Cut Halo 3 vehicles

During the production of Halo 3, several vehicles were concepted and implemented - though ultimately cut for various reasons.

Falcon
The Falcon was a vehicle envisioned by Marcus Lehto during the production of Halo 2, but ultimately unrealised. Bungie continued their interest in the Falcon in the production of Halo 3 with a handful of concepts being produced by Lehto and Isaac Hannaford. Ultimately, these concepts resulted in the creation of the Hornet gunship, with the Falcon later fully-realised in Halo: Reach as a helicopter.

Frigates
During Halo 3's concept production phase, the design for the featured in the final game (represented most prominently by  in the campaign and  on the Sandtrap map) went through several design revisions, including two potential alternative names that can be found in several pieces of concept art.

The first ship of note is, a Charon-class frigate that appears in multiple pieces of concept art for a space battle in the game. The second is - a design ultimately not featured in the final game but later replicated with near-parity in Halo: Reach as the. Nonetheless, artwork for the former is featured in the 2009 and 2011 Halo encyclopedias, with artwork for the latter featured in The Art of Halo 3 and the aforementioned encyclopedias.

Medical Troop Warthog
A Medical Troop Warthog was a variant of the M831 Troop Transport Warthog that was to appear in Halo 3. It was cut from the game during development; however, its files remained in the game's code and can be accessed through modding. It was first discovered in the files of the Halo 3 Beta and is present in the final game as well, although it was never used. Interestingly, Marines will sit on the stretchers like they would do on a normal M831 Troop Transport Warthog, suggesting that it was never fully completed.

Presumably, this vehicle's role would have been to transport wounded troops off of the battlefield to an aid station. It was therefore likely intended to be used during cinematics rather than during gameplay.

Early anti-air Wraith
In an early beta build of Halo 3 dated March 2007, a very early version of the Anti-Air Wraith can be found. Unlike the version found in the final game, this early AA Wraith is covered in a purple sheen like the regular Wraith, and lacks its fuel rod armaments. Instead, the early AA Wraith boats a pair of top-mounted automatic plasma cannons, though they share the same design as what would become the fuel rod cannons. The vehicle can be found on the map Snowbound in this beta build.

Mantis/ walker Shade turret
Referenced only as a physics model within Halo 3's code, the "Mantis" (not to be confused with the Mantis AA gun from the campaign or the Mantis mech from Halo 4) appears to have been a design for a cut mech of some kind. The physics model present within the Halo 3 code references parameters for walking and manipulating legs. It is likely that these entries correspond to the early cut version of the Shade turret found in the March 2007 beta for Halo 3. This early model Shade can be spawned in Forge on the map High Ground, and resembles a walker with six legs, a seat and a plasma cannon. The plasma cannon has a very high rate of fire and can quickly destroy a Mongoose, though the overall movement speed for the Shade is slow, and it cannot climb stairs very well.

According to designer Dan Miller, these Shades were intended to walk slowly to allow them to dodge incoming fire. The feature was ultimately cut as the turrets "looked stupid" and the design "didn't make sense". Jaime Griesemer later elaborated on this, explaining that the Mantis was to have been "entirely physics driven" and posess the ability to jump - further agreeing that the concept was "ridiculous".

Guardian
Much like the Enforcer in Halo 2, the cut enemy Guardian Sentinel was to work - behind the scenes - as a vehicle with AI. As such, properties for the cut Guardian enemy remain in the game files for Halo 3 as a vehicle - the enemy was planned to be present on the cut level Guardian Forest.