High Charity (cut Halo 3 level)

"I took the Cortana mission, completely gutted it and rebuilt it in about three weeks—that mission where Gravemind is talking to you and Cortana is in distress. We didn’t have a lot of resources for that. It was a lot cooler on paper. And it had the transforming Flood, but I don’t think we did great there. It’s a kind of half-baked mission that needed to be there for the story, so we sort of threw it together, but I would’ve preferred not to do that."

- Paul Bertone discussing his work on Cortana and highcharity.

High Charity or HC was a planned level in Halo 3's campaign, eventually replaced by the retail level Cortana.

Description
When originally conceptualised, the level that would become Cortana in the final game was simply meant to be a level set inside High Charity, fighting against the Flood. In this build, the High Charity level was to consist of two large found segments connected by the Hanging Gardens. An early mission layout showcases the mission as progressing with the player eventually progressing into and through the Mausoleum of the Arbiter - with a planned reveal of an army of Flood-infected Arbiters which the player would have to battle. Later on, the level was intended to feature a sequence in which the player would find a Scarab with damaged legs, which Cortana would take control of and use to battle the Gravemind while the player held off invading Flood forms and shot off the Gravemind's tendrils that attempted to latch onto the Scarab.

It would end up being present as a selectable level in the Halo 3 Alpha.

Ultimately, the High Charity level was one of several levels cut for time. At a similar time, the level Floodgate was cut-down around 75% due to issues with pacing, and thus much of the geometry developed for that mission was repurposed for Cortana. This process of gutting and rebuilding this mission was undertaken by Paul Bertone, who did the task in around three weeks. Cortana was expanded around 75%, as the team felt the mission needed to be longer and harder to better-reflect the narrative stakes in the story. These issues, combined with the lack of a dedicated designer for the level, meant that the developers at Bungie knew they were shipping what they considered to be a bad level, but were unable to do much about it. One idea pitched by Dan Miller to aid with navigation in the level was to place holographic footsteps on the ground to help show the player where to go, similar to the effect shown at the end of the level The Covenant.

The reuse of the Floodgate geometry originally developed for the crashed cruiser meant that the interior structure of High Charity contains some illogical design choices, such as the bridge of a. The level posed numerous technical challenges for the developers, with the level's size requiring it be split into eight BSPs. Having to allow the geometry to have AI walk on it - even upside down or on walls - was also challenging, and collisions had to be faked for much of the level geometry. To help produce the feel of the city having been wrecked and crashed, the engineering team wrote a script that tilted the level geometry by fifteen degrees on export. Nonetheless, the AI pathfinding continued to be an issue, alongside questions of how to balance art vs. design needs for the level.



Following the release of the Halo 3 Mod Tools, further details on the level were released including scripting for various encounters including but not limited to the Scarab and Mausoleum, dialogue, and a few music queues.

Early revisions of highcharity were prototyped in the early Halo 3 engine on the original Xbox console. Screenshots of these early environment tests showcase a design intent to have High Charity's architecture resemble the environments the player finds themselves in in the Gravemind and High Charity levels of Halo 2.

Current status
Bits and pieces of the original level survived into the final product. The Mausoleum of the Arbiter can be seen as an inaccessible location outside the playable area. Parts of Sergeant Johnson's dialogue at the beginning is also somewhat similar to the original version. The chapter title "Nor Hell a Fury..." is also in the retail version of the game.

Transcript
The level was split into the chapters: Her Tattered Soul and Nor Hell a Fury.... The following dialogue and sequence of events are transcribed from remaining files in the Halo 3 Mod Tools.

(Co-op Change) Johnson : "The Elites are rallying as well."
 * Sergeant Major Avery Junior Johnson: "Chief, I'm rounding up all the survivors I can find.."
 * Johnson: "We're falling back to the Dawn."
 * Johnson: "The Arbiter is rallying the Elites."
 * Johnson: "But with the forces we have left, we don't stand a chance against the Flood."
 * Johnson: "I don't know what you think you can do."
 * Johnson: "But if Cortana's still in there, bring her home."

''The player(s) would have proceeded to the bridge to the Mausoleum. Once the area around the bridge was cleared, they would be able to proceed. Once inside, they would have fought more Flood before reaching another bridge. They would have proceeded all the way to the Inner Sanctum. They would also fight numerous Flood in the process.''


 * Cortana: "It's him. It. Them."
 * Cortana: "We can't be stopped now. We won't."
 * Cortana: "They're not taking either of us."
 * Gravemind: "Pitiful creature!"
 * Gravemind: "That you would come so far..."

The player would have either seen or moved to a Scarab. ''Cortana is plugged into the Scarab. The Scarab itself begins starting up and making sounds.'' The Scarab begins making more sounds. The Scarab begins moving. Depending on if the player is standing on the Scarab. Cortana continues. The Scarab moves. The Scarab moves more. The Scarab moves more. The Scarab moves more. The Scarab moves more. The Scarab moves more. The Scarab moves more. The Scarab stops moving. The player grabs Cortana. If the player stalls. The Gravemind roars in defeat.
 * Cortana: "Get me on board."
 * Cortana: "If these bastards want a fight, we'll give them one."
 * Gravemind: "And now what can you hope to do?"
 * Gravemind: "Can this broken toy offer you more than we?"
 * Gravemind: "Your reunion shall be short-lived."
 * Gravemind: "We will take you both."
 * Gravemind: "We will have her, and you will be the bridge."
 * Gravemind: "Lay your lives down before us."
 * Gravemind: "We are your only end."
 * Gravemind: "Accept the truth. Accept us."
 * Gravemind: "After all this time, do you really think we would make such a fatal mistake?"
 * Gravemind: "Entire civilizations have thrown down their lives in futile attempts to destroy us. Yet here we stand."
 * Gravemind: "And you. You are but one man."
 * Gravemind: "And we are your only end."
 * Cortana: "Get me on that Scarab, Chief."
 * Cortana: "There should be an access panel near the power core."
 * Cortana: "Bring me around to the Scarab's power core and plug me in."
 * Cortana: "All right. I'm in."
 * Cortana: "Hold tight while I..."
 * Cortana: "Damn. Main cannon is fried."
 * Cortana: "Guess we do it the hard way."
 * Cortana: "Just like old times."
 * Cortana: "They're coming!"
 * Cortana: "Hold them off. I have an idea."
 * Cortana: "We've got power!"
 * Cortana: "This heap isn't as dead as it looks."
 * Cortana: "We may not have the main cannon or rear legs, but we've still got a functional fusion reactor."
 * Cortana: "When the core is fully charged, we'll detonate it."
 * Cortana: "I'll get us close."
 * Cortana: "You just do what you do best."
 * Cortana: "Hold on while I get this beast on its feet."
 * Cortana: "This thing is in worse shape than I thought."
 * Cortana: "Going to have to go one leg at a time."
 * Cortana: "Starting with the left."
 * Cortana: "And now the right."
 * Cortana: "Here comes the bump."
 * Cortana: "Sorry about that."
 * Cortana: "I'll need to build up some power for this next one."
 * Cortana: "And...heave!"
 * Cortana: "Watch our backs, Chief."
 * Cortana: "They have to know what we're up to."
 * Cortana: "That put a lot of stress on the joints."
 * Cortana: "Servos are screaming."
 * Cortana: "Running what self-repair systems are still operable."
 * Cortana: "The left leg is running a little hot, but here goes."
 * Cortana: "Can't last much longer like this."
 * Cortana: "The turrets are about to melt."
 * Cortana: "The engine is well past red-lined."
 * Cortana: "And the left leg is about to fall off."
 * Cortana: "But here goes nothing."
 * Cortana: "I can't even feel this leg anymore."
 * Cortana: "Strain levels in the servos are through the roof."
 * Cortana: "Just need to get a little closer to the edge."
 * Cortana: "Almost there."
 * Cortana: "Just one more heave..."
 * Cortana: "I'm as close as I can get, Chief."
 * Cortana: "The rest is up to you."
 * Cortana: "Come pick me up and blow the core."
 * Cortana: "All right. Let's send this thing to Hell."
 * Cortana: "The core is charged, Chief. Hit with all you've got."
 * Cortana: "Blow the core, Chief!"