Why did New Mombassa and this Forerunner city look like this?

Community Halo Universe
1

Probaly a very old question but I’ve always wondered this yet never seen anyone ask it. At the beginnging of the 2003 E3 Halo 2 demo we get a view of the New Mombassa skyline. But it looks like a large portion of the city acends into the sky. Why? Its looks so weird. Then we see it again in in Halo origins part 2. Can anyone explain this?

New Mombassa
https://halo.wiki.gallery/images/e/e4/NM_E303.png

Forerunner City ( YT video at 0:37)
/9M_-4qBpzUM

2

It comes up in sci-fi from time to time. Effectively the idea is the city builds upwards instead of outwards.

3

I always thought it was just a bad graphic. We never see the city that way in the rest of the games