Halo Reach Almost Had Space Ship Combat Multiplayer

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If anything beats murdering aliens dead with spaceships while taking a break from murdering aliens on foot it’s doing it with friends and Bungie are well aware of that. Which is why they prototyped an entire multiplayer mode based on that one spaceship level from Reach that had everyone reminiscing about Freelancer, Descent and Elite a while back.

“We joked about it from time to time and even had a rough version of it working very early on in development”, said Marcus Lehto, Reach creative director. “But the mechanics of it were pretty silly and we very quickly realised that the resulting gameplay experience wouldn’t hit the bar we were aiming for, nor justify the amount of work required.” Maybe they could have worked something out with the Sabre ship as a sort of AC-130 from Modern Warfare?

“With so many features and so much content already committed, Reach was an incredibly ambitious project on an already aggressive schedule”. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, Marcus Lehto. You have learned nothing from the Spartans. I see now why they left you behind. You were weak. And gods must be strong.