Remember the E3 2000 demo of Halo? You know, the demo that amazed pretty much everyone and made Microsoft sign an exclusive deal with Bungie? The demo that made 3DFX implement 32-bit color rendering in its GPUs. Well, that famous build has been leaked online.
For those unaware, Halo was a third-person game back in 2000. During that time, Bungie was planning to release it on Mac and PC. However, after its impressive E3 2000 trailer, MS decided to sign a deal so that they could get Halo exclusively on the first Xbox console.
Now the good news is that you can go ahead, download, and actually play it. Yes, we can finally play Halo the way it was showcased back in 2000.
For some of us, this is a huge deal. This was the game that made our jaw drop to the floor. This was the game we were drooling all over magazines. And man, a lot of us were cursing Bungie for giving PC gamers the finger. But hey, we were naive back then. We didn’t know anything about console exclusives and all the deals that happen behind closed doors.
Anyway, those interested can go ahead and download the leaked build from this link. At the end of the article, you can also find the famous E3 2000 trailer. The original version of that trailer is at 320p. Thus, I’ve decided to include an upscaled version of it.
It’s a shame that devs do not release these older builds of their games. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people that would love to play them.
Speaking of leaked PC builds of older games, I also suggest trying the one for Duke Nukem Forever. You can also play a leaked Wii build of Star Wars Battlefront 3. Or how about the unreleased PC builds of Pokemon Legends Arceus and Pokemon BDSP? Oh, and let’s not forget the 1995 prototype build for 3D Realms’ Prey.
Finally, I suggest downloading these builds while they are still available. For all we know, some of them may be taken down. So, download them before it’s too late.
Have fun!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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These classic demos should have all been leaked by now just for fun and as historic treasures. Why keep them private?
These are restorations by modders with access to dev files.
Most companies don't see the effort as profitable so there's no efrort.
I guess MS sees it as a good PR move
I still hope someone can leak Watch Dogs E3 demo and Witcher 3 2014 build demo. Would be awesome to mod the game easily now.
Demos/cancelled games I want to see leaked.
Splinter Cell Conviction Beta: Looked kind of like Assassin's Creed 1 mixed with Splinter Cell. It really looked like it would have been a true next gen improvement over Chaos Theory and Double Agent. The final release was a lot different than the previous two games.
Star Wars Darth Maul demo build: There was probably barely any prototype gameplay, but it seemed like what was there would have been fun to play. Looked like it would have complimented Force Unleashed as well. (The cancelled Battlefront 3 would have also complimented Force Unleashed, since it was supposed to feature characters from Force Unleashed in the main story campaign.)
Call of Duty: Future Warfare: I really think Future Warfare could have gave COD another year of fresh air in the gaming market. The gameplay demo looked unique and there were some interesting maps (which might have become dlc map packs at the time). After Black Ops 2, which arguably had some bad maps, it seems like the announcement of ghosts in 2013, instead of Future Warfare, solidified to the masses, that the series was becoming stagnant. I remember around that time, wanting COD to go into the future exactly like Future Warfare was going to be like. It wasn't really until Infinite Warfare in 2016 when that finally happened, and the game wasn't that good or unique.
Prey 2: I loved playing Prey 2006 as a kid, and would have loved to have gotten the chance to play Prey 2. It looked amazing, and would have taken the series in a cool direction. Knowing it was to also feature Tommy in the game, it makes me so sad to see it got canned. I really hope it gets leaked at some point.
I dunno if it's possible for other demos getting leaked, but if ubisoft gets bankrupt then definitely we would see some of the stuff getting online for sure
I dunno if it's possible for other demos getting leaked, but if ubisoft gets bankrupt then definitely we would see some of the stuff getting online for sure
Just curious, how do these leakers get these beta builds of very old games? I mean, is it like that they contact the original developers or perhaps obtain them through illegal ways such as hacking?
Some console games like TimeSplitters 4 got their PS3 version leaked through someone who had the PS3 devkit and so he leaked it.
The first method that I mentioned sometimes happens like somewhat recently with the PC build of Spider-Man 2. But in the case of this Halo 2000 build, a PC game, we haven't heard of such incident or anything before it suddenly got leaked. Same with Duke Nukem Forever, as well as Duke Nukem 3D Reloaded.
Best Bungie release in almost
2 decades
Interesting… look at what I just found on Master Chief's armor:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c02967ea827e2330ee031b01d06d03f14cfdcfceb61d0486b7ebf2ae59568cb.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/71820d08bb16e9a74d3f17fa817d2b2f14825adf1226d877ac2559edf8c2a01b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a427e6d6958089c19b8c7a7aa99d60954a2e26bfd59e661284488f4082692303.jpg
Cool stuff.