Cut Halo 2 vehicles

During the development of Halo 2, a number of vehicles were cut from the final game release.

Anti-air Scorpion
An anti-air equipped variant of the Scorpion tank was included in the early Halo 2 design documentation. This variant bears a striking descriptive resemblance to the M808B2 Sun Devil vehicle included in the Halo Encyclopedia, and may have even inspired this canon vehicle.

Falcon
While discussing the "strike fighter" (see below), the developers at Bungie also mentioned the need for a "Black Hawk-type vehicle", which was later cut from the game. This seems to correspond with the prototype Falcon aircraft seen in very early beta builds of Halo 2, which had been prototyped in 3D shortly after the release of Halo: Combat Evolved. The vehicle in these builds is untextured and un-animated, simply appearing as a low-poly blockout model. The vehicle has a single pilot with a nose-mounted machine gun at the front of the aircraft and two side-mounted seats for passengers. The Falcon is additionally included in a rough state in map files for the Halo 2 build seen in Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and can be spawned in via modding.

Notably, a vehicle of the same name was concepted for, and cut from, the real-time strategy game Halo Wars, though in that game was to appear more akin to a UNSC jet fighter and appears to have little resemblance to the Halo 2 vehicle. The Halo 2 Falcon was intended by Marcus Lehto to be a smaller cousin to the Pelican dropship, for small-unit deployment. Following the cutting of the Halo 2 Falcon, Marcus Lehto continued to work on the idea, producing sketches between the production of Halo 2 and Halo 3 that later became Halo 3's aerial craft the Hornet. However, Lehto wasn't satisfied with the Hornet and eventually the Falcon would finally be realised in 2010's Halo: Reach as the UH-144 Falcon, a tiltrotor helicopter bearing little visual resemblance to the original Halo 2 design but filling the same "Black Hawk" gameplay role.

Kestrel
The Kestrel was a small VTOL, designed to serve in gameplay as a UNSC aircraft and counterpart to the Banshee. A number of designs were concepted, though the development team had a difficult time getting the engine physics to work correctly. One of the Kestrel concepts later informed the now-canon AV-30 Kestrel; featured as a MEGA Brands Halo Toy and useable in the 2015 game Halo: Spartan Strike.

Mongoose
The Mongoose was originally intended to be a vehicle useable in Halo 2. The vehicle was fully built and animated, with gameplay of the ATV shown by Bungie in the Halo 2 Limited Collector's Edition documentary. In the build shown, the Mongoose uses the same driving sounds as the Warthog and has the aiming reticule of the Magnum. During development, the Mongoose was difficult to integrate into gameplay, with the designers trying out front-mounted guns and no weapons. Ultimately, the vehicle was cut as it interfered too much with the Warthog and Ghost.

Notably, the Mongoose was brought back almost wholly unchanged in Halo 3 and has since remained a series staple; in Halo 3 and subsequent titles, the Mongoose is a two-person vehicle with no armaments. A second player can mount the back of the vehicle and fire their handheld weapons in third-person or carry objectives (such as a flag). The idea of the Mongoose with weapons was later revisited in Halo 2: Anniversary, with the game's multiplayer introducing the Gungoose - exactly the same as the regular Mongoose but with two front-mounted and driver-fired M67 LMGs.

Strike fighter
"Marcus Lehto"

The strike fighter was intended as a defensive space fighter for use by the UNSC during the Battle for Earth. The vehicle would have little place in actual gameplay, and instead be a cinematic-only vehicle, similar to the Longsword seen in the final game. For gameplay, the designers needed more of a "Black Hawk-type vehicle", likely referring to the cut Falcon UNSC aircraft detailed above. Early storyboards for the levels Cairo Station and the cut level Covenant Ship show some more usage of the strike fighter; in the cut sections of Halo 2's early story, the strike fighters would have filled the role shown by the Longsword in the final game - performing an attack run on a Covenant carrier.

The strike fighter notably bears a strong resemblance space fighters designed by Bungie in their later titles; specifically the YSS-1000 Sabre in Halo: Reach and the jumpships of the later Destiny.

Orca
The Orca is a vehicle mentioned in Halo 2 design documentation. It was intended to be a troop-carrying watercraft. The documentation additionally details a variant known as the Mortar Orca, appropriately equipped with mortars as weapons.

Piglet
Found in the files for Halo 2, the Piglet is seemingly a static prop object intended to populate the level and visually resembles a scaled-down version of the Warthog. The model has no collision, animations and other info markers required to be useable as a vehicle in-game. The Piglet was notably featured in a breakdown by Kenneth Peters in an MCC Flighting Update on the Halo Waypoint forums, where he made the vehicle driveable in Halo 2 via modding.

Warthog variants
These Warthogs were created by artist Marcus Lehto shortly after the release of Halo: Combat Evolved. An image of them was later released on Bungie.net as part of their Halo 2 project page.

In later media such as Bungie.net news, the Halo Encyclopedia and the Halo Waypoint universe section, several vehicles have been described with very similar traits to these cut vehicles, namely being the (from left to right, as per the image and not including the standard Warthog) M868 Tropic Warthog, M862 Arctic Warthog and M914 Recovery Vehicle. This was later confirmed by Jeff Easterling, with the note that it can change later if 343 Industries needed.

Halo 2 design documentation also references a number of other Warthog variants including a desert camo Warthog and a "night mission" camo Warthog.

Brute Chopper
Referred to in documentation as the "Brute cycle", early Halo 2 intended to feature the vehicle introduced in subsequent games as the Chopper for the Brutes. The vehicle was concepted by Eddie Smith, and ultimately later fairly faithfully realised in Halo 3.

Brute mounts
Early Halo 2 design documentation references the desire to have Brutes able to ride animal mounts into battle.

Covenant artillery
In the Halo 2 E3 demo, the city of New Mombasa is depicted as under siege by a massive Covenant artillery cannon. During the demo, a flight of Longswords is called in to bomb the gun. While this massive artillery piece does not appear in the final game, a smaller version of it known as the Type-48 Weevil does appear in the beach section of the level Outskirts - though inactive. Through modding, the guns are found to have turning and firing animations, indicating they may have been intended to be seen firing on the city of New Mombasa in-game.

Covenant fuel truck
Early Halo 2 design documentation references a vehicle called the "Covenant fuel truck". No further details are known. A similar vehicle exists in Halo canon, though is likely unrelated to this concept.

Command shuttle
Seen only in early storyboards for the level The Arbiter, the command shuttle appears to be a large Covenant dropship similar in scale to the Lich. The vehicle would have been used to transport the Elite strike team to the Threshold gas mine, before being replaced by three Phantoms in the final game. The command shuttle reappears in storyboards for the game's epilogue cutscene, having been taken over by the Flood.

Ghost variants
Early Halo 2 design documentation references a vehicle called an "Excavation Ghost", alongside "VTOL" and "Special Forces" Ghost variants. No further details are known.

Excavation Shadow
Early Halo 2 design documentation references a vehicle called an "Excavation Shadow" - presumably a variant of the existing Shadow vehicle. No further details are known.

Shadow troop carrier
The Shadow troop carrier is a troop carrier. In-game, the vehicle is only featured in the level Outskirts, driving along the Mombasa highways. These vehicles carry Ghosts in their underbelly compartments; however, a troop carrier variant exists in the files unused, and is shown in the Halo 2 Manual. This vehicle is found in the shared map content in the Halo 2 component of The Master Chief Collection, and despite being unused the troop transport variant was even retextured for the visually updated campaign of Halo 2: Anniversary.

Phantom door gunner variant
Finalised storyboards for the level The Arbiter showcase a Type-52 Phantom with door-mounted gunners. This Phantom design ultimately was discarded for the final game, instead preferring to use three larger plasma cannons. This design for the Phantom was later employed for Halo 3 and subsequent Halo games.