Iron Demon

The Iron Demon is a mecha boss that was initially supposed to appear in Oni, making notable appearances in the 1999 trailer, but was cut during development as Bungie West raced to finish the game. According to 3D animator Steve Abeyta, "It was scrapped because it would take too long to create a custom AI, and gameplay for it. We had to cut a lot of stuff to get [Oni] shipped, and cutting that one sucked. […] Such a large character created AI pathfinding problems as well as issues with object interaction. They're not impossible to overcome, but we didn't have the time to tackle it."

The Iron Demon was stated as weighing 5 tons and standing 12 feet tall in this interview with Alex Seropian. If it had appeared as an enemy in-game, the player was going to get sufficiently heavy weaponry to fight it, per the same source. The striped cylinder on the Iron Demon's back, an ammo drum, was its weak point per Alex Okita. There was also an intention to allow the Iron Demon to be selectable in multiplayer mode per Hamilton Chu, though Kevin Armstrong doubted that it would be desirable to let players do that. No reports are known of the Iron Demon being seen in the multiplayer demos at various E3s and Macworld Expos.

Official references

Promo screenshots

These are our best in-game looks at the original model:

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Japanese for "Iron Demon" would be... KANA-ONI? (building on the proverb ONI NI KANA-BÔ) geyser Or, more literally, TETSU-ONI (TETSU="iron")? Iritscen Or KÔKI (HAGANE-ONI, HAGANE="steel")? Demos kratos

There's also this screenshot used in some print ads:

The appearance of the Iron Demon at the Regional State Building does not mean it was ever intended to be in that level. Per Hardy LeBel, RSB was one of the first levels created for the game and was used as a testbed during development.

Trailer

In the 1999 trailer, the Iron Demon can be seen in two scenes: one brief shot in Regional State and one extended walk sequence in unreleased MP arena The Pit (slowed down for careful inspection):

In the second scene, a rocket launcher has been appended (perhaps somewhat hastily) to the right arm to show an alternate armament mode for the mecha.

Promo art

The clearest appearances of the Iron Demon in 2D form are:

• Craig Mullins' Iron Demon in Battle and to a lesser extent this painting
• Lorraine McLees's Iron Demon portrait

Game assets

Unused sounds

The model for the Iron Demon was not included in the released game data like some other "cut" content was, and we don't have its animations either (though Abeyta recalled only making "a walk cycle, firing anims, and possibly turning anims"). The walking sounds for the Iron Demon were in fact included as SNDDid_leg_[1-3].aif. There are also SNDDid_r_hit[1-4].aif, which may be the impact sounds for hits on the Iron Demon from heavy weaponry ("id_rocket_hit").

Unused script

Some versions of Oni accidentally included additional BSL scripts for levels that were cut during development. Perhaps the most intriguing of the cut levels was BGI, and the unfinished cutscene scripts for BGI include one scene with the following comments:

#create Iron Demon before player gets here
...
#See Iron Demon
...
#show Konoko getting ready for face-off
...
#start battle

Apparently the plan was for the Iron Demon fight to occur in this level, however BGI HQ was cut while rushing to ship the game. (According to the design lead Hardy LeBel, it had not gotten very far along before it was removed.) The Iron Demon battle could have been moved to another level, but only if changes were made to the story and probably the voice-acting script, and it was likely too late to do that. In any case, as mentioned earlier, Bungie West did not have time to code the special-case AI behavior required to maneuver the Iron Demon within a 3D environment, and so the much-anticipated giant robot was left out of the game.

Fan content

3D models

There have been three fan attempts to recreate the 3D model for the Iron Demon by inspecting the visual evidence we have from the pre-beta period:

• This model on TurboSquid by Ashley Davison
• This model by Seventeen Seconds, used in Konoko Payne by Pierre
• This model by bobbysoon, based on the above model. This one was used in multiple AE packages; see this one for a starting point.

Artwork

• Rough sketch by Guido Codecasa
• Light-hearted drawing by geyser