Defiantly

This is a gallery of screenshots from the Halo: Reach Defiant Map video documentary released this morning on Halo Waypoint. We highly suggest you view the full thing yourself on Halo Waypoint in HD for the maximum amount of win. You can also catch it here on the Halo Waypoint website or on the Waypoint Youtube channel.

To further your Defiant fun, a podcast was released yesterday from 343i with a hearty three way interview discussing the maps – grab it here directly.

Documented here are pre-production artwork pieces and images from earlier builds of the maps.

On Condemned, the map set on a space station high above Reach we see a cut feature – the zero gravity red laser of death that was originally attracting Spartans to it’s deathly red shaft in earlier builds of the map. Notice the dark tone of the map which was changed during production to give way to a more brighter environment. From this map we can also see various versions of the boundary that separates the zero gravity section from the rest of the play space and how they changed it’s appearance to differentiate it from the typical shield door look.

The concept artwork for Highlands is fantastic. Set on the outskirts of ground zero during the Covenant’s glassing campaign, we see that the map was going to given a more disused, abandoned look, with over-grown vines tangling their way around some of the structures and buildings. The waterfall also played a more prominent role in the environment which was later scaled back to give it a more Halo-esque feeling in terms of design.

Unearthed seems to have made the jump from concept to execution in perfect style as we can very clearly see how close the final product matches that of the original concept vision for the map.

It’s rather astonishing to see how these areas can change and become more polished as the development cycle spins on.