jones, walk us through this encounter.

• Jason Jones: There's some bad guys. You shoot them. It's really fun. The best part is the snipers. The big argument about whether the sniper should kill you in one shot or not on Legendary.

• Joseph Staten: Little Buggers. Hey, you know what you should be able to do? You should be able to hit the B button and take that turret off its stand.

• Martin O'Donnell: That would be cool.

• Jason Jones: Awesome.

• Joseph Staten: Why do we call them Drones, not Buggers? Oh, that's right. Because "bugger" means something else in different places around the world.

• Martin O'Donnell: We're—our guys are still calling them Buggers. It's about 50/50. Oh, here's the Hunters.

• Joseph Staten: Well, there's always the point in the Halo game, right, where you got to introduce the Hunters.

• Martin O'Donnell: And they have that special sweet spot in the back.

• Joseph Staten: Mhm.

• Jason Jones: It's their area.

• Martin O'Donnell: Their special area.

• Jason Jones: They don't like to be shot in their area.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, look at that. That was nice. A little lip-sync.

• Joseph Staten: There was a great deal of combat dialogue in Halo 2. Marty, you might not remember this.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes, 20,000 lines. I do remember it.

• Jason Jones: Oh my gosh. Tyson and I worked on this level so long. Snipers are like bacon—they make anything better.

• Joseph Staten: Mhm. Wait, even on Legendary when they shoot you with one shot?

• Jason Jones: Yep.

• Joseph Staten: And the Covenant—the Elite landing pods was one of those things that we just didn't... which was so cool in that trailer where we didn't quite have time to, well, put them everywhere... if I had my druthers, have them slamming down all around you.

• Martin O'Donnell: Did you get them slamming in here? You should—oh, you didn't.

• Jason Jones: I'm sorry. Watching the rocket launcher blow up the Ghost, I didn't hear anything you guys say.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes, because that was cool. Oh!

• Joseph Staten: Big jerk.

• Jason Jones: Also, something nobody saw.

• Joseph Staten: Well, it's really hard to get people to look at the giant hole in the ceiling when you put them in a vehicle that's moving 1,000 miles per hour and enemies in front of them. Not impossible.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, wow. It flew through that tunnel fast.

• Joseph Staten: That was a longish tunnel.

Metropolis

Main article: H2:Metropolis

• Joseph Staten: Mr. David Cross, ladies and gentlemen.

• Martin O'Donnell: Michelle Rodriguez. Great voice. Come on, David. Oh, here comes Scully.

• Joseph Staten: Of course, Scully's always bringing the good stuff.

• Martin O'Donnell: Look at—oh, was there some depth of field I'm not remembering?

• Joseph Staten: I got to put it back in.

• Martin O'Donnell: That's David Cross acting. That's amazing.

• Joseph Staten: Well, one of the things that, you know, we always do in a Halo game is have a little bit of—legendary... on different difficulty levels. If you play on different difficulty levels, yes, you'll get something a little bit—a little bit different, a little bit of different dialogue. So, if someone's listening to this commentary and doesn't know that yet, this is one of those cinematics. If you start this level on different difficulty levels, Johnson... he says different things.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, wait. Here we go. Now, you have been criticized for that line, Joe. I don't know if you realize that. I think it's one of the best lines ever, but there are some people who think it's a little on the, sort of, cheesy side.

• Joseph Staten: When have I ever written a cheesy line of dialogue?

• Martin O'Donnell: I don't know. I wouldn't call it cheesy at all.

• Jason Jones: I think that line's brilliant.

• Joseph Staten: You know, I think that line really, Marty I think what it is really one of those really truthful lines that I really channeled from personal experience. My wife's not listening.

• Martin O'Donnell: Did you get any Laura Prepon?

• Joseph Staten: Now, at one point that part of the level was filled with water, wasn't it?

• Martin O'Donnell: That's true. There was some water. Yeah, at least one of those areas.

• Joseph Staten: Jones and his anti-water ways. You used to like water so much, man, in Marathon. What happened?

• Jason Jones: Yeah, water's in one spot in the game, like 20 square feet of water, and it doesn't work in the last two weeks. It's one of the things that doesn't get fixed, sadly. Sadly enough.

• Joseph Staten: Man, I don't even want to think about all the fun bugs that were involved with this, all the months where you got tossed off, fell through... but a really fun fight.

• Martin O'Donnell: So, in Halo 2, we really, really enjoyed the moving giant pieces of geometry. Yeah. What were they called, Jones?

• Jason Jones: Moving BSPs.

• Joseph Staten: Moving BSPs. You and your mad moving BSP plans. That is good-looking effects work.

• Martin O'Donnell: How exactly did we destroy this Scarab?

• Jason Jones: You went inside of it, and you shot the biggest, glowiest thing you could find.

• Martin O'Donnell: Okay, I understand that. "You mothers"?!

• Joseph Staten: Little texture camera. Probably, I mean, I think pound-for-pound one of the most—it seems pretty simple, but one of the more complex cinematics in the game... just in terms of switching from little pieces of the world where the characters are with their own special lighting, and then going to these big environments outside, and then having all these texture cameras. This was definitely the cinematic that pushed the engine the hardest.

• Jason Jones: Really awesome camera work.

• Joseph Staten: Really great storyboards by Mr. Lee Wilson and some really great roughed-out stuff by CJ Cowan. But yeah, it was a really—

• Martin O'Donnell: Kaboom.

• Joseph Staten: ...a really ambitious cinematic that was probably a little bit more ambitious than we could pull off.

• Martin O'Donnell: It looks like we pulled it off here.

• Joseph Staten: Mr. Steve Scott. And I remember...

• Martin O'Donnell: I remember that.

• Joseph Staten: ...I could not for the life of me get that effect to move properly down the street... that one that kept coming down the street. And I remember I finally got it working, and I mean, you know me, I decided I can make it a little bit better, and I totally screwed it up. And I had to go back to Steve the next day and say, "Steve, uh, remember that thing that you placed for me that you've done it about eight times?" And God bless him, Steve Scott smiled and fixed it, but, oh man, I felt bad about that.

The Arbiter

Main article: H2:The Arbiter

• Joseph Staten: And you, Jones, who wanted to cut this part of the cinematic. Admittedly, this is a pretty long cinematic.

• Jason Jones: Yeah, it's true. I did. Yeah, you're right. I remember complaining about this one.

• Joseph Staten: Admittedly, I was wedded to the teat line, but I think it's true. This is really Tartarus' introduction. Otherwise, he becomes—

• Jason Jones: Yeah, just another gray-haired Brute.

• Joseph Staten: ...just another gray-haired Brute.

• Martin O'Donnell: Kevin Michael Richardson was Tartarus.

• Joseph Staten: Mhm.

• Martin O'Donnell: Excellent.

• Joseph Staten: Marty, with your backwards, satanic, play-the-record-backwards speaking here.

• Martin O'Donnell: ...which you guys had no idea actually there were real words to it, and have screwed everybody up thinking there's some secret message going on.

• Joseph Staten: Mhm.

• Jason Jones: That's funny. What's the secret message? I still didn't know that there were real words there.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, Jason.

• Joseph Staten: Truth's go-to gesture. A little finger.

• Martin O'Donnell: That's right. Should have been a sound effect on that.

• Joseph Staten: Elites without their armor on... they got swimmers' bodies.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes, they're sort of leathery.

• Joseph Staten: Mhm. Mr. John... Johnny Butkus. John Butkus with some really great cinematic animation in this scene.

• Martin O'Donnell: The Arbiter. It seems to me we had to re-record that line. Yeah.

• Joseph Staten: This is the part in the game, I think, where people start to go, "Why the hell are we spending so much time with this Arbiter guy?"

• Martin O'Donnell: Well, most people are like, "Yeah, when do I get to be Master Chief again? What is all this backstory exposition stuff? I don't really—I'm not paying attention right now."

• Joseph Staten: Yeah.

• Martin O'Donnell: "Halo something. This dude, he's disgraced."

• Joseph Staten: There's definitely...

• Jason Jones: The people who pressed the A button and skipped ahead were probably pretty surprised.

• Joseph Staten: Now, do you remember, Jason, when we were talking about making the Heretics all Hunters?

• Jason Jones: Yeah. No. What?

• Joseph Staten: Yeah. There was a time in Halo 2 where the plan was...

• Jason Jones: ...all Hunters?

• Joseph Staten: Well, the Heretic leader would be a Hunter. And most of the Heretics that you fought in the next level were all Hunters. And don't forget that early on in Halo 2 days, where you went to go attack the Heretics was actually the moon near the first Halo ring, the old infamous Alpha Moon environment. And that Alpha Moon environment, which became Gas Giant—where they killed the Heretic leader—or a gas mine... I think some of that geometry actually got used again—I mean, completely tweaked—but for the Sentinel Wall level, right?

• Jason Jones: Yeah, right.

• Joseph Staten: Same sort of design. But yeah, originally in Halo 2, you were supposed to go as the Arbiter to the moon that you saw in the first Halo game, and that's where the Heretics' head hold up, and they were going to be Hunters. God damn, that sounds cool.

• Jason Jones: I'm trying to listen to the cinematic.

• Joseph Staten: Yeah, you can't just sit and be mesmerized in the developer commentary section.

• Martin O'Donnell: Miguel Ferrer is the Heretic, which is very cool.

• Joseph Staten: One of the few times in the game where—where we had these—were able to afford some great dynamic lights that—

• Martin O'Donnell: Here he goes. How in the world does his lips make those noises? He sounds like just a normal guy talking, but his lips are like, what is that?

• Jason Jones: Oh, High Charity.

• Martin O'Donnell: Robert Davi, SpecOps Commander. SpecOps Commander. He's a Special Operations Commander of the Covenant.

• Joseph Staten: That's right. SpecOps Commander.

• Martin O'Donnell: And he comes from Brooklyn or something, which is really amazing.

• Joseph Staten: Ah, turn on that methane. That's right. And I remember Jay—

• Martin O'Donnell: The last minute.

• Joseph Staten: ...at the last minute, one of the last foley things that went in. But worth it, Marty.

• Martin O'Donnell: Absolutely.

• Joseph Staten: Worth every—

• Martin O'Donnell: Had to have it in there.

• Joseph Staten: That's right. You know what I got to say? I definitely have my favorite piece of music in the game. This piece, second favorite.

• Martin O'Donnell: Cool. See? Davi.

• Joseph Staten: If someone hit the A button at any time in this cinematic, in about 15 seconds they're for a really big surprise.

• Martin O'Donnell: This sequence of cinematics is what, 25, 30 minutes long? What is it?

• Joseph Staten: Oh, come now. Let me put it this way: it's not quite as long as the Gravemind section, but we'll get to the reason why that's a little bit longer than it should be.

• Jason Jones: Why is that cable a different color? It's almost like it's going to get detached later.

• Joseph Staten: This is good. This is all good.

• Martin O'Donnell: And see, people are like, "Okay, I'm not really paying attention, but eventually I'm going to be the Master Chief because I want to be the—get back to shooting those Covenant."

• Jason Jones: "Whoa, what's going on?"

• Martin O'Donnell: "What?! Wait a minute..."

• Joseph Staten: As much as I think we all have mixed feelings about the Arbiter decision...

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes.

• Joseph Staten: ...and we absolutely didn't execute on it in the way that we really wanted to. But Halo 2, because we made this choice, I mean, all of a sudden, just blew the doors open on the Covenant in this interesting way that now, in Halo 3, I think we can go back to the Master Chief, that singular perspective. And we just, as people making the game, know so much more about that other side of the story. We can create something that's richer. And I think people who played Halo 2, you know, it's kind of this—we took the knock, we made the investment, and then I think we're a lot better off for it.

• Martin O'Donnell: I love this line.

• Joseph Staten: That's why I get to sleep at night.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes. Joe, I think you're absolutely right. This is what I love, though. "Your armor system is not as new as ours." And we're going to, like, just completely gyp you out of the invisibility in about, like, 10 seconds. Oh, that worked out.

• Joseph Staten: Yeah, lead designer, what was fun about that?

• Jason Jones: Well, on Legendary, it was even less than 10 seconds.

• Joseph Staten: Was it really?

• Jason Jones: Like, it basically didn't even do anything.

• Joseph Staten: Now, I mean, I remember we went around and around in terms of... 'cause here you are as an Elite, right, fighting other Elites and other Grunts.

• Martin O'Donnell: Basically, at this point, a lot of people are going, "I don't know who to shoot or why, but I'm shooting everything that moves."

• Joseph Staten: Well, this is why having the Heretics be Hunters would have been genius.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yeah. Okay.

• Joseph Staten: But I remember the conversation, I think I had it with you and Jaime, where I said, "Hunter Heretics!" And you and Jaime looked at me and thought, for some reason, that a whole level populated by Hunters wouldn't be very much fun. I don't know why.

• Jason Jones: Yeah, it's true. You'd have a lot of areas to aim at.

• Martin O'Donnell: Hey, what's kind of ship is that there, Joe?

• Joseph Staten: That, my friend, is a Seraph fighter. It is a cinematic model, rarely seen. But, funny thing, the Seraph fighter is actually the old, old, old, old Halo Covenant tank, right, that Shi Kai built.

• Jason Jones: Yeah.

• Joseph Staten: That ship that you just saw, that sort of round, almost—what do you call it? Cuttlefish.

• Martin O'Donnell: You'll see it at the end of the level.

• Joseph Staten: It used to be a Covenant tank back in the day, and maybe again.

• Jason Jones: I worked with your guys on the sound for the Covenant Carbine and the Covenant sniper rifle for so long, Marty. They got so sick of me.

• Martin O'Donnell: I remember that.

• Joseph Staten: But what did you not like about those?

• Jason Jones: Oh, very tricky. I just—I don't know. It's weird. It's weapon sounds. They, like—they don't work. They don't work. They don't work. They don't work. And then you find something that works, and it's kind of hard to—did I ever come complain about this music, Marty?

• Martin O'Donnell: This is Incubus. I think you did. I think you complained about every piece from somebody else. So, which actually kind of makes me feel good, even though... there you go.

• Joseph Staten: One of the things that we wanted—

• Martin O'Donnell: This is one of the things we experimented with was some, like, music from some outside groups—Incubus or Breaking Benjamin—which I personally thought was pretty cool. There were some people, like Jason, who were not as excited about it.

The Oracle

Main article: H2:The Oracle

• Joseph Staten: Well, we sort of across the board in Halo 2... I mean, we definitely went out, we got, you know, whether it was Robert Davi or Michelle Rodriguez... More known people to do the voices as well. And I think that turned out great. See right there, he's sniffing with his nose, you see? Because—oh, wait...

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, look at him.

• Jason Jones: Oh, no. Not again.

• Joseph Staten: Oh, what a jerk. What a huge jerk!

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, Miguel Ferrer, yes. Yes,

• Joseph Staten: "In a world where your enemies and allies look the same..."

• Martin O'Donnell: He's using a holo-drone.

• Joseph Staten: This is good. The Robert Davi on Miguel Ferrer. Macho. Stare down.

• Martin O'Donnell: Who's got the deepest voice? And then Keith David. I mean, he's... come on, these voices.

• Joseph Staten: It's good. Good stuff.

• Jason Jones: Infection forms, carrier forms. Most brilliant idea ever. Actually, originally, I think it was the carrier forms just blew up, and then somebody had the idea they should blow up and spit out infection forms.

• Martin O'Donnell: Whose idea was that?

• Jason Jones: That was the birth of genius. I don't remember.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, I think that was my idea, now that I'm—

• Jason Jones: Yeah.

• Joseph Staten: That clearly was a sound decision.

• Jason Jones: That was, I guess, probably the second time— third time you saved Halo 1 and Halo 2.

• Martin O'Donnell: Thank you.

• Joseph Staten: Make Arbiter angry. What are those Elites walking on over there? Just a little bit of thin air. It's fine. I remember the day that the dip in the floor got cut, we didn't have quite have time to—I mean, the dip in the floor was made, and we didn't have quite the time to—

• Martin O'Donnell: It's amazing the things you still see, 'cause I've never seen half of these things.

• Joseph Staten: Each one of these bugs is burned into my brain, Marty.

• Jason Jones: You're so obsessed about the bug that you missed the Arbiter's best line in the entire game. "The cable. I'm going to cut it."

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes.

• Joseph Staten: I think a certain Mr. Jason Jones wrote that line, if I'm not mistaken. You know, when you're sitting down with Jones—for people that are listening to this—and you're about to work on the story, usually what Jones does is he comes to you at the beginning of a game and—

• Martin O'Donnell: ...with a line that has to be in—

• Joseph Staten: With like two lines. And one of the handful of lines that you came to me at the beginning of Halo 2 and said, "I got, you know... here's the story of Halo 2." "Oh, okay, Jason, what's the story of Halo 2?" "Story of Halo 2 is, 'The cable. I'm going to cut it,' and 'I'm a monument to all your sins.' Bam, done. That's a story. "Oh, okay. That sounds really cool. Hey, who says those things?"

• Martin O'Donnell: "I don't know. You make it up."

• Joseph Staten: Oh, and the other one was in Space Station. Master Chief looking out, Earth burning below. "Only blood will pay for this." Those were the three lines that Jason came up with the beginning of Halo 2. "Only blood will pay for this." "The cable, I'm gonna cut it." Bam. And "Monument to all your sins."

• Martin O'Donnell: But we didn't do the "only blood will pay" line.

• Joseph Staten: Everything else wrote itself.

• Martin O'Donnell: So why did we cut the "only blood will pay for this" line?

• Joseph Staten: Well—

• Jason Jones: It was too cool.

• Joseph Staten: Well, I think—

• Jason Jones: I think we cut the whole mission.

• Joseph Staten: Yeah, that ended up on the same graveyard as—well, wait, before I tell that story, there was this—the worst bug in Halo 2 for me.

• Martin O'Donnell: For Joe.

• Joseph Staten: ...was that if you look, Spark's light in the game—not the cinematics here—it's supposed to light when he talks.

• Martin O'Donnell: When he talks, right.

• Joseph Staten: ...but it's reversed. So in the game, when he talks, it goes dim. So in every single cinematic, poor Spark in the game actually doesn't really talk.

• Martin O'Donnell: And ladies and gentlemen, when Joe says that's the worst bug in the game, and it's a bug that no one in the world has ever noticed, it just shows you the kind of compulsive, crazy person he is.

• Joseph Staten: Well, I think at the end of the day, not to get too weepy on Oprah's couch...

• Martin O'Donnell: Weepy.

• Joseph Staten: ...but the worst thing about Halo 2 for me was that... in Halo 1, it was all, look, I could go in, I could script it with AI, I could do playbacks, and I could fix stuff, right? But in Halo 2, we definitely went to the system, where it was a lot of custom animation, really long lead times, and you just... sure, something like the Monitor, if you caught it, you could fix, but it was really hard to go back and fix simple things in Halo 2 cinematics, unfortunately. But the thing I was going to mention before, and I'm not letting you off the hook, is remember what Miranda was going to do to the Master Chief. Would you like to tell the children what Miranda was going to do?

• Jason Jones: Yeah, should we wait until the right moment? I think it's still a few missions from now, but I think the phrase "arc-welding a thermonuclear bomb to his armor" comes to mind.

• Joseph Staten: That's right. Miranda was going to strap a bomb to the Chief's back after signing a—

• Jason Jones: It was going to be awesome.

• Joseph Staten: ...a deal with the devil—with the Prophets. And why was she going to do that?

• Jason Jones: Why do you need to do that?

• Martin O'Donnell: She was mad about Captain Keyes.

• Joseph Staten: Still mad.

• Martin O'Donnell: Her father's death.

• Joseph Staten: Punched her dad in the face.

• ???: You guys just managed to... The Heretic, you just talked through his entire piece.

• Martin O'Donnell: I know.

• ???: Respect the game.

• Jason Jones: That's how we feel about the Heretic.

Delta Halo

Main article: H2:Delta Halo

• Joseph Staten: Wait, wait for it. Cigar spit-take coming up. How many people do you think were shocked by that?

• Martin O'Donnell: "Say what? Another Halo?"

• Joseph Staten: Johnson looks shocked.

• Martin O'Donnell: That's why it's called Halo 2. Now, very few people noticed, right here, we're hearing a new monk melody that represents the monks of Halo 2 instead of the monks of Halo 1. Very few people know that.

• Joseph Staten: Wait, you were getting mad at me 'cause I noticed Spark's eyeball not blinking the right way.

• Martin O'Donnell: I'm just saying it's a subtle thing. I didn't obsess about it. Here we go.

• Joseph Staten: Again, Halo 2. This is the mother of all exposition scenes. This is the big—and isn't it funny that it's another member of the Keyes family...

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes.

• Joseph Staten: ...that is giving it to you?

• Martin O'Donnell: "They call it Halo 2." Jay. Jay Weinland's cameo appearance.

• Joseph Staten: Look at how big that ring is. ODST pods. Good stuff.

• Martin O'Donnell: That's cool.

• Jason Jones: Oh, what was the awesome thing that was going to happen here? Oh, yeah. The pods were going to go by the Pelicans on the way down or something like that. There was something I was completely excited for, and I just never came to terms with...

• Joseph Staten: Well, what we were going to do—what we were going to do there is the—it was going to be first-person, right? Just like The Silent Cartographer intro. We were going to put little windows in the ODST pod and you were going to be sitting... we would start with the Pelicans flying past you, right? Then we would snap to first-person and you would be able to watch them get blown in the sky as you were heading down.

• Jason Jones: Oh, no, that was it, right? It was the Pelicans were coming down, you went past them and you knew you had to take out these guns before the Pelicans got close enough to get shot down.

• Joseph Staten: You're right. That's right.

• Jason Jones: And then there was some pressure of time and frame rate and la la la la la la...

• Martin O'Donnell: Welcome to making games.

• Joseph Staten: A lack of will, really.

• Jason Jones: Oh, right.

• Joseph Staten: ODSTs. The Aussie. He survives. He's a survivor.

• Martin O'Donnell: Completely.

• Joseph Staten: Oh, poor little guy.

• Martin O'Donnell: Jason likes the rocket launcher that hones in on things.

• Joseph Staten: What, in the game, the Pelican that took 15 minutes to get there?

• Jason Jones: "If I was a megalomaniac, and I'm not..."

• Joseph Staten: That was a good line.

• Martin O'Donnell: That was a good line.

• Joseph Staten: Rob Stokes wrote that line.

• Martin O'Donnell: Sergeant Stacker.

• Jason Jones: Oh, you got to give the shotgun passenger a sniper rifle or a rocket launcher or something.

• Martin O'Donnell: Johnson. People are dying all the time, and he's making fun.

• Joseph Staten: See, 'cause Johnson during this level, he was in the Pelican, you see...

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes.

• Joseph Staten: ...with Miranda, flying around high in the sky. See, this was one of those things in Halo 2, where all of a sudden Johnson—who was just a Marine that died a thousand times in Halo 1—we made him a cinematic character. And do you remember, Marty, the day that Jason came up to you and me, and looked us square in the eye and said, "If you're going to make Johnson a cinematic character, that's fine. But I will kill you both if you don't replace him with as good a voice actor as Scully to run around with you all the time."

• Martin O'Donnell: Yeah.

• Joseph Staten: Wait, did we ever do that? I forget.

• Martin O'Donnell: No—

• Joseph Staten: I know we are still alive.

• Martin O'Donnell: ...I don't understand why you mentioned that, 'cause he's now going to kill us.

• Jason Jones: I think the time is right that I now kill you.

Regret

Main article: H2:Regret

• Joseph Staten: Oh, Marty, you got to talk about the singing.

• Martin O'Donnell: Singing Prophet. Listen to what he's singing. He's singing the Halo Monk melody. And apparently, when you translate what he's doing, it's just actually talking instead of singing. I'm not sure I quite understand that, but that's okay.

• Joseph Staten: Why are you the doubting Thomas tonight?

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, the magic index.

• Joseph Staten: Watch the magic index from game to game.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes, that index.

• Joseph Staten: The magic MacGuffin that can be pocketed and tossed this way and that way.

• Martin O'Donnell: Some nice video effect on that.

• Joseph Staten: We could actually do video effects in the game; we just couldn't do it in the game.

• Martin O'Donnell: But I just saw it there. I'm sure it was in the game.

• Joseph Staten: And finally, just like in... remember in Halo 1, we had that mission where you were going to go in and assassinate the Prophet. And here it is.

• Martin O'Donnell: This is in Halo 2.

• Joseph Staten: Halo 2.

• Martin O'Donnell: And here we got some nice great moving big pieces of—

• Jason Jones: ...big chunks of moving stuff. Oh, that was some interesting limp body physics.

• Joseph Staten: Thing is, Jones just doesn't give up on a good idea. Don't kill the Prophet in one game, you kill him in the next.

• Jason Jones: Don't get the bomb arc-welded to your armor in one game, do it in the next.

• Joseph Staten: Uh-oh.

• Martin O'Donnell: See now, notice how that music played right through the end of the cinematic into the beginning of the gameplay. See, this is what makes our cinematics cool.

• Joseph Staten: Notice how that grenade went right on his business. Poor Grunts.

• Jason Jones: Oh, there was nothing more fun than plasma-pistol-battle-rifling the Elite Honor Guard. Actually, maybe jumping on his throne and beating him down. Maybe that was more fun.

• Martin O'Donnell: That's cool. The Prophets' little hover-chairs have giant guns on them.

• Joseph Staten: Well, I mean, wouldn't you have giant guns on them in the world where a half-metric-ton cyborg was about to...

• Martin O'Donnell: ...and the way you kill him, all I see is you punch him.

• Joseph Staten: Bludgeon. Bludgeon him to death.

• Martin O'Donnell: That's great. Okay, I'm going to grab that gun now because—aww, I can't—

• Joseph Staten: No you can't. All right. Now, of course, where do you run? Where do you run if a giant alien spaceship is about to toast you?

• Martin O'Donnell: I don't know.

• Joseph Staten: You run backwards off the back.

• Martin O'Donnell: When I jump down that ledge in the game, I always die.

• Joseph Staten: Well, here is—here is...

• Jason Jones: Marty... Do you turn into a big old whiner after 10:00 PM in the evening, instead of a pumpkin?

• Joseph Staten: And this is where we cut the second level in Halo 2 called...

• Jason Jones: Oh, I don't remember.

• Joseph Staten: ...Forerunner Tank.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, Forerunner Tank.

• Jason Jones: Forerunner Tank.

• Joseph Staten: And the greatest thing about Forerunner Tank is that, Jones, for a year we had this level on the whiteboard.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes.

• Joseph Staten: And I would ask him, and Paul would ask him, and whoever would ask him and say, "Jones, so what is a Forerunner Tank and what does it do?" And Jones, do you even know what it was supposed to do? Describe to me in 30 words or less what this tank was and what it was supposed to do.

• Jason Jones: Be awesome. Blow things up. Glow a lot from little windows. Move real fast.

• Joseph Staten: Alright, fine. That was less than 30 words. But the Chief was supposed to go on this... I mean, another piece of moving, sort of, BSP geometry, right? And then...

• Jason Jones: ...awesomeness would ensue.

• Jason Jones: Yes.

• Joseph Staten: And you would really be introduced to the Gravemind because his big tentacles would come crashing down upon you, and you would basically, sort of, be going through—not the bowels, but the caverns of the Gravemind. And he would be introducing himself with big pieces of geometry—tentacles that would slam down in front of you, cut off pathways.

• Martin O'Donnell: You know, Jason's revealing all his innermost secrets of how to design great games. "Awesomeness would ensue." That's all he has to say. And that's game design. Now I get it.

• Jason Jones: I just have to get you guys off my back so I can do my work.

Sacred Icon

Main article: H2:Sacred Icon

• Martin O'Donnell: "This exchange of hats." I love that line. It's coming up.

• Joseph Staten: "What's up?" "What's up?" Like that little moment between the two of them. It's good stuff. Poor Truth. He's so world-weary. He's got the weight of the whole Covenant on his shoulders. And I think one of the tactical errors we might have made, Marty...

• Martin O'Donnell: "Exchange of hats." What, hm?

• Joseph Staten: ...is in the world where we wanted to convince people that Truth wasn't the worst guy in the world.

• Martin O'Donnell: How in the world was that ever something we thought would actually happen?

• Joseph Staten: Don't get me wrong, Michael Wincott—genius performance—but in a world where—

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes, but he's never going to make you feel like he was going to be possibly be your friend.

• Joseph Staten: Again, I maintain that if the Heretic leader had been a Hunter, problem solved. And I'm allowed to get away with that statement for the same reason you're allowed to get away with, "Forerunner Tank, awesomeness would ensue."

• Jason Jones: Forerunner Tank would have been an incredible level.

• Martin O'Donnell: I believe it.

• Jason Jones: It's a tank.

• Martin O'Donnell: It's a tank. It glows.

• Jason Jones: I like the little Halo holograms on their head dress.

• Joseph Staten: Mhm, I mean... in Halo 1, if we had actually made the Prophet an Elite with a funny hat, how tragic would that have been? 'Cause here we have a really great-looking character.

• Martin O'Donnell: We would have been stuck with that. "The Great Journey..."

• Jason Jones: Well, apparently, we lost all the assault rifles between Halo 1 and Halo 2. So, I think we probably could have transformed the Prophet.

• Joseph Staten: ...and the pistols.

• Martin O'Donnell: ...and the pistols disappeared.

• Jason Jones: There's a Covenant sabotage expedition to take away the human pistol 'cause it was just too good. A book is coming out about that.

• Joseph Staten: Yes. Here what we're starting to do, right, we're building some momentum. The strand of the Chief's story and the strand of the Arbiter's tale. They're starting to come together. Who was that guy that killed the Prophet of Regret? It's coming together.

• Martin O'Donnell: Gotcha.

• Joseph Staten: Building to a head. Keep that in mind.

• Martin O'Donnell: I'm following it. Uh-oh.

• Joseph Staten: Thank God that this weapon was powerful enough to, every single time, shoot that thing's arm off, because that was one of those little serendipitous things that... That was not a custom animation. Just blew that sucker's arm right off. I got to say, probably one of the few times in Halo 2 that you actually see the ring.

• Martin O'Donnell: Now, are these guys sort of reminiscent of the Marathon dudes that float around and fire at you? What are those things called?

• Joseph Staten: Defense drones.

• Jason Jones: Mad defense drones. Marathon Automated Defense Drone. M.A.D.D. Um, no.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, okay.

• Jason Jones: But the Sentinels are.

• Joseph Staten: God damn, there were some just beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous moments in Halo 2 that I... I don't know. Sometimes we get down on Halo 2, but there's some beautiful stuff that the guys did.

• Jason Jones: Oh, killing Flood with a sword. Pretty fun.

• Martin O'Donnell: Totally.

• Jason Jones: Although, nothing really beat being locked in a room with Guilty Spark.

• Martin O'Donnell: Look at that shot. Nice shot, Joe. I like that. Or was that me? No, I don't remember. Did you shoot that one?

• Joseph Staten: What? On the—just doing this, running through playback?

• Martin O'Donnell: Yeah. Yeah.

• Joseph Staten: Not quite sure. Ah, yes. The Sentinel factory.

• Martin O'Donnell: How many people know that's a Sentinel factory, I wonder? Blowing up and then crashing, and then you get into it later on.

• Jason Jones: Why aren't you looking at it? Who's this?

Quarantine Zone

Main article: H2:Quarantine Zone

• Joseph Staten: And this was the original... again, redone a lot, but the Alpha Moon sort of—

• Jason Jones: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• Joseph Staten: ...geometry.

• Jason Jones: The original first level. Second level. First Dervish level.

• Joseph Staten: Yep.

• Jason Jones: Whoops.

• Joseph Staten: The first Arbiter level.

• Jason Jones: I didn't say that.

• Martin O'Donnell: How many levels did we actually not do? Let's say, that was cut...

• Jason Jones: I think it was 71.

• Joseph Staten: Well, let's not ruin the surprise. But so far, we've cut Covenant Ship.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes.

• Joseph Staten: ...where you go in and tear it apart from the inside. Forerunner Tank.

• Martin O'Donnell: Forerunner Tank.

• Joseph Staten: ...which was going to be awesome.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yeah. Awesomeness would ensue.

• Jason Jones: Yeah I don't like the way this is going, Joe.

• Joseph Staten: So, two so far. But I mean, that's what development is all about.

• Jason Jones: Oh, watch it.

• Martin O'Donnell: And now, did you hear that line? That was delivered as an Elite, but it was still by David Scully, who also is an Elite voice.

• Joseph Staten: That's right.

• Martin O'Donnell: In case people...

• Jason Jones: Wow, those audio guys are just at the top of their game.

• Joseph Staten: There was some nice—this was some nice stuff in here, Marty... and Jay and C Paul.

• Martin O'Donnell: Absolutely.

• Joseph Staten: But this was actually... I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Jones, but this was, I think, some of the ideas that you had for Forerunner Tank, right? I mean, this piece of geometry was... I mean, it wasn't going to look like this, but the big—

• Jason Jones: It would be a tank.

• Joseph Staten: ...but it was the Arbiter on one side, Master Chief on the other, both charging for the icon-index, right?

• Jason Jones: It was a pale shadow of what Forerunner Tank was going to bring to this world.

• Joseph Staten: You have no idea what Forerunner Tank was going to be.

• Jason Jones: Oh, there were so many... this thing was agonizing. So many times you fell through this geometry, got flung off it at a million miles an hour. Like, the Flood all jumped onto it and then immediately exploded into a million pieces.

• Joseph Staten: Tartarus being a helpful kind of guy. Sure, I trust him.

• Martin O'Donnell: Do you know how hard it was to put sounds on those openings? C Paul had to work forever, because those actual giant opening doors were, like, in reality, like 10 miles away, and the sound just would not play in sync because it was—the speed of sound would screw it up.

• Joseph Staten: Mhm.

• Jason Jones: That's right. Hold on to that Gravemind tentacle.

• Joseph Staten: I think someone reused the foley from Halo 1.

• Martin O'Donnell: What?! But it's the same index thingy. Wow.

• Joseph Staten: Johnson's got the lines, my friend. See, again—

• Martin O'Donnell: He loses tentacles all the time. That's just one of the things that happens.

• Joseph Staten: One of the things in—

• Jason Jones: He sheds them like hair.

• Joseph Staten: The Gravemind was actually a much bigger presence in the original imagining of this game, where he was... I mean, his tentacles were sort of seeping out everywhere and you would see them much earlier on.

• Jason Jones: His tentacles were kind of racing like freight trains behind half-open doors. Things like that.

• Joseph Staten: Exactly. You're right. Forerunner Tank would have been awesome. Miranda's capable. She's got some moves.

• Jason Jones: Boom!

• Joseph Staten: Now, the... all the facial animation in Halo 2 was done in scripting. Just going in and setting poses and then interpolating between them. But that all got put in the last... That was the last thing I did in Halo 2. And I remember going to Harold—our new illustrious leader—back then, test pooh-ba, right, and saying, "Harold, just give me 24 hours, please, so I can go back and put emotion on these guys' faces." And Harold, he did it.

• Jason Jones: Just give me 24 hours so I can go back and touch every script I ever wrote in the entire game.

• Joseph Staten: Wait, what could have gone wrong?

• Martin O'Donnell: What could have gone wrong?

Gravemind

Main article: H2:Gravemind

• Jason Jones: But now, I think we can go to the— we can go back to the bomb thing where the Chief's been kind of taking Miranda's orders the whole game, and he comes back from one of his little missions with some little trinket he picked up for Miranda, and he finds her, like, in congress with the Prophets in the back of some Phantom. And it wasn't just 'cause of her dad in Halo 1, but she chose not to trust the Chief because of this, he's going crazy. He's all worried about the ring going off. And... Sorry.

• Joseph Staten: It was going to be cool.

• Jason Jones: We have listen to the line.

• Martin O'Donnell: "I am the monument to all your sins." There's the line. And no one knows exactly what that means except Jason.

• Jason Jones: And then it made perfect sense that Miranda and the Prophets get together and say, "Hey, let's send your tin man down with a bomb to take out the Gravemind." Oh, that would have been genius. The most genius part was when the Chief has the bomb... Jaime's going to kill me for even talking about this. I hope he never listens to it. There's no way he'll get this far into the movie.

• Martin O'Donnell: This far into—

• Jason Jones: ...you with the bomb, like—

• Martin O'Donnell: Actually, no one's listening to us right now, so don't even worry about it. In first-person—

• Joseph Staten: Keep talking, it's a long cinematic.

• Jason Jones: ...you with the bomb arc-welded to your back, with your back to, like, this big hole and a bunch of ODSTs, like, backing you into the hole until you jump, and then them throwing, like, a SMG down after you. Oh, that would have been genius.

• Joseph Staten: You know—

• Martin O'Donnell: I still never quite understood. Then—

• Joseph Staten: The thing which I really did like about that cinematic...

• Jason Jones: Shut up, Marty.

• Joseph Staten: Setting aside the Miranda's sort of moment of weakness, that Chief getting knocked down and—

• Jason Jones: Oh, wait.

• Joseph Staten: Yeah, he's kind of in a bad way, huh?

• Jason Jones: I forgot about this part.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yeah, this is the other monitor. I love this guy.

• Jason Jones: 2401 Penitent Tangent.

• Joseph Staten: Oh, no.

• Martin O'Donnell: This is the guy from—

• Joseph Staten: Preceding this cinematic was where Forerunner Tank was going to take place. That's why this is such a long cinematic stretch. Remember, we would fight through Sentinel Wall—

• Martin O'Donnell: Most of the time, the reason there is a long cinematic is because you decided to make them long cinematics. That's what I remember.

• Joseph Staten: I'm trying to explain. Arbiter would be kicked down the hole by Tartarus, right, and then, bam, Forerunner Tank. You'd see the Chief's side of the story. They would meet up at the Gravemind. But when we lost Forerunner Tank, we had this really big, big cinematic—big, important cinematic that unfortunately could go nowhere, but right next to another big, long cinematic.

• Martin O'Donnell: It's not a plant. It's not Audrey. Although I don't know why I keep thinking about Audrey.

• Joseph Staten: Well, there was a big discussion where, you know, as originally designed, the Gravemind was this seething mass of corpses, right?

• Martin O'Donnell: Right.

• Joseph Staten: His teeth were skulls and he talked from the shadows. And when we moved to the world where we wanted him to have lip sync and actually... Maybe not the best decision in the world, but one, which in the world where we didn't have Forerunner Tank to introduce him properly, we sort of needed to have the moment still, the long moment of the Gravemind introduction.

• Martin O'Donnell: That's a great voice. I mean, come on, Dee Baker. And, Joe, why does the Gravemind speak in rhyme?

• Joseph Staten: Why does the Gravemind speak in rhyme? But this really made—I think he speaks in rhyme 'cause I know that it really made Jason angry.

• Jason Jones: It was... Yeah, it induced such an effect in me.

• Joseph Staten: Well, I mean, inscrutable alien creatures...

• Jason Jones: ...often rhyme.

• Joseph Staten: ...often rhyme.

• Martin O'Donnell: Iambic pentameter.

• Joseph Staten: Bam.

• Jason Jones: Although the effect when you actually see it on the screen is, yeah, much better than the way I imagined it happening on the script.

• Joseph Staten: The rhyming?

• Jason Jones: Yes.

• Joseph Staten: The old "get it off the page and up on its feet."

• Martin O'Donnell: There you go.

• Jason Jones: ...where it's too late to change it.

• Joseph Staten: Yes. You know...

• Martin O'Donnell: Dee Baker did a great job as the Gravemind voice, I have to say.

• Joseph Staten: Uh-oh.

• Martin O'Donnell: Overdubs himself.

• Joseph Staten: Oh, you know, when it's hard to get from one place in the Halo universe to another, you know what you do? You teleport.

• Jason Jones: Oh my god. You remember how this game originally ended?

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh! Don't say.

• Jason Jones: Wait, never mind.

• Joseph Staten: Oh, we'll get there. We have a whole credit sequence to talk about it.

• Jason Jones: You remember the medallion that the Prophet had?

• Joseph Staten: Oh, that's right.

• Jason Jones: That was the best. That was the best ever.

• Joseph Staten: Tell the story.

• Jason Jones: ...It's pretty complicated, and really not the best ever... but it was pretty funny.

• Joseph Staten: I think it might be better than Forerunner Tank.

• Jason Jones: No.

• Joseph Staten: We'll have to tell a little bit of it when we get to the final, final part of Halo 2. Good old High Charity.`

• Jason Jones: Good old High Charity.

• Joseph Staten: At one point, it was going to be a very brightly lit, sort of happy place, right?

• Jason Jones: It was.

• Martin O'Donnell: Really?

• Joseph Staten: Yep.

• Martin O'Donnell: Cool.

• Jason Jones: Always got to be a detention block.

• Joseph Staten: But the aliens, they love purple. And I know that Jason, Jason loves purple.

• Jason Jones: Most of my clothes are purple.

• Joseph Staten: Hey, nice stick. Well, there's always the point in the game where you got to rescue your friends. We're just lucky this guy didn't get out of his cell and go, "While I was in this cell, I heard the Covenant talking about something they called Halo." But you know what? Damn it, why didn't we put that in?

• Martin O'Donnell: You should have done that. What's wrong with you?

• Joseph Staten: Self-referential humor. Only funny to us.

• Martin O'Donnell: What is that thing in the middle of High Charity, Joe? What is that?

• Joseph Staten: That is the Forerunner ship. The Forerunner dreadnought.

• Martin O'Donnell: Forerunner Ship sounds like the name of a level we should have had. Hmm...

• Joseph Staten: Hmm... we'll get there. Oh, here it comes.

• Martin O'Donnell: What?

• Joseph Staten: Ah, In Amber Clad.

• Martin O'Donnell: Go up here. Make sure you look at it. Follow over.

• Jason Jones: Whoa.

• Martin O'Donnell: Nice. Jump up there, so we can see it crash. Thank you.

• Joseph Staten: Goes around the tower.

• Martin O'Donnell: What's going on, Cortana?

• Joseph Staten: Man, the Covenant really just vacated High Charity. They got the hell out of dodge when they realized what was going to happen. And I remember just these lines that Truth is saying, remember? We wrote just like a whack of, I don't know, 40, 50 sort of one-off lines for the Prophet of—

• Martin O'Donnell: It was... 2,000. Yeah. But go ahead.

• Joseph Staten: It wasn't that bad, but actually turned out to be really helpful. Lesson being, Marty, always better to write some cool stuff, record that stuff, and—

• Martin O'Donnell: ...and always find a place to use it.

• Joseph Staten: ...and always find a place to use it.

• Jason Jones: Yeah, he loves the fuel rod gun.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, can you hear it?

• Joseph Staten: What's that?

• Martin O'Donnell: Jen Taylor had a cold that day.

• Joseph Staten: That's right. Well, Miranda had a cold, too, in one of these cinematics. I think we've already gone past it.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yeah, no, it was Jen who, when she came back in for the pickup session at the very last moment, and she had a cold and we just recorded it that way. I always hear it, but apparently nobody else does.

• Joseph Staten: Do you remember back in the day when Johnson and Miranda had a thing?

• Jason Jones: What?!

• Joseph Staten: Don't you remember that?

• Jason Jones: No!

• Joseph Staten: Well, I mean, I don't think it got past a conversation that's very similar to one that we're having now. Let's rewind to however many years ago. "Hey, Jones, you know what would be really awesome?" "Yeah." "Um, if Miranda and Johnson had a thing." To which I think you replied, "What?" And then I got really bitter about that. And so when you came to me and were like, "Hey, you know what would be awesome?"

• Martin O'Donnell: "Miranda straps your back on your back."

• Joseph Staten: ..."Miranda straps your back on your back." I was like, "No, it wouldn't!"

• Martin O'Donnell: "The Great Journey, Joseph."

• Joseph Staten: Wow, Truth is a colossal jerk. I totally didn't see it coming.

• Martin O'Donnell: What? He's a bad guy? Aw... the Prophet of Mercy's dead.

• Joseph Staten: I just hang on that grind for a little while.

• Martin O'Donnell: All the Prophets are gone now.

Uprising

Main article: H2:Uprising

• Joseph Staten: Marty.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes.

• Joseph Staten: Beautiful piece.

• Martin O'Donnell: Thank you. Hmm... Halo-y. He teleports, too. That's amazing.

• Joseph Staten: Well, the Gravemind sent the two heroes on their own little separate... separate but connected journeys. Circling back, people. We're circling back.

• Martin O'Donnell: They're going to meet someday.

• Joseph Staten: They are. They're going to join together in a grand third-act finale. Just you wait.

• Martin O'Donnell: Would that be, like, the end of Halo 2?

• Joseph Staten: It's true. The end of Halo 2. And see, if the Heretic leader had been a Hunter, how sweet would it have been if now in the level where you join back up with the Hunters—

• Martin O'Donnell: ...the Hunters are joining you up?

• Joseph Staten: They come back, right.

• Martin O'Donnell: Now, I hope we show that where the Hunters are actually an ally of yours here. Yes.

• Joseph Staten: Good stuff. Little pods. This level turned out really well.

• Jason Jones: Running around with a bunch of Elite buddies with swords who turn invisible between encounters.

• Joseph Staten: Good times.

• Jason Jones: Never fails. And you just want to kill the Brutes. You can't help it.

• Joseph Staten: Juicy targets. Furry, yet leathery.

• Martin O'Donnell: How about some piano music? Yes! Jason's going, "Piano? What?"

• Joseph Staten: So, Marty, so what's your theory for the kids? What's going— when you're looking at... I mean, you score the cinematics, you put the music in. I understand that, but for the kids, when you look at the level, what's your... what's your... what's your...

• Martin O'Donnell: Just—

• Joseph Staten: ...how do you approach it?

• Martin O'Donnell: ...desperation. I'm looking for something that will take you from point A to point B with the right attitude, if possible.

• Joseph Staten: Mhm. Who could it be? Who could be in this tank?

• Martin O'Donnell: I don't know.

• Joseph Staten: What?!

• Martin O'Donnell: "Arbiter."

• Joseph Staten: It's "Missing Mandibles"!

• Martin O'Donnell: "Commander." "Vile disloyal beasts!"

• Joseph Staten: That's right. At the beginning of this level, the cinematic, which we didn't do because we cut Forerunner Tank and had to do the "bring them together, the Gravemind teleport" thing, was you would actually witness the Brutes lining up and executing some Elite Councilors... the same Elite Councilors that you saw in the very first cinematic in the game.

• Martin O'Donnell: Okay, now be very—now, watch this. I bet you very few people are going to understand this sound effect that's supposed to happen here. Hear the door slam shut? Remember that door slamming shut.

• Joseph Staten: Okay.

• Martin O'Donnell: Okay. Thanks, Joe.

High Charity

Main article: H2:High Charity

• Martin O'Donnell: Because at this point, we had decided to cut some levels at the end.

• Joseph Staten: Yes.

• Martin O'Donnell: And you flipped around some half-levels, right? And there were some continuity questions. And the Prophet of Murphy— Prophet of Mercy is still alive. And so this is the—so we're catching up now. The Master Chief is almost caught up.

• Joseph Staten: Two heroes coming together, again. That's right. We did do the dividing up the levels and—

• Martin O'Donnell: ...and flipping them around. Then you tried to, like, show that no time had passed when we get back to that one moment. We'll get to that. But it's very confusing. I'm still confused.

• Joseph Staten: Marty.

• Jason Jones: You guys are like talking, and I'm just like, I'm watching this. I need to re-engage.

• Joseph Staten: Do you know this game? It's Halo 2.

• Martin O'Donnell: It's called Halo 2. Oh look!

• Joseph Staten: Boom! But I mean, there definitely was that point, right, where—I mean, I think one of the saddest things about Halo 2—and don't get me wrong, there were a lot of awesome things as well—but I think toward the end we knew that we were going to have to make some pretty big cuts. And the speed with which we made those cuts, almost as if we had a backup plan and knew that it was going to have to happen was... I mean, I'm glad we were efficient, but we were a little bit too efficient. And it was... we knew it might have to be done.

• Jason Jones: The cutting is never happy, and it, yeah, was not.

• Martin O'Donnell: This is some beautiful I love the levels here though. I mean, this is some great-looking stuff.

• Joseph Staten: Chris Barrett, right? The mausoleum down below.

• Jason Jones: Oh, there are so many times where that light bridge didn't work and you'd turn it on and run right out and then fall to your death immediately.

• Joseph Staten: And some of the old Forerunner Tank technology, right, we were going to use here. Gravemind tentacles smashing through the windows.

• Jason Jones: Like freight trains?

• Joseph Staten: Like freight trains. Here you are back in the Inner Sanctum of the Hierarchs.

• Jason Jones: High Charity, the holy city of the Covenant, overrun by the Flood.

• Joseph Staten: Again, another Halo moment where you need to make a spectacular leap pursued by endless Flood.

• Martin O'Donnell: Wasn't this going to be a level...?

• Joseph Staten: I don't want to go, baby. I don't want to go. Originally, this cinematic, you were supposed to be in a Warthog, and you were going to launch yourself on the Warthog into the compartment of the ship.

• Martin O'Donnell: The tube.

• Joseph Staten: And again, another cool idea that we didn't quite get a chance to execute on for Halo 2, but... definitely in there for Halo 3,

• Jason Jones: We'd started a lot of it...

• Martin O'Donnell: "Don't make a girl a promise... you know you can't keep it."

• Joseph Staten: I know. I kind of stepped on that line.

• Martin O'Donnell: Sorry.

The Great Journey

Main article: H2:The Great Journey

• Martin O'Donnell: Okay, now, meanwhile, let's hear the sound effect.

• Joseph Staten: Okay.

• Martin O'Donnell: There! That door closing sound was that same door closing sound. See, no time has passed.

• Joseph Staten: That really brings it all together.

• Martin O'Donnell: See, now we understand that no time has actually passed. We're just picking up where we were. Jason even didn't know that.

• Jason Jones: That was your solo attempt to try to fix the way we—

• Martin O'Donnell: Joe said, "No, just put the door closing sound in again and people will realize that no time has passed." I'm like, "Uh, I don't think anybody's going to get that, Joe. I'm sorry.

• Jason Jones: That was your idea, Joe?

• Joseph Staten: Well, wait a minute, how come you're blaming that on me? ...Marty.

• Martin O'Donnell: 'Cause that's what you told us to do. and I'm like, "What?" Even I don't get that no time has passed. But it's alright. It was fun.

• Joseph Staten: Well, I mean, let me put it this way: it totally makes sense now when we're watching—

• Martin O'Donnell: ....and it only takes 10 minutes.

• Joseph Staten: It only takes 10 minutes. Oh, cutting never fun. But hey, at least here we let you be friends with Hunters.

• Jason Jones: This is pretty awesome.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes. "The Hunters have come to our aid."

• Joseph Staten: ..."because you remember in Gas Giant when they were the Heretics." That would have been genius.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh no, that doesn't make sense.

• Joseph Staten: "We are sorry."

• Jason Jones: This mission was really fun.

• Martin O'Donnell: This was a blast.

• Joseph Staten: You know, this is one of those parts in Halo 2 where I wish it had been a lot, a lot longer. Like, this was so much fun, this part of the mission, that it was over too soon.

• Martin O'Donnell: Okay, good. Oh, nice! See, how many people even know this whole sequence? Because most people just run out there. They never saw that whole thing.

• Joseph Staten: Yeah.

• Martin O'Donnell: And then the Hunters are actually in front of you if you spend your time watching, laying back a little bit.

• Joseph Staten: Marty, do you remember why we—there used to be a cinematic there. Do you remember why we cut it?

• Martin O'Donnell: No, I don't.

• Joseph Staten: Well, there used to be a cinematic there where the Brutes were actually about to—the soldiers were there on their knees and the Brutes were going to lop off their heads.

• Martin O'Donnell: A little moment there.

• Joseph Staten: ...lop off their heads. And this was, unfortunately, right about that time when real-world events made that a little bit too real.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yeah.

• Joseph Staten: Little bit too real.

• Martin O'Donnell: It was too politically dangerous.

• Joseph Staten: Yeah. Just hit a little bit too hard.

• Martin O'Donnell: So, this is where you get to—you actually get to drive the Scarab tank through the... oh, no, no, wait. You don't...

• Jason Jones: I was like, "Huh?" I really don't remember very much.

• Joseph Staten: This is when your buddy Johnson—

• Martin O'Donnell: Do it, Johnson!

• Joseph Staten: ...has license to say every awesome line we could come up with. Wow, that Banshee is totally screwed.

• Martin O'Donnell: Wow. Well, you just barely make it here. This is cool.

• Joseph Staten: So, Jones, you got to talk a little bit about the boss fights in Halo 2.

• Jason Jones: I really enjoyed the chair. Jumping on the chair and beating the snot out of Regret. That was cool, but it was—yeah, it was risky. We really didn't know how those were going to turn out. They're so different. Tartarus is so awesome. Yeah, they're so different from all the rest of the gameplay. You play for an hour and a half and then you got to do something completely different. And it's, yeah, not always satisfying, but there's a lot of fun in them.

• Martin O'Donnell: That was sort of a late addition, if I remember correctly.

• Joseph Staten: The flags?

• Martin O'Donnell: Yeah. I didn't understand what the—the flags are supposed to indicate some sort of rank or something, right?

• Joseph Staten: It's part of the old, sort of, Japanese soldier flag-wearing look about them, but with Covenant technology that makes a breeze blow even if there is not a breeze. That's like—

• Martin O'Donnell: Wait! Oh, brilliant! Another great line.

• Joseph Staten: It's almost like scenes between Sergeant Johnson and Guilty Spark write themselves.

• Martin O'Donnell: "Don't shake the lightbulb." "What are they?" I love that.

• Joseph Staten: Here we go. Could you once again explain to me how all this shit works?

• Martin O'Donnell: "They call it Halo 2." Okay. Three radii of the galactic...

• Joseph Staten: Did he ever say that line the way that you really wanted him to say it? 'Cause I remember we went back and forth on that line for a long...

• Jason Jones: That was perfect.

• Joseph Staten: Was that a good read?

• Martin O'Donnell: Chunk!

• Joseph Staten: Aw! Johnson takes it!

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, look at that shot.

• Joseph Staten: That is a giant hammer.

• Martin O'Donnell: This is all cool.

• Joseph Staten: Birthday cake of doom.

• Martin O'Donnell: Plus, we end up, like—I think I end up playing like three or four pieces of music simultaneously in this boss battle. And what's cool is the final boss battle of the whole game, of course, is going to come after this with the Master Chief, right?

• Jason Jones: Gosh, I remember jumping off that platform behind those Elites so many freaking times.

• Joseph Staten: Johnson helping out, sniping him from the side.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, this is cool. You can go up here. This was fun. This—I actually think this ended up being kind of fun.

• Jason Jones: There was a lot of neat stuff in here, but this was definitely my least favorite of the three boss battles.

• Martin O'Donnell: Really?

• Jason Jones: Yeah. We tried so hard, so long.

• Martin O'Donnell: See, I'm more forgiving, except for the fact that it's...

• Jason Jones: No, I think it's cool. I'm just saying like...

• Martin O'Donnell: No, but I mean the most amazing thing that we did here, of course, is that you're ending the game as... the Arbiter.

• Joseph Staten: I put some emotion on her face right there. The last thing I did in Halo 2 is to make Miranda's face go "Whoa!" ...right before Harold locked me out of the depot and took away my keys.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh! Clink!

• Joseph Staten: Got it! Right there, she's thinking, "I wish I could turn holographic and disappear like everybody else."

• Martin O'Donnell: See, we're playing this... here, this is the Halo 2 monk theme, right? It's different than the Halo 1 monk theme.

• Joseph Staten: About to... it's gathering its dark energies, Marty.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes.

• Joseph Staten: And then... foo-wah! Dissipates.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yep.

• Joseph Staten: Here we go. What you're doing right here, Marty, is you're building up to something big.

• Jason Jones: Johnson riding the lightbulb.

• Martin O'Donnell: Johnson rides his little buddy.

• Joseph Staten: You never liked that, did you?

• Martin O'Donnell: We had to get him over there.

• Joseph Staten: Again, there were some great Easter egg ideas for the variety of ways in which Johnson, on the different difficulty levels, would ride Spark.

• Martin O'Donnell: Should have done it.

• Joseph Staten: Who would be on top? Who would be on bottom? Johnson was usually on top.

• Martin O'Donnell: "Tinker Bell!"

• Joseph Staten: If I had my druthers, every cinematic would involve Johnson talking to Spark. Oh, but first, Johnson comes in upside down.

• Martin O'Donnell: Where is it?

• Joseph Staten: Duh-duh-duh-duh!

• Martin O'Donnell: It's obviously on the last level of the game. Woo-hoo! I can hardly wait to play this last level. Let's do it.

• Joseph Staten: Yep.

• Martin O'Donnell: Here we go. Good. Great. Master Chief, I'm going to play it. Yeah. Oh, man, this is so exciting. Yes, cue, what?! Wait. Well, this obviously is the music that's leading us into the last Level, right?

• Joseph Staten: Marty, You seem to still harbor a lot of bad feelings about this, but the credits—

• Martin O'Donnell: I am channelling the fans.

• Joseph Staten: The credits aren't infinite. So, Jones, walk us through what was supposed to happen right now.

Credits

Main article: Halo 2 credits

• Martin O'Donnell: Project lead, Jason Jones.

• Jason Jones: Yeah. Um, yeah, there was supposed to be a whole mission there, Joe.

• Joseph Staten: Actually, I think there were supposed to be three missions.

• Jason Jones: Well, there was one important one.

• Joseph Staten: That's right. But what was going to happen? We're going to arrive back at Earth.

• Martin O'Donnell: Wait a minute, but we don't want to say what was going to happen because we're not—we it never did happen. And that's not part of what Halo 3 is.

• Joseph Staten: I think this is a great example—

• Martin O'Donnell: Okay, go ahead.

• Joseph Staten: ...of what Bungie does really well. Which is come up with an awesome idea—

• Jason Jones: ...which is make stuff up.

• Joseph Staten: ...which is come up with a really good idea, and not execute it on it the first time around. Save it. Sit on it. Hone it, refine it, and then wham, next game.

• Martin O'Donnell: There it is.

• Joseph Staten: Realize it to its fullest potential.

• Jason Jones: What was that idea?

• Martin O'Donnell: It would have looked different with stencil shadows, though, right? ...we're done recording.

• Joseph Staten: Wow, what a colossal jerk.

• Jason Jones: Wait, what do you mean? That was like...

• Martin O'Donnell: What?

• Jason Jones: ...like putting a stake through the heart of stencil shadows and like pushing it out the—into the airlock and venting it into space was like the—

• Joseph Staten: It's like you...

• Jason Jones: That was like the best thing I...

• Joseph Staten: It's like you strapped a bomb—

• Jason Jones: It's like you strapped a bomb to stencil shadows' back and welded it, and sent it to kill the last level in the game. Yeah, the whole extra mission there would have ended that game with a bang. But that was what we had to do. We did everything we could in the time we had.

• Joseph Staten: The funny thing is, is that even though we didn't do that sort of finale in Halo 2, that the final cinematic that you're about to see after the credits is the same as it would have been. You know, even at the end of Halo 2, we never planned for the Master Chief to make good on his promise to Cortana to come back and get her. So, we were always going to leave the Chief and the Cortana part.

• Martin O'Donnell: Well, that could get us into some very sensitive areas like the great Grunt Apocalypse.

• Joseph Staten: Well, that wasn't so much Jason going in and rewriting the Grunt lines that I recorded, as Jason going in and stabbing the two of us in the heart.

• Jason Jones: Oh god, I forgot all about that.

• Martin O'Donnell: Jason came in and said, "We have to fix the Grunt."

• Jason Jones: Oh my god.

• Joseph Staten: Because we had dopey Grunt.

• Jason Jones: Oh, dopey Grunt.

• Martin O'Donnell: "Oh, well, play me all the permutations in that category, so I would... Yeah. Well, just cut one, two, three, and four. Oh yeah, no, and five and six... and just cut the whole category." And that's how that happened.

• Jason Jones: 2401 Penitent Tangent. Who came up with that? That's genius.

• Martin O'Donnell: John Michael Higgins. He was in—

• Joseph Staten: I think you might have peaked. I think... remember 49 Fucking Lightbulb? And—

• Jason Jones: 7 Broken iPod. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

• Joseph Staten: Those were good.

• Jason Jones: 49 Fucking Lightbulb was my favorite.

• Joseph Staten: 49 Fucking Lightbulb will rise again.

• Jason Jones: Do you know I have 343 on my license plate? I showed you that, right?

• Joseph Staten: What? Just out of—

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, great.

• Joseph Staten: ...totally random?

• Martin O'Donnell: You just told all the fans your license plate.

• Jason Jones: No, they had a stack of plates in the back, and the nice woman—

• Joseph Staten: Marty, why'd you fade the music right here?

• Martin O'Donnell: Right there was the marketing people. So, bang, music goes down.

• Joseph Staten: We love you, Cameron.

• Martin O'Donnell: Just kidding.

• Joseph Staten: Don't let the shit grind you down. Marty.

• Jason Jones: Nice lady at the DMV actually went back to the whole stack of license plates that she had and found 343 for me. I didn't get to choose the three letters.

• Joseph Staten: Again, Marty, my favorite piece right here. I mean, by the time people are listening to this, they'll know the answer to this, but is this coming back for Halo 3, this piece?

• Martin O'Donnell: Probably. Yes. I think I—because believe it or not, this in the end credits is the only time you hear it this way... in Halo 2. You hear a snippet of it in one of the cutscenes, but that's about it.

• Jason Jones: I recognize so many of those testers' names from reading bugs. "Oh, another one from Vincent!"

• Martin O'Donnell: A lot of these people now are, like, full-time Bungies.

• Joseph Staten: You had a nemesis in Halo 2, the bug nemesis. I forgot who it was.

• Jason Jones: Oh, really? I don't know. I don't remember. I don't remember a lot.

• Joseph Staten: Your nemesis who kept assigning bugs.

• Jason Jones: I think I was friends with all those guys.

• Joseph Staten: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• Jason Jones: I just thought of a couple things I'll have to say after we turn off the mics.

• Martin O'Donnell: You should say it. Get it out. Get it out now.

• Jason Jones: Actually, I'm afraid I can't do that, Marty.

• Martin O'Donnell: Okay.

• Joseph Staten: But for as much as we cut stuff from this game, I got to say that... I love this little final post-credit sequence.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yes.

• Jason Jones: You know, as much as we cut stuff from this game, I still love the game.

• Martin O'Donnell: Good.

• Joseph Staten: Amen, brother.

• Martin O'Donnell: Alright. What does Jason say here? Missed it again?

• Jason Jones: I think I was also doing stuff.

• Martin O'Donnell: Oh, yeah. Doing stuff. It's all the people talking to their families here. This is so nice. Frank, what's—

• Joseph Staten: I think somebody has slipped into a meat-for-dinner coma.

• Martin O'Donnell: Yeah.

• Jason Jones: Which? Marty, you mean?

• Martin O'Donnell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. "Marcy, Ali, Christy, all my love." Okay, good. But I didn't say "last crunch." I knew better at this point.

• Joseph Staten: Clearly, we'll have to keep the mics on after this so we can say some interesting things that we could put on over the top.

• Martin O'Donnell: Nobody's listening to us at this point. Trust me.

• Joseph Staten: Is it over?

• Martin O'Donnell: It's over. Of course, Joe. We wouldn't have another cinematic, would we?

• Joseph Staten: Characteristic trademark Staten-O'Donnell-Black.

• Martin O'Donnell: This time with no actual... just sound effects and then spooky—

• Jason Jones: "This is going to be the last level I've been waiting for." Everybody picks up their controller. Yeah.

• Martin O'Donnell: Okay, now I finally get to play. Yeah, Master Chief back.

• Joseph Staten: Yeah, I guess that is kind of the downside with post-credit cinematics.

• Jason Jones: That was classic, Joe. You... right at the end, you're like, you know, "...but for all we cut," and I thought you were going to say something like positive, "But for all we cut, you know, I really, really—this—this... I do like this thing that happens after the credits." What a fucking [BEEP]. Oh my god.

• Joseph Staten: Cool under pressure. She's our girl.

• Martin O'Donnell: You got to love her. Oh, wait. This is spooky. This is scary.

• Joseph Staten: Huh?

• Martin O'Donnell: Ooh.

• Joseph Staten: What will happen?

• Martin O'Donnell: Halo 3.

• Joseph Staten: Play Halo 3.