In 2001the world of console gaming and first-person shooters was forever changed by the release of Microsoft’s Xbox platform with a launch title named Halo: Combat Evolved—a bold subtitle that the game wholly lived up to.

As the Master Chiefwe set foot on an ancient ringworld named Halofought against the Covenant alongside our ragtag Marine allies and trusty guide Cortanaand uncovered the horrifying secrets in the depths of this alien megastructure before blowing it to smithereens. It seemed like the fight had been finishedbut as the Chief himself said at the end: “I think we’re just getting started.”

It is November 92004. It’s a Tuesday morning and you know that you’ve got to go to work or schoolbut that’s the last thing on your mind right now. Your eyes are bleary and bloodshotyour mind utterly scrambledbut it was totally worth it to have queued up at midnight outside your local retailer and stayed up all night playing Halo 2.

The Master Chief and Cortana returned to Earth to a hero’s welcomebut the Covenant aren’t far behind as the fight arrives in the city streets of Mombasa. Butwhat’s this? There’s another character whose story we follow—a disgraced alien warrior who is punished for his failure to protect the Halo ring discovered in the first gamegiven a chance at redemptionand-- wait... is that an energy sword in my hand? I’m playing as him?!

And that was just the campaign. In short orderyou and your friends are playing togethernot by lugging your chunky CRT television and Xbox around the corner to a friend’s house for another bout of system link screenwatchingbut from the comfort of your own home through the advent of online play.

If you can believe itthat was twenty years ago.

As we mark this grandiose milestone for the serieswe wanted to share with you everything that’s going on to celebrate all things Halo 2.

Kicking things offwe launched Operation: Great Journey in Halo Infinite earlier this weekthematically centered around Halo 2.

DELTA ARENA

A new dedicated Halo 2-inspired playlist has arrivedfeaturing classic maps and movement. Here are some of the settings that have been adjusted to recreate that old gameplay feel.

• Sprint: Disabled
• Clamber: Disabled
• Jump Height: 120%
• Starting Weapon: MA5K Avenger
• Secondary Weapon: None
• Friendly Player Collision: On

The Delta Arena playlist brings us back to beloved battlefields from the past which have been remade in Forge. These include AscensionBeaver CreekMidshipTurfSanctuaryLockoutand Warlock.

OPERATION PASS

The free 20-tier Operation Pass features the Thremaleon armor setinspired by the iconic and beloved Rtas ‘Half-Jaw” ‘Vadumwho we meet in Halo 2 as a Special Operations commander of the Covenant—going on to become the legendary shipmaster of Shadow of Intent.

Upgrade to the Premium Pass and you will additionally secure the Veteran SRS99 weapon modelbased on Halo 2’s sniper rifleand Damascus Alchemy weapon coating.

AND YOU SAID YOU WERE GONNA WEAR SOMETHING NICE!

“Your new suit’s a Mark VIjust came up from Seongnam this morning.”

The Rocket Reclaimer bundle is available in the Halo Infinite Shop and includes:

• Master Chief Mark VI armor kit
• Green Man armor coating
• Veteran SPNKr weapon model
• Veteran Metal weapon coating

Step into the iconic Mjolnir Mark VI armor of the Master Chief in Halo 2 and prepare to finish the fight.

In celebration of Halo 2’s twentieth birthdaythe Digsite modding crew has released their latest content drop for Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PCwhich includes two cut missions from the retail game.

E3 2003 DEMO

Both iconic and infamousthe E3 2003 demo for Halo 2 was a pulse-pounding hype engine where fans saw the campaign of the then-upcoming sequel for the first time. The Master Chief battles against the Covenant through the city of New Mombasa alongside Marines and ODSTsshowing off a new arsenal including a single-shot battle rifle and dual-wielded submachine guns.

Howeverthe mission did not make it to the retail release.

The Digsite crew have been working hard to restore this mission so that it is not only in a playable state but fit to be released so you can finally get your hands on it as well. Massive improvements have been made to the visual quality and overall stability of this experienceand so—after two decades—it can finally be said that the Halo 2 E3 2003 demo is yours to experience!

ALPHA MOON

This mission was cut from the Arbiter’s storywhere his pursuit of the heretic leader Sesa ‘Refumee would have taken him from the gas mine on Threshold to the hardscrabble moon Basis where huge chunks of Alpha Halo’s wreckage have landed. Indeedthis environment formed the basis for the multiplayer map Burial Mounds.

This mission has been rebuilt from existing tags and is now playable. Notehoweverthat the showdown with ‘Refumee was only finished to a blockout stage and is not included in this reconstruction. The main issues that led to this mission's removal from Halo 2 were problems with lightmapping (difficult to solve even with modern hardware)lack of environmental variationand negative playtester feedback on the encounters. As this mission was still in heavy revision when it was cut you may encounter glitches and bugs!

HOW DO I PLAY?

To install and play these experiencesyou need follow only three simple steps!

STEP 1 – Head to the Steam Workshop page and subscribe to the mod.

STEP 2 – Boot up MCC on PC with Anti-Cheat disabled (this can be selected on start-up).

STEP 3 – Enter the campaign menu for Halo 2 and load up the level you want to play.

That’s all it takes! And if you want to mix up your experience a bityou can enable Skulls in the campaign menu as well for both of these levels.

Just yesterdaywe released a new short story set during the events of Halo 2—specifically around the onset of the Great Schismwhere the Brutes usurp the position of the Elites within the Covenant.

Halo: Age of Retribution is available here on Halo Waypointas a free PDFand in audiobook format on YouTube.

November 32552. After the Prophet of Regret is assassinated by the Master Chiefthe Covenant is shaken to its foundations as the feud between Brutes and Elites reaches a violent turning point.

To commemorate this milestonewe got a bunch of folks at the studio to send in their memories and stories about their time with Halo 2. Got stories and memories that you’d love to share with us? Tag them on social platforms with #H2Memories for the opportunity to be featured in our next Community Spotlight!

ANDREW SMALLWOOD

My dad was a helicopter pilot in the Navy. When Halo 2 came outthe entire squadron was talking about it and who was the best. My dad overheard some of the younger guys talking about it and said he bet his ten-year-old son was better than any of them. Lateraround twenty pilots came over to the house and we wired up two Xboxes over LAN and did tons of 1v1 and 2v2 rounds of Halo 2.

Ten-year-old meplus my friendversus two Navy pilots. We ended up destroying them multiple times over. The next daymy dad got on the intercom at his base and told the entire squadron that their best Halo 2 player got whooped by a ten-year-old. They never lived it down.

SEAN COOPER

By the time Halo 2 releasedsoftware-based exploits for the original Xbox were figured out. I think I originally used the 007: Agent Under Fire gamesave exploit to get a custom dashboard installed on my Xbox (I was *NOT* playing on XBL with mods). This allowed me to load arbitrary executable code (compiled from x86 assembly) for specific gamescalled "trainers." A friend and I in the modding scenexbox7887started working on "Project Yelo." This was a "trainer" for Halo 2 that other people could use to take control of the game's cameratake screenshotscontrol game speedtoggle skullsetc.

Halo: CE and Halo 2 were early vessels for me to start exploring assembly codedebugging without source codeand just game engine design in general. Many people probably have some core memories of Halo 2 multiplayer over XBLbut as someone that did not have broadband internet (at leastin my room)all my early memories of Halo 2 are from reverse engineering to make the game do stuff it couldn't or wouldn't normally let a player do.

TASHI

My old gamertag back in the Halo 2 days (and for many years after) was NYSTOFMIND23which comes from the song by Nas titled "New York State of Mind," and I had an old high school friend whose gamertag was "protectyaneck12" named after the old Wu-Tang song"Protect Ya Neck."

One daywhile playing BTB on Headlongthanks to the powers of proximity chatwe ran into some fellow hip hop fans who called out the songs and started playing them through their speakers and into the game.

Many players from both red and blue teams gathered in a circle (inside the tower that the teleporter takes you up to) and began crouching to the song and rapping together. Such a silly and fun moment that I'll never forget—andunbeknownst to meI was now fully part of a community for the first time.

Thank you Halo 2and happy birthday!

KENNETH PETERS

Me and my friends were hungry for more Halo and were very hyped by the ad campaignso of course our first playthrough of Halo 2 was co-op... but in French. I don't speak Frenchand neither did my friends. I must saythe plot made A LOT more sense once I got the game in English.

PHANTASIA JENDRO

When Halo 2 shifted our perspective from the Master Chief to the Arbiterand the consequences that he had to facemy love for Halo was cemented.

I really enjoy a story that forces you into the shoes of your "enemy," giving us the opportunity to understand them better and sometimes maybe even make us second guess our own missions throughout the story.

Watching Thel ‘Vadamee made an example ofshamedwhile the Covenant put him on a course that should ultimately end in his deathhad my heart change for him. The Arbiter slowly uncovers that what he had believed in so strongly is no longer something he agrees with. I think that we all experience a revelation like this in one way or another in our lifetimes.

I have revisited the Arbiter's story throughout the years since Halo 2 released in 2004. Twenty years later and I find that his lessons and change of heart have remained relevant in my own life from childhood to now.

NINA MARIEN

Halo 2 was the first game I ever stood in line for.

The midnight release was on a school nightso it felt pretty special to be staying out so late. When my dad and I arrived at the store there was a HUGE line of folks already there and though I remember feeling intimidated when we approachedthat all seemed to quickly melt away.

The shop people were doing giveawaysthere was merchsomeone was playing musicand there was such a sense of occasion. I remember looking at all the folks in line—seeing their expressions and the way they were all excited—and felt myself get swept away by that sense of community. I didn't know anyone therebut at the same timewe clearly were all fansand there was something neat about being around so many other folks that shared that love of Halo.

It remains one of my core gaming memories and is my reminder of how special Halo is to so many people.

BRADEN LEAGUE

I vividly remember the first time I played Halo 2. It was the summer of 2005and I was twelve years oldspending the night at my friend’s house. We had just finished playing Brothers in Armsdropping behind enemy lines on the morning of D-Day. After watching him play for a bithe mentioned a game called Halo 2. I had a Gameboy at home and had played plenty of GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64 at other friends' housesso I was familiar with FPS gamesbut as soon as Halo 2 booted upI knew this was something else.

The menu music pulled me in right awaycreating an atmosphere that felt bigger than any game I’d played before. Before I knew itwe were locked in a 1v1 Slayer match on Turfracing to 50 kills. The excitement of each fightthe sound of shields rechargingand running around spraying bullets with dual-wielded SMGs kept us going for hours.

By the time we finally quitthe sun was coming up outside. We had spent the entire night on the streets of New Mombasaracing around Zanzibarand having tank battles on Coagulation.

ALEX WAKEFORD

Even just saying “Halo 2” conjures up so many memories for me. Countless hours spent messing around in online customs like Tower of Power; the emergence of “zombies” on Headlong and Foundation; hunting for the alleged “ghost of Lockout” that had been glimpsed in blurry videos like it was the Bigfoot or Nessie of Halo... and I could wax poetic about the story for hours. But the memory that comes to mind as I sit down to write this is the summer of 2005approaching the end of the school yearwhere my ten-year-old self decided to be uncharacteristically mischievous.

In the school’s IT roommy friends and I were watching a Halo 2 music videoa machinima set on the multiplayer map Terminal—the one with the train that occasionally speeds through the middle. The music in question that was playing over the video of an escalating number of Spartans waiting on the train platform was “London Underground” by Amateur Transplants.

I highly recommend looking that song up to understand just how much trouble I managed to get myself in for loading this video up across a dozen computers while the IT room was emptysetting the volume up to maximum on all the speakersand hitting play on them all.

Happy birthdayHalo 2.

ELLEN YANG

Custom game lobbies were the best. Sometimes we playedother times we just talked. It didn't matter what ethnicity you werewhat school you went toyour GPAor where you were from. All that mattered was having fun playing Halo 2 together.

DANA JERPBAK

Halo 2 is the game that really started my Halo journey. I'd played Halo: CEbut I was pretty young at the time and hadn't quite latched onto it. When I first played Halo 2I remember being really surprised by how bright and beautiful the world was and how unique the music felt.

In the years that followedI had countless late nights playing the campaign again and againand getting destroyed in splitscreen 1v1s (I didn't have Xbox Live back then). I also loved driving the Spectre up the walls of Containmentflipping the Scorpion onto the roof on Zanzibarand Banshee-launching out of Headlong. Headlong is still one of my all-time favorite Halo maps and I even remade it in Halo 5's Forge mode before I worked at the studio.

Throughout all of these experiencesI never would have guessed that I would one day have the privilege of working on the gamebut with MCC I got to do just that: building new features for my favorite games was incredibly fulfilling. As a designer (at the time)I partnered with Sean Cooper to develop our Yappening event for Halo 2 in 2019. This was one of the first experiences I got to own as a designer on MCC and it was a ton of fun to work on because it was all about being silly and over-the-top.

Bringing Skulls into multiplayer and working on game variants like Brute Shoot and Methane Moshpit was a blast. Our first iteration of Methane Moshpit spawned players with unlimited grenades with increased blast radii but no weapons and no shields and was a single-hill King of the Hill variant played on Foundation. Our test lead disliked it so much that he recommended we force matchmaking quitters to play it rather than receive quit bans!

More recentlyit's been incredible and inspiring to see what our mod community and Digsite teams have done with Halo 2.

CONNOR KENNELLY

I moved to a new town my first year of high schooland one of the first chances I had to meet new friends was getting invited to a Halo 2 LAN party.  I had played a lot of Halo: CEbut I hadn't played any Halo 2 at that pointso I remember being a little nervous.

A few matches into the LAN partyI was on the beach on Reliclow on ammoand an enemy Spartan was bearing down on me with a Ghostwhile another player was trying to get an angle with the sniper. I strafed leftthen righttrying to keep the Ghost between me and the sniperwhen suddenlyI spotted a dropped rocket launcher on the ground. This could be my chance!

It had only one shot loaded (of course)but I hit the Ghost square in the noseblowing him up into the sky. As I went through that painfully slow reloadI looked at the sniper hopelesslyknowing there was no way I was going to live. He stopped strafing and I knew the shot was imminent... until the wreckage of the Ghost came down from the sky and splattered himfor my first ever double kill!

An incredible feelingand that stunt definitely got me invited back to future LAN parties. The best part isI am still very close friends with those people to this day.

TYLER DAVIS

For meHalo 2 was the pinnacle of Halo in terms of fun. It wasn’t just the gameplaybut coming from lugging CRTs around to being able to play on Xbox Live with my friends at a time in my life where I got to focus on playing—it was the king.

Clan battlesMLGgetting mixed up in customs and the pro sceneand just narrowing in on what I wanted to do with my career in games.

Halo 2 brought this amazing world to you building off the foundation of Halo: CE in so many ways. I miss the BxR and the BxB button combos a lot. I had too much fun ripping faces with sweep snipes too—Halo 2 sweep sniping is KING in all of Halo and you can’t change my mind.

JACK FLETCHER

My story with Halo 2 was a long wait until Christmas 2004. I remember seeing it on the store shelf with my parentsseeing the crisp and sealed cases that just made the wait just a little bit longer.

When the time finally cameI remember playing Coagulation with my brother via system-link whilst he was in the other room. He was in a Warthogtrying to hunt me downall while I was using active camowaiting for him to pass me by. When he eventually drove towards meI boarded the driver's seat and kicked him outonly to hear a shout come from the other bedroom!

UnfortunatelyI cannot remember who won that matchbut for methat cemented how cool Halo 2's new mechanics and refinements were.

BRIAN HUGHES

I'm not going to say there's a best time to have appendicitis. But I can definitively say that coming home from the hospital on November 92004after having my appendix removed was certainly not a bad time!

My parents picked up my pre-order on the drive home from the hospitalI got into a nice and cozy pillow and blanket spot to rest for the next few days (no school either!)loaded up Halo 2 multiplayerand immediately got into an Ivory Tower match and had some ferocious sword duels with my fellow Spartans.

Thanks for the memoriesHalo 2!

CHRIS CASE

My first experience with Halo 2 came well after its releaseduring work on Halo: The Master Chief Collection. I had grown up with Halo: CE and played Halo 3 at the occasional friends’ get-togetherbut Halo 2 wasn't easily accessible to me at the time.

I loved being able to dive back into the legacy of the Master Chief's story and see how Halo 2 served as its own super importantbut super unique shift in how Halo played. It was an amazing experience.

These days when I think backit's still my favorite Halo. I loved seeing the Arbiter's side of the legendhow his path crossed with the Chief’sand how he eventually led their own rebellion from within the Covenant. I love how those side stories eventually shaped other framed tales in ODST and Reachand how much of the world that Halo began to establish that makes it so entertaining and interesting to see more stories be told—from our studioand from the fans and community at large.

SNICKERDOODLE

Looking backyou could say Halo 2 is the reason I wound up here at the studio. The matchmakingthe gunplayand the fun gripped me in a whole new way. I was already a fan of Halo: CEbut Halo 2 evolved that passion into something deeper.

My dad and I would play matchmaking together (he really loves SWAT) when he was home between deployments and it was a really fun bonding time with him. Then laterI started playing on my ownmeeting others onlineand forging friendships through the game. Eventually those friendships blossomed into a larger foray into the general Halo community which ultimately led me to here!

FLASH KOWALESKI

The LAN parties my older brother brought me to were where I became part of a group of lifelong friends instead of just being "Karlos's little brother."

When we were playing Halo 2everyone was equaland we were all there to have a great time. When a great moment happenedwe were all celebrating or laughing together.

Defending the base on Zanzibar. Discovering the best jump paths on Lockout before YouTube existed to see them all. Getting killed by "A Pencil" and all the other creative and hilarious names my friends thought up. My brother finding me leaning up against a wall completely asleep because I was so tired after an all-night LAN party...

That is the time in my life when I truly fell in love with gamingand knew it had to be a part of the rest of my life. There's no history of my life that can be told without including Halo 2 as part of itand I am forever grateful for the experiences it created.

ZACK FANNON

Halo 2 will always have a special place in my lifeand in the history of gaming. Who knew how easy it could be to burn through an evening gamingby randomly partying up and chatting with some new friends in matchmakingall who happen to live hundreds of miles apart? Having that be so fun and readily accessible was pretty reality bending at the timeand gaming truly hasn't been the same since.

I'm glad to have had the chance to help shape Halo 2's continuing legacywith updates to MCC after the release on PC. Happy tenth anniversary to you tooMCC! A younger version of myself would have been so stoked to know that one day I'd get to help release full modding tools and other general fixes for a game I once dreamed about working on. Long live Halo 2!

TRENT WOOD

My favorite Halo 2 moment was getting to play as the Arbiter for the first time in the campaign. Fighting alongside your fellow Covenant comradesusing the armor camouflage abilityand taking on the heretic forces is something that I'll never forget.

There was just something special about playing as an Elite in the campaign. As the Sangheili say: "WORT WORT WORT!"

WILLIAM CAMERON

I wasn't able to get my hands on Halo 2 until at least a year or two after Halo 3 was out. I would play the campaign over and overlooking for skullstrying tricks and glitches I sneakily would read about on the school's internet. I would also run around and explore all the multiplayer maps too—all offline of course. I had no internet at home for a long time!

For some reasonnone of those memories of playing alone in the game that really revolutionized the multiplayer experience ever felt lonely. The whole game and world has a magic to it that is personally unquantifiable.

They should make a sequelpeople would love that!

JEFF EASTERLING

Halo 2... Sheeshwhat a time. There are so many elements that go into what made that experience so great. The original E3 demo and all the hype that it created—seeing articles and speculation splashed across the covers of my favorite gaming magazines.

Going to my first midnight release at the local shop and procuring my first steelbook that housed the Collector's Edition like a modern media cylix. Eagerly thumbing through the game manual (remember those?!) and poring over details from the "Conversations from the Universe" booklet that accompanied it. Having a blast with family and friends toting flags on Zanzibardislodging stalactites on Waterworksor careening Headlong over ramps in a Warthog. And the story... How much I adore thee.

Halo 2 was the moment truly became more than just a game; it became a universe. The confirmation of the potential hinted at by Combat Evolved and The Fall of Reach. The solidifying of the franchise's firm foundation. Halo 2 changed the lives of so many of us—connecting communitiescreating canon curiosityand changing the course of career trajectories. A pivotal synchron in gaming's Great Journey.

ETHAN OLSON

Halo 2 was my first Halo game and will always be my favorite. If you missed being an early Xbox adopter with Halo: CEHalo 2 was the ground floor for the universe and your first full experience as the Master Chiefand the Arbiter besidesas the narrative greatly matured.

The Gravemind's trochaic heptameter and some of the line readings from Halo 2 are burned into my mind forever. As I lay dying and the last synapses in my brain spark outthey will probably be echoing the sound of Michelle Rodriguez' line delivery saying "Rocketsfifty cal... didn't do a thing!" or the Prophet of Truth intoning "There are those who said this day would never come. What are they to say now?"

The story was incrediblebut the addition of Xbox LIVE alongside splitscreen co-op made Halo 2 a fundamentally social game. My friends and I would play Halo 2 until way too laterealize the only food place still open was some disgusting Jack in the Box (serving alleged "tacos")come back to some basement TVand just keep playing Halo 2. And if I could go backI probably would!

Twenty years of Halo 2—of friendships forgedof memories madeand good times had.

Of courseHalo 2 hasn’t gone anywhere. You can jump into MCC today and play its incredible campaign and multiplayer like 2004 hasn’t gone anywherewhich is the perfect way to spend this weekend!

Got fond memories of Halo 2 you’d love to share? Send your stories our way across our social channels with #H2Memories to be featured in our next Community Spotlight. Otherwisego forth and experience the E3 2003 demojump back into some Halo 2 campaign and multiplayerand explore the offerings of Operation: Great Journey in Halo Infinite.

Happy twentieth birthd-- hang onis that a Jackal sn--