@jackofalltraits2145

1 year ago

1:54 This is a very long comment but bare with me here: The reason why the interiors of "Cortana" don't look like High Charity from Halo 2 is because the level wasn't on High Charity. If your confused then let me explain. You know at the end of "Flood Gate" when your sent into the down Flood infested Covenant Cruiser and search to find Cortana's message? Well originally that section was going to be much longer and was basically repurposed for what ended up being the mission "Cortana". My evidence: You'll notice in the final game that "Cortana's" interiors are much more akin to the hallways of a Covenant Cruisers. The room with the Cortana Terminal is literally the bridge of the Cruiser and it's uninfected counterpart can be seen used as the Ship Masters Carrier in the ending cutscene to "Flood Gate", the opening cutscene to the "Ark" and in the memorial cinematic. You'll also notice that at the beginning of "Flood Gate" Miranda tells you to "Find the crashed flood ship. Overload it's engine core." Except you don't actually do this when you get to the ship, however at the end of "Cortana" you blow up the reactors to the infested cruiser reused as High Charity. The original level for "Cortana" can be seen in story boards and would have had you go back and explore a Halo 2 accurate, next gen infested High Charity. The objective would have been the same as in the final game, except the level would have a very different latter half. Chief and Cortana were going to be cornered in the Mausoleum of the Arbiter, where the Gravemind would finally reveal itself, after being in the shadows for the majority of the game. What would proceed can only be described as pure awesomeness: the Gravemind would infect/resurrect all the all the dead Arbiters and send them to attack you. To counter act this, Cortana would help you take control of a damaged Scarab, using it to fight off the Flood forms and the Gravemind. The level would end the same way with Chief escaping with Cortana, thanks to the Arbiter, and the three would head off to activate Halo. I honestly don't know why the changed this, the only possible reasons I can come up with are 1. There were disagreeing voices in Bungie, some who didn't want boss fights in Halo 3, after H2 failed to execute on them, and 2. Time was running out, money was bleeding and they needed a complete mission for "Cortana" so they used the last half of "Flood Gate". I think we can all agree that it's a travesty that the original idea for "Cortana" never saw the light of day.

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