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Halo 2 | Gravemind: Revamped

After many months of toiling and screwing around, it's finally here! I never thought this project would see the day (ignoring the fact that this description is something I'm initially drafting as of May 2024).

PLEASE NOTE: I DID NOT BALANCE THIS WHATSOEVER WITH LEGENDARY IN MIND, THE INTENDED DIFFICULTY IS HEROIC

I also recommend playing with 5.5-5.7 gamma in your video settings.

For a TL;DR of this mod, it's basically a revamp of the mission Gravemind from Halo 2. Features new/updated encounters, some reworked scenarios, and general scenic additions.

Now, for those of you who enjoy light novels (and spoilers)…

IN THE BEGINNING…
Halo 2 was my first FPS, and my god did 5 year old me enjoy smacking crates around Cairo Station (seriously, I think I may have actual cardiovascular issues with how close this game is to my heart). My favourite environment that I kept coming back to was High Charity, in particular Gravemind, with the sheer spectacle of watching the two sides massacring each other throughout the mission. But, after years of replaying it, I've begun to feel that, whether it was due to Halo 2's rushed development, or the Xbox's hardware limitations, that it was missing…something. So I did what any reasonable person would do and dove headfirst into the hell of Halo modding once the mod tools came out, spending literal hundreds (edit: thousands) of hours fiddling with and learning all of its little (and annoying) quirks to add a little bit of everything, even things that are a bit outside the scope of what Bungie would likely ever add, regardless of the original Xbox's limits.

IN TRUTH, THIS IS A TIME TO REJOICE
So, what does this mod actually do?

- REWORKED SKYBOX
The original High Charity skybox actually has a fair few issues, namely being screwed up UV's (in case you're wondering what I mean, look to the left on the floor of the skybox next time you're in the retail level, you'll see the lines skewed asymmetrically), a floating Keyship, and a general lack of chaos to disrupt the calm atmosphere. These have all been rectified, and some additional touch ups have been made, including ships that are blasting at each-other, and some background dogfighting (or at least the closest I could get to it with Halo 2's editing kit limitations).

- ELITE BUDDY
That's his name. You can find him in the jails. I wanted to add a bit more player interaction with the way the elites and humans team up, as I felt it was sort of jammed in at the end of 2 with little buildup. As such, I added a unique Elite that will accompany you throughout the mission, and I've added some scripted segments here and there to make him feel like more than a simple NPC that spawns in (for example, any elite squads you encounter while he's with you will be friendly). He's also uniquely voiced! Since I couldn't be bothered to figure out an A.I synthesiser (for free that is), and I wanted him to have unique voice lines, I decided to try voicing him. I am hoping my voice acting skills improve from when I write this to when the mod actually releases, otherwise God help us all. (as of now, he is voiced by someone with actual talent. Thanks LOL_Dude!)

- REWORKED/NEW ENCOUNTERS
I've gone through every encounter in the game to see if I could change/add anything to them. Some of them are still stock, but I've made minor adjustments to a lot and I've added entirely new encounters where I've been inspired to.

- TOUCHED UP LEVEL GEOMETRY
Have you ever been to the jail section in Gravemind? Ever notice how the red lights on the walls emit white light? Yeah. I noticed too. Or maybe you didn't. Either way, they emit the correct light colour now! That and many other minor lighting tweaks are in each part of the level, and I've pushed the engine's level poly count to its limit to allow for more level geometry to be rendered at once (in particular with the opening outdoor section, you can see the rest of the level from there now!)

- OTHER STUFF
In retail, Gravemind only has one chapter title, despite there being others in the game files. I have taken the liberty of adding these across the level where it felt appropriate to. Additionally, a lot of the textures are misaligned in the skybox (as mentioned) and level geometry in vanilla, and I've done my best to fix them where I have had the mental stability to do so.

The original mission script file for gravemind is ~5000 lines long. This mod's mission script file is ~8000 lines long.


SPECIAL THANKS
- The Halo Mods Discord for being the most valuable niche source of info I could ever ask for!
- General_101 for his Blender Halo Toolset
- Pepper the Pelican Guy for his niche knowledge among niche knowledge with Halo 2 modding
- The Halo Archive for the Elite and Chief model and shaders/materials which I used for the thumbnail (everything else is just ripped from the game)
- AI for helping me figure out animation importing for a particular setpiece
- Paddy from the Ruby's Halo 2 Rebalanced team for his sick icons and reticles
- num005/digsite for providing a script that lets you command phantom turrets to do stuff
- RubyOfBlue for giving me plenty of inspiration with what the mod tools can do, and for giving me insight on how they got their Halo 2 Rebalanced background dogfights to work
- LOL_Dude for his excellent performance as the Honour Guard Councillor
- Pierce Henson (twitter: @Pierceh_VA) for his awesome job at playing the Elite Leader in the Mausoleum Tower
- My lovely girlfriend for supporting me and being an early playtester
- 343i for porting Halo 2 to Steam, adding workshop and mod support, and the H2EK!
And of course…
- Bungie for creating a game so near and dear to my heart, that continues to influence my life and hobbies even today!

Happy 20th Anniversary, Halo 2!