10 Deleted Scenes That Explain Confusing Gaming Moments

10. Master Chief Teams Up With The Arbiter - Halo 2

As fantastic a game as Halo 2 was - especially in its spectacular multiplayer mode - fans were largely left bemused and unsatisfied by the comically abrupt conclusion to its campaign, which ends with Master Chief heading back to Earth and insisting he's going to "finish this fight" before we cut to black.

The agonising cliffhanger was a huge source of frustration for fans eager to see a conclusion to the story, and since Halo 2's release, the challenging nature of its development has been well-documented in countless interviews with the dev team.

One of the game's composers, Bungie vet Marty O'Donnell, opened up a few years ago about what was originally intended for Halo 2's finale, namely Master Chief venturing onto Earth, discovering the Ark of the Covenant and joining forces with the Arbiter to defeat the Prophet of Truth.

According to O'Donnell, voice work was even completed for this more expansive ending, but Microsoft's insistence to ship the game before Christmas 2004 meant that it simply couldn't be finished in time.

O'Donnell added, "We just couldn't finish the plan, it was just impossible. So, everything got re-jiggered, and we had the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers."

And while on paper Halo 2's ending might've seemed like a cynical attempt to ensure players bought Halo 3, the third act of the game was genuinely supposed to have a more concrete conclusion. Shame.