Cut Halo 4 enemies

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Halo 4 cut content

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Cut content

Placeholder cutscenes
Cut enemies and ambient life
Cut dialogue
Cut levels
Cut vehicles
Cut weapons
Cosmetics

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Development

Halo 4 development
Concept art
Storyboards
Design documentation
Title Updates

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To check out cut content for other Halo games, see here!

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During the production of Halo 4, a number of enemies were cut from the game. Most of these enemies were from the newly-introduced Promethean faction due to the amount of iteration they went through in production, though some ambient life was also cut too.

Prometheans

An early concept for a Promethean Knight, briefly teased at the end of the concept trailer shown at Halo Fest 2011.

This section is a stub. You can help Halopedia by expanding it.

The Prometheans were the first completely new enemy faction archetype introduced into the series since the original Halo: Combat Evolved in 2001. As such, much work went into figuring out how to create an enemy faction that could provide a new gameplay experience compared to the older Covenant, Flood, and Sentinels. When setting out with the Prometheans, the team were influenced by the fiction of the Forerunners, and were particularly inspired by the way in which the Didact is able to reshape the terrain in Halo 4's later levels. This led them to consider an enemy archetype which could adapt its form at will, with influences taken from Voltron, Terminator 2's T-1000, and The Thing's titular creature.

Starting off, the team designed 6 enemy classes, each themed after a chess piece. Ultimately, only three of these made it into the final game, with two being renamed entirely from their chess origins:

• Promethean Crawlers - Pawns
• Promethean Watchers - Bishops
• Promethean Knights - Knights

Covenant

Drone Sniper

One unused concept created for Halo 4 was that of a Drone Sniper for the Covenant faction, concepted by Paul Richards. The concept sketches vary wildly, exploring a variety of looks and weapon options, with some bearing more resemblance to plasma pistols and plasma rifles, while others look more akin to the beam rifle. The Drones drawn by Richards are much larger than the average Drone and are depicted with purple armor over their wings.

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Ambient life

Sky leviathan

The "sky leviathan" was a large airborne cetacean concepted by Paul Richards for inclusion in Halo 4. It was never realised in 3D, though the concept was officially canonised in a 2015 Canon Fodder blog as the Olfmeri, a creature featured in the novel Halo: Hunters in the Dark.

In 2019, the creature was officially visualised in 3D by Falcon's Creative Group for The Ring Experience at Halo: Outpost Discovery, using the same concept art originally created by Paul Richards.

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  Concept art for the sky leviathan.

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  Concept art for the sky leviathan.

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  This artwork of Paul Richards' was used to create the olfmeri that appear in "The Ring Experience" at Halo: Outpost Discovery.

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  The sky leviathan 3D asset created for Outpost Discovery.

Flying squid

Not to be confused with a similar enemy cut from Halo 2, one notable piece of ambient fauna cut from Halo 4 were floating jellyfish and squid-like creatures, originally set for inclusion on the level Infinity. They were initially featured in an environment painting for the level done by Nicolas "Sparth" Bouvier, and then further expanded in detail by Paul Richards. Richards noted that the task to further expand the squids from Sparth's original art piece as his first task on his first day of working at 343 Industries.

The flying squids were modelled and textured for inclusion in the Halo 4 E3 2012 stage demo, where they can be briefly seen in the background of the environment. They were not featured in the final game, though can be viewed in leaked devkits containing the E3 demo.

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  The original concept art for Infinity by Sparth, featuring the flying squids.

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  Concepts of the flying squid by Paul Richards.

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  Another concept art featuring the squids, by John Liberto.

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  A flying squid can be seen in the top-right corner of the HUD in the E3 2012 B-roll.

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  The flying squid.

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  Bottom of the flying squid.

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  Top of the flying squid.

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  An alternate and unfinished jellyfish-like design found in the E3 2012 demo build.