Almost 100GB of unreleased and pre-release Bungie-era Halo content has leaked over the holiday period, making for one of the biggest gaming leaks in Xbox history. The leak contains content that spans the original Halo all the way up to Halo: Reach and even some early Halo: Master Chief Collection content too.
The leak appears to have originated from someone on the Halo Digsite team, which is comprised of a group of passionate Halo fans and modders who were tasked with working alongside 343 Industries / Halo Studios to scour internal archives and bring to life cut content from older Halo games for Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
Some of the leaked content includes the original Halo MacWorld 1999 demo build, which is infamous for being the world’s first ever look at Halo, introduced by Apple CEO Steve Jobs on stage and being very different from the Halo: CE we got on the original Xbox. There are also cut Halo 3 levels and enemy designs as part of the leak, and more content from Halo 2, Halo: Reach, and Halo: MCC.
Unfortunately, the leak appears to have spawned as a result of poor treatment of the Digsite team by Microsoft / Halo Studios, a number of which recently departed citing an inability to continue working for free. Many of the members working as part of the Digsite team did so voluntarily, but the scope of the work meant a number of members had to treat it like full time work, without pay.
The Halo MCC Digsite team, which restored major cut Halo content for 343 Industries for FREE, just had all of their unreleased content leaked. Previously, many Digsite members left the team because they can’t afford to continue without being paid and disagreements with Microsoft.… pic.twitter.com/gW285OsBIqDecember 26, 2024
The Digsite team’s work has been a positive beacon in the Halo community, which is often starved of Halo content during this awkward time between Halo: Infinite and the next Halo game. The team recently brought the original cut Halo and Halo 2 E3 demo levels to life on Halo: The Master Chief Collection to much fanfare.
But it appears the Digsite team has butted heads with Microsoft / Halo Studios in recent months, related to how Microsoft / Halo Studios views the work that the Digsite team was working on. A number of members have alluded that Halo Studios viewed Digsite content more like Forge community work, and not official Halo content. This would explain why pretty much none of the Digsite content ever came to Halo: MCC on Xbox.
It’s a huge shame that the Digsite project has ended this way, and baffling that Microsoft / Halo Studios seemingly wasn’t willing to pay these community members to work as an official Halo team to keep Halo content alive for The Master Chief Collection on PC and Xbox.
