They Made Sounds For Halo 3 By Smashing Xboxes With A Hammer

Video game composer Martin O’Donnell has shared another behind-the-scenes video from his time at Bungie working on the Halo series. This latest one focused on the music and audio from 2007’s Halo 3, and it follows an earlier video that showed Steve Vai’s incredible recording of the rockin’ Halo 2 theme music.

In this unearthed video, we see and learn a lot of things, including the fact that a number of Halo 3’s sounds came from dropping, scraping, and smashing an original Xbox with a hammer. There are a lot of other interesting insights and fun facts in the video. For instance, one of the sound designers recorded audio for soldiers walking through the beach by capturing his own footsteps on a beach in Mexico when he was on vacation.

Check out the full video below; it’s well worth a watch for Halo fans. The Xbox-smashing bit starts at around 1:05.

It’s a treat to see some of the the Halo 3 celebrity voicecast recording lines, including Ron Perlman, Nathan Fillion, Nolan North, Katee Sackhoff, Adam Baldwin, Terence Stamp, John DiMaggio, Jen Taylor, and David Scully.

O’Donnell worked on the Halo franchise while at Bungie and stayed on board to write the music for Destiny. He was fired from Bungie in 2014, later suing Bungie and eventually prevailing against the studio, getting hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He’s now working alongside Halo and Destiny designer Jaime Griesemer at a new studio Highwire Games. The independent outfit’s first game is the PlayStation VR title Golem.

The Halo series is now developed at 343 Industries, following its move from Bungie to Microsoft. Halo Infinite is the newest release, and it’s slated to debut this holiday as a launch title for Xbox Series X. For a behind-the-scenes look at that game’s audio, check out the videos linked below.

• Halo Infinite: See How They Captured The Weapon Sounds