With the success of the first Halo game, a sequel was already in the works. Many people in Bungie wanted a sequel because not everything they wanted was in Halo’s final release. In 2002, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Xbox general manager J Allard confirmed Halo 2 was in production, with a scheduled release date of Holiday 2003.
However, problems within the company delayed the production of Halo 2. There wasn’t good management, and they worked on very small teams. They worked on getting the Xbox Live multiplayer that wasn’t in the final Halo C.E. game. There were a lot of ideas, but they were scrapped.
One of the ideas that was scrapped was the ending of Halo 2. In the scrapped ending, Miranda Keys straps a bomb to the Master Chief and throws him down the hole, where he dies. That idea was scrapped because it was horrifying, and the person who came up with the idea was having a very difficult breakup. The Original elite name was supposed to be the Dervish, not the Arbiter, but the developers didn’t want to associate with Islam in any way, so they named him the Arbiter.
On E3 2003, they first showcased gameplay for Halo 2. They feature new weapons and new enemies expected to be in the game. Most of the elements of the trailer weren’t in the final game, and most were cut due to Xbox limitations. After 2 years, most of the things they were working to develop Halo 2 were scrapped, including another part of the game where the Master Chief and the Arbiter worked together to kill the prophets and altered versions of the warthog and other terrain vehicles.
After missing another deadline, Bungie set a new deadline, November 9, 2004, and decided to crunch it in the mother of all crunches to finish the game. Many people slept in the office to finish the game, and Lorraine McLees even took her baby to the office after daycare ended to finish the game. In total, 70 people worked for the game. By the time Halo 2 was released, many Bungie employees were exhausted. It was worth it and sold 8.46 million copies in total.
