You know what I find odd? How come we never received a Halo 3 Anniversary?

Games Halo: The Master Chief Collection
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Like for real, we never received a Halo 3 Anniversary remaster.

Which is something I find odd, considering we have two other remasters in the bundle that is Halo MCC.

2011 saw the release of Halo CE Anniversary, a project where Saber Interactive remastered the Campaign with some direction by 343 Industries while Certain Affinity made a DLC Pack for Halo Reach as a multiplayer expansion to remaster 7 classic Halo maps and locales.

2014 saw the release of Halo MCC, and with it came something new as well - Halo 2 Anniversary.
Again, Saber Interactive developed the Campaign remaster; however this time with Blur Studios recreating each and every cutscene BEAUTIFULLY. Meanwhile Certain Affinity made a new multiplayer by reusing the Halo 4 version of the Blam! Engine to build a new multiplayer experience; giving us a twist of Halo 2’s gameplay with some new features to boot.

2017 we saw . . . nothing for the MCC.
Nothing.
Halo Wars 2 and Halo Recruit VR were released.
But those were developed by Creative Assembly and Endeavor One, separately as they were separate projects.

So I am honestly surprised that we did not receive Halo 3 Anniversary as a DLC Pack of sorts for Halo MCC.

The truth is the fact that Saber Interactive was currently at the time busy with developing Halo Online, which would be a waste of time and just be cancelled from production; its work would end up only being slowly ported to Halo 3 MCC, adding in about twenty new armor models and three new multiplayer maps as of the making of this post.

But what if Saber Interactive was NOT wasting time on a cancelled title?
What if instead they, along with Blur and Certain Affinity, were tasked with developing Halo 3 Anniversary?

Think of it.
Halo MCC could’ve received a DLC Pack that is quite simply, a remaster of Halo 3’s Campaign, done once again by Saber Interactive working with Blur Studios.
Meanwhile, Halo 2 Anniversary could’ve received a free update to add in some new favorite fan maps given the Anniversary-tweak treatment, along with adding in new weapons and vehicles that were featured in Halo 3. The maps I could expect would have been -

  • Asgard (Valhalla Anniversary. Basically port over H4’s Ragnarok and make some edits/tweaks)
  • Cathedral (Citadel Anniversary)
  • Champion (Guardian Anniversary)
  • Cryogenics (Cold Storage Anniversary)
  • Elegy (Epitaph Anniversary)
  • Highlander (High Ground Anniversary)
  • Raven’s Nest (Rat’s Nest Anniversary)
  • Sahara (Sandbox Anniversary. Heavily extended as a Forge Map by having a variant called “Dustbowl” and expanding the range of flatness inside the forerunner ring structure and extending the guardian’s reach to about twenty feet from the rim.)
  • Sandlot (Sand Trap Anniversary)
  • Schism (Heretic Anniversary)

New Armors could have been added to Halo 2 Anniversary, sets that were in Halo 3 but brought over to Halo 2 Anniversary. An easy process, since most of them had a highly-resembling recreation from Halo 4. Others of course would have to be rendered from scratch to be another MJOLNIR Gen-2 recreation of classic Gen-1 armors. And what the heck, throw in some new ones! So the potential additions for Spartans are as follows -

  • CQB (the only new design needed to be made for MJOLNIR Gen-2 aesthetics)
  • EOD (taken directly from Halo 4, just retextured)
  • EVA (ditto)
  • Scout (ditto)
  • Recon (ditto)
  • Mark V (ditto)
  • Rogue (ditto, but with the helmet now designed to resemble the Halo 3 version)
  • Security (take the design from Halo 5 Gorbians and lower its polygon count)
  • Mark IV (ditto)
  • Ninja (can’t use the name Hayabusa since that is owned by Koei Tecmo & Team Ninja. However, the Hayabusa armor DID receive a new model design fully rendered for Halo 4, but was never used. Rename it and then simply reuse the model.)
  • Centurion (take the design from Halo 5 Gorbians and lower its ploygon count. Rename the H2A version of Centurion to “Vexillarius” in order to avoid confusion)
  • Hermes (Ditto)
  • Argus (Ditto)
  • Helioskrill (Ditto. Let us have Spartan Arbiter Armor in H2A & H3A multiplayer)
  • Mythic (Take the Mark VI MOD that Chief wears in Halo 4, remove the battle damage, and let players play with the armor for once! And make it a reward for beating Halo 3 Anniversary on Legendary, since that is where players see Chief sleep in the Cryopod and leads into Halo 4.)

Meanwhile the Elites would have five new armor sets to utilize, perhaps SIX if the Arbiter Armor would be allowed for it. All of which would have to be tweaked in design to better fit the altered Elites design of 343’s early Elites.

  • Assault
  • Arbiter
  • Ascetic
  • Combat
  • Commando
  • Flight

And just think of the new weapons and vehicles that could be added to Halo 2 Anniversary’s sandbox? These updates however, would only apply to if people wanted to play Halo 3 Anniversary multiplayer. The Weapons and Vehicle Sandbox of Halo 2 Anniversary itself would actually remain untouched to not annoy those who were already used to said sandbox. After all, you wanted to play Halo 2 Anniversary. The new maps would however be made universal across both versions of the multiplayer.
Halo 3 Anniversary gameplay would allow for the following -

  • Spikers
  • Maulers
  • Spike Grenades
  • Firebomb Grenades
  • Chopper
  • Prowler
  • AA Wraith
  • Missile Pod
  • Flame Thrower
  • Elephant (for funsies)
  • Bubble Shield
  • Power Drain
  • Trip Mine
  • Regenerator
  • Deployable Cover
  • Portable Gravity Lift
  • Flare
  • Radar Jammer
  • Invincibility
  • Automated Turret
  • Cloaking

Meanwhile, perhaps further down the line when Halo 3 ODST’s Firefight was added in Summer of 2020, they could’ve released a Halo 3 ODST Anniversary to go with it? Remastering the entire campaign by reusing the remastered assets of the hypothetical Halo 3 Anniversary. With, once again, an update to the multiplayer of Halo 2 Anniversary to add in new contents of weapons, a few maps & Armors.

Maps for H2Anniversary / H3 Anniversary -

  • Anchorpoint (A cut Halo 2 multiplayer map to be set on the tether’s anchorpoint at the upper structure of the methane mines on Threshold, where Arbiter slayed Sesa Refumee. Basically that large flat structure high up in the sky’s vista on the Heretic mission.)
  • Backstreets (Turf Anniversary)
  • Downtown (Headlong Anniversary 2.0)
  • Geosynchronous (Orbital Anniversary, now featuring ODST Drop Bays to fight and find eastereggs within)
  • Liwitoni Station (Terminal Anniversary)
  • Pitbull (The Pit Anniversary)
  • Slums (Ghost Town Anniversary)
  • Stalemate (Standoff Anniversary)
  • Tumulus (Tombstone Anniversary)
  • Warehouse (Foundry Anniversary. Extended in Forge mode to have more room to, well, forge.)

New multiplayer armors that could be added to Halo 2 Anniversary & Halo 3 Anniversary -

  • ODST (ported from Halo 4 but retextured slightly)
  • Nightfall (ported from Halo 5 Gorbians, but with a reduced polycount and retextured to not crash the engine)
  • Sedra (Alt Helmet that pairs well with the Nightfall armor, considering the fact that it is the “outdated” ODST helmet worn by the Sedra Colonial Guard of Halo Nightfall)
  • Helljumper (ditto)
  • Air Assault (ported from Halo 4 but retextured slightly)
  • Bullfrog (Halo 2 Anniversary ODST helmet with a new Spartan stylized armor to boot.)
  • Daybreak (The Halo 5 Multiplayer Beta version of the Nightfall Armor)

Meanwhile, of COURSE add in the Fireteam Raven ODST Armors for Halo 3 and add in Mickey, Dutch, Romeo, and Buck’s armor options to Halo 3.

And of course, the Suppressed Magnum would be added to Halo 3 Anniversary’s sandbox. BUT with the possibility of more weapons that ODSTs would use. Such as The DMR, and Suppressed versions of the AR, BR, and DMR.

This was somewhat of a venting post because I woke up from a dream where I was playing Halo 3 Anniversary.
Which annoys me because MAN THOSE CUTSENES AND GAMEPLAY GRAPHICS WERE

VIVID

in my dream.

And then I woke up to reality and realized that . . . man, we missed out.
Like sure, we have A LOT of Halo Online stuff being ported to Halo 3 MCC but . . . man, having only two remasters instead of the entire original trilogy and its DLC-made-a-standalone-title just feels . . . off. Ya know?

Would’ve been nice to have tho.
Perhaps in another timeline?
Or perhaps for Halo’s 25th Anniversary, we could see this come true?
I wonder how a Halo 3 ODST Anniversary soundtrack would hold up to be honest?
Perhaps Deference for Darkness could sound like this?

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mun5QNWCWNA

Either way, if Halo 3 and Halo 3 ODST were to receive an Anniversary remaster, THIS is how I would do it / how I would want it to be done.

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Maybe for the Xbox Series, if 343 is still alive until then.

Halo CE Anniversary came for xbox 360 in the first place and Halo 2 Anniversary for Xbox One.

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Perhaps.

After all, the Xbox One will likely be set to be phased out by 2025.
Should 343 want to celebrate Halo’s 25th Anniversary, I think a Halo 3 Anniversary, with a Halo 3 ODST Anniversary would be the way to go.

A DLC pack of like $10 to $20 for Halo MCC while H2A receives a massive content update and H3Anniversary Multiplayer playlists are born.

And if we did do a Halo 3 Anniversary, I am pretty sure that 343 would have the Mark VI Gen-3 be used for the campaign remastered armor.

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343, please dont do this.

HCEA and H2A had good (albeit flawed) graphics overhauls for Campaign.
Being able to swap between original/remastered graphics during playthroughs was a great touch/idea.

But the multiplayer changes are terrible overhauls. They CANNOT touch multiplayer.

H3A would probably break co-op, they would add weapons from different games that dont belong and never balance them. Disaster waiting to happen.

TLDR: ONLY CAMPAIGN. I cant stress enough, only campaign.

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I didnt realize 343 could simply shirk their responsibilities if they engage another company to do the work.

The Reach adaptation was the attempt at Multiplayer.

Who wanted this? These changes didnt make sense.

These are still very non-functional in MCC. Disconnects, etc. You could argue this is a problem with MCC, but leans more towards 343 being unable to deliver a working product.

Added content does not equal good content. Its depressing in 2022 thats what we’ve made ourselves think, that simply adding things makes a game better.

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this would be so cool! i can get behind this

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Oh boy.
You’d be surprised that probably 40% of the total work of each of their games has been development that was contracted out to other companies.
Certain Affinity, for example, is who made the most multiplayer maps of Halo 4 and did almost ALL the work for developing Halo 5 Gorbians and Halo Infinite’s multiplayer.
(Halo Infinite’s issues being servers and 343 insisting on spoon-feeding players with “content” to be added in updates as a “live service game”)

Skybox Labs did the work on making Halo 5’s Forge work PHENOMINALLY.

Liquid Development was the company they contracted to work on Halo 4’s MJOLNIR Armor renders for Spartans. FUN FACT, we were supposed to get a Hayabusa Gen-2 in Halo 4. However, due to cut DLC for years 2 and 3 of Halo 4 AND the fact that 343 couldn’t get the Ninja Gaiden crossover to work again; we did NOT receive Hayabusa armor in Halo 4 or Halo 5 Gorbians.

And when it came to the spin-off games, 343 did development oversight and story management, while development was spearheaded by another studio for each project.
Creative Assembly for example did Halo Wars 2.
Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike were done by Vanguard Games.
Fireteam Raven was a joint-project of Play Mechanix and Raw Thrills
Kung Fu factory and Ogmento made the Halo 4 KOTH App.
Halo Recruit was a VR experience made by Endeavor One.
Certain Affinity also did the Halo Waypoint App/“game” for the Xbox 360.
Saber Interactive also was doing Halo Online by themselves until Microsoft cancelled the project without warning or notable reason.

Most of the work done by 343 has STAYED in Halo 4, Halo 5 Gorbians, and Halo Infinite. Otherwise, they commission other studios for 18 months to work with them and spearhead the development of other products for them.

But that was just a DLC Pack for Halo Reach.
It was Halo Reach Multiplayer being continued because they had too little development time to actually remaster maps and redesign the entire multiplayer for Halo CE in the new style.

Plus Halo Reach was still going strong with player count, so it makes sense to do a DLC rather than make another active-server multiplayer to distract fans with.

They kinda do actually.
In an effort to somewhat modernize the Halo 2 multiplayer, the AR was brought back as an alternative option to the SMG. Slower fire rate but slightly higher damage per bullet, and you cannot dual-wield it.
The magnum was slightly buffed so that it was not just a dump gun or a gun that was only useful WHEN dual wielded.
The Civilian Warthog was added because fans FOR YEARS wanted the Golden Warthog of Headlong to be a reality. This was just mainly fanservice and was fun for Race game types.
Suppressed SMG to allude to the fact that Halo 3 ODST would be coming soon to the MCC.
Gungoose was a fun alternative to the Mongoose, as the driver could now bring some offense to the fight. It made CTF a bit different by having the flag carrier essentially riding piggyback on a UNSC Ghost.
Heretic Banshee was for misc fluff.
Regular Mongoose was supposed to be in Halo CE but was cut, same with Halo 2. This was basically fruition of a long-attempted vehicle in the classic sandbox.
And the Hornet because they realized that having a UNSC VTOL aircraft was something that actually fit in the sandbox and was originally meant to be in Halo 2.

But these additions were mostly tweaks to the Sandbox that didn’t break Halo 2’s classic multiplayer flow.

That was MCC circa 2014.
When it was just a distraction project meant to follow 343’s promise of “A new Halo game every year” that they made when they took over the rights of Halo in late 2010.

MCC as it stands now, has most of its issues hammered out by the company that 343 and Microsoft contracted to examine the game and fix it. Server issues are now practically non-existent and co-op failing is now due to what internet provider you have scuffing your connection with sub-par equipment.

And besides, Co-Op in MCC always worked split-screen.
Add in the updates that MCC has received thus far, if they were to do a DLC Halo 3 Remaster for Halo’s 25th Anniversary; it would probably be an addition that would go off without a hitch.

Indeed. Adding stuff to a pile does not improve a pile.
Adding things to a shelf however; organized, well laid out, neat, and concise DOES HOWEVER show better promise.

I take it this is your first time reading one of my posts?
I don’t want just “more stuff” added to Halo.
That is 343’s mantra - quantity over quality.
That’s why we now have over thirty Halo novels that are now required to read in order to understand the story from Halo 4 to Halo Infinite.

I want “more stuff BUT WITH quality assurance”.

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This is what I’m arguing that 343 consistently fails to deliver.

DLCs / additions to Halo MCC? Sure, I’m all for it.
Attempting a remake/remaster/“Anniversary Edition” of Halo 3? Please no.

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Why not?
Halo CE Anniversary was to showcase how far we have come graphically since 2001.
Did it fumble somewhat?
Yes, some cutscenes were altered unnecessarily and instead of redoing 90s Cortana, they instead ported and poorly animated Halo 3 Cortana.
And oddly enough, Saber Interactive and 343 Industries said they mokapped for cutscenes. Really doesn’t show.

Saber learned from their goof-ups and set to work doing Halo 2 Anniversary RIGHT.
They kept things consistent and remastered rather than ported many things.
For example, the Marines were based off of the Halo Wars Marines, and the ODSTs were actually remastered rather than just “Lets Port over Marines and ODSTs from Halo 3 and give them better ploygon counts and textures”.
The Elites, designed by Blur Studios, WERE WONDERFULLY CRAFTED for use in Halo 2 Anniversary for cutscenes. Granted for gameplay, Saber did goof up their left mandibles having clipping issues since it seems they just used Rtas 'Vadum’s model and then fixed the mandibles for it.

And again, BLUR STUDIOS KNOCKED IT OUTTA THE PARK with the cutscenes! Wonderful job on making the characters look real as usual, and showcasing the recombinant DNA mess that is the Flood Gravemind.

What I am asking for as a DLC is for the Campaign of Halo 3 and Halo 3 ODST to have the option to press a button to swap between Classic Graphics of 2007 & 2009 to MODERN graphics.
To see what Halo could look like with a modern polish.
And for Halo 2 Anniversary to have a copy/paste of its contents, and have the copy be modified like 5% to be made into Halo 3 Anniversary multiplayer.

Bring back Saber Interactive to make Halo 3 Anniversary’s Campaign.
Blur Studios given more cutscenes to polish and refine with more cinematic VFX to make it like you earned a movie for playing the chapter thus far.
(Imagine how the finale of “The Storm” would look with more dynamic cinematography and better VFX to showcase our One Final Effort of Act I.)
Heck, check out what a DEDICATED FAN was able to do.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saiR4GEfxZM

Certain Affinity would have to do minimal work since all the parts are there for the multiplayer. Most of it would be porting content or just making remasters of already existing maps. Easy work for even a skeleton crew to work with.

If they keep it bare-bones like that (not implying that we should have a skeleton crew, just throwing that out there), I think the product would be perfect.

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The biggest “problem” is that most of Halo 3 has aged incredibly, its multiplayer, custom options, visuals, are all really good.
The NPCs could use a small touch-ups (especially humans), and resolutions could be given a boost, but there’s not a lot of significant room for improvements.

If there was an anniversary release, I’d want it to play more as a “Director’s Cut”, with campaign elements that had to be trimmed away, like the forerunner city, high charity, the guardian boss fight, to be restored. That’d be pretty controversial because, y’know, modifying one of the greatest campaigns in Halo history, but as long as the original campaign is accessible, it’d be a significant improvement.

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if they had been smart enough to make an H3A visual remaster, honestly they could’ve even just skipped H2A MP entirely and made the multiplayer from Halo Online the H3A multiplayer. it had the feature set people wanted, it had maps that people were interested in (of which could be bolstered with existing Halo 3 maps when needed easily), and the armor changes people found contentious in 3 would have been fine here since it was ‘new’ so to speak, and could even be bolstered with the H2A Mark VI and CEA/FTR Mark V. (since the game had neither originally, but was still using the same Saber 3D engine as both previous remasters)
heck, even the base weapon models themselves could have been touched up using some of H2A’s campaign models that didn’t already come from Halo Online since it too was made in the same engine.

also wanted to add here: imo best way to avoid that controversy would be to make it a DLC campaign that flips the roles of Chief and Arbiter. cutting out the irrelevant levels (ones where chief and arbiter are on screen from start to finish like Sieraa117 and Halo), but having all the ones where arbiter goes off on his own for most of the mission completely remixed with new areas and sections that chief would never pass through, but Arbiter could have.

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H2A would have been much more successful as a stand alone title with multiplayer added in for XboxOne.
I was gutted when MCC came and even more so when it didn’t work.
Then we would have had an H3A instead of 343 cutting corner by throwing everything into one box.

But then again looking at H2A multiplayer it was just a rUbbish extension of H4 multiplayer.

MCC is a failure through and through. The halo trilogy with ODST and Reach could have been looked after so much better.

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Halo 3’s graphics hold up well, even better than HCEA, Reach, and 4 I would argue. The strong art direction and skyboxes sell the world, even today. I see little reason to integrate H3 with the saber engine. Additionally porting maps into H2A for the sake of H3’s anniversary is silly. H2A has its own quirks that set it apart from H2C and H3 even more. If you want more H2A content then call it what it is, a H2A expansion, not H3A. Halo 3 already has so much content packed into it in the MCC with 3 new maps, hundreds of new armor pieces, revamped forge, higher technical configurations, bug fixes, etc. Trying to rebuild everything in a new engine will inevitably be inferior to MCC H3. There is simply too much content to remake, which means it will be disappointingly limited just like H2A. The way I see it we already have H3A.

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Johnson’s hexagon lips and eyelids in Halo 3 beg to disagree.

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The H3 Mark VI design still looks the best out of every iteration. Johnson and Hood have some rough edges, but the general marine design is also best in the series maybe second to CE’s original look.

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Because by 2017, it still looked great and didn’t need it.

It doesn’t need a remaster. It’s still, in a holistic sense, the best Halo game.

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H3 looks great as is IMO. A remaster wouldn’t be a big enough step up in graphics to be worth it. What we need is more H2 maps remastered for H2A. H3 has gotten enough love in MCC. They really need and should work on H2A… H2A really got short changed due to them deciding to make MCC.

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I adore this absolutely so much. I think the only segments that need fleshing out happen to be ones where Arbiter is missing too: The Forerunner swamp and city segments were supposed to be between the Ark and the Covenant. High Charity as a whole was supposed to be different, but it could simply be a perspective thing - Chief went one way, Arbiter went another. Not sure who player two could be, I think Shipmaster could be contradictory, but co-op’s always been a little inconsistent narratively.

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Halo 3A is interesting, but I’d say let’s hold off on other Halo titles. Especially since Infinite isn’t “playable” for many yet. And as others have said, Halo 3 still holds up for the time being. Though, the Slipspace engine combined with Halo 3 could be interesting.

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Well that’s just the thing.
If H3A were to be a thing, it would be developed by Saber Interactive, who is not involved with the development process of Halo Infinite.
Ergo, it wouldn’t take away man-hours from Halo Infinite’s continued development.

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