Pre-beta content
- This article focuses on aesthetic differences in pre-beta vs. retail Oni. See the Pre-beta features article for features removed from Oni during development.
Almost all available shots of pre-beta content are here, compared to final content when applicable. Most pictures are half-sized (click to enlarge).
Released levels
Decline in appearance
Fans have sometimes observed that earlier versions of Oni's levels as seen in pre-release screenshots and the 1999 trailer looked sharper or more detailed than the release versions. The reasons for these differences are given in these three posts by Hardy LeBel, Oni's Design Lead:
There was no conflict between anybody. It was just that early versions of the story called for certain locations and (before they knew any better) the architects went ahead and modelled them as "real" spaces (you shoulda seen the fully modelled toilets...very impresisve!). We basically had to go back into every level of the game and completely rip it apart to support the gameplay we were going for or else build them new from scratch.
All of the levels were remodelled in a short period of time. Higher detail environments were typically the ones that needed less changing. [...] I do remember that there was discussion at one point about the fact that every level started to get the bluish tint because they were all "high-tech". Perhaps that led to the new palette.
As I said, glass (and the glass-breaking effects) was often stripped out of the levels for performance reasons. That particular iteration of the TCTF lobby was reduced to a crawl because of all the glass. Also the glass retaining walls and bannisters didn't provide any cover for gunfights from one ledge to the other, so they were replaced by the low walls.
Syndicate Warehouse
There are 15 hidden doors there. When revealed, they turn this very linear level into a completely non-linear structure (more like a real warehouse).
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| The level changed after Bungie West took a screenshot as a basis for their chapter's title screen. Many crates were added, the doors re-textured... and the forklift is higher now. | |
Musashi Manufacturing Plant
This one has evolved quite a lot.
| File:ManPlant11.JPG | File:ManPlant12.JPG |
| File:ManPlant10.JPG | 
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| There was more conventional warehouse machinery in here back then. "Balor" is a reference to Myth. | |
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| Note the door leading off the center of the foyer: there was a corridor running through the middle of the building. The catwalk in the foyer has an interesting texture to the sides of its railings that isn't seen in other pre-beta shots of the level. | |
| File:ManPlant3.JPG | 
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| File:ManPlant1.JPG | 
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| The last picture has a very provisional-looking health bar; these are some early screenshots. Nevertheless they include an extravagant amount of lightmapping, discussed in the "Pre-beta features" article. | |
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File:ManPlant5.JPG |
| File:ManPlant6.JPG | File:ManPlant7.JPG |
| File:ManPlant8.JPG | File:ManPlant9.JPG |
| The stairs lead up to the offices. More lightmapping here, adding volume to the barely-textured level. | |
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| The offices seem to be in the back of the building, on both floors, with doors and "windows" onto the "alarm console gallery". First 4 pics: lower floor, the empty dark wall on the first is where the stairs are. Last 2 pics: upper floor. | |
Vago Bio-Research Lab
This one has kept the same basic layout, but there were a few changes. The most distinct difference is the night-time setting.
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| File:Vago3.JPG | 
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File:Vago11.JPG |
| The interior is only done in one half of the lab. There are also pillars and foyer doors missing, and extra ledges along the sides of the area where you fight Barabas. | |
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| There were stools for the scientists... apart from that, this wing is pretty much final.
(HERE is a redundant image that doesn't show much apart from floor tiles.) | |
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| The final ones are much thinner, and the layout of the stairs and catwalks is different. | |
Vansam Regional Airport
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| This could be the "Arrivals" section (which is now completely empty). |
TCTF Regional Headquarters
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File:TCTF8.JPG |
| Some different vehicles. Different transition from the parking lot to the main building. Konoko's bike is parked nicely in the second shot, instead of laying on the floor. | |
| File:TCTF2.JPG | |
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File:TCTF3.JPG |
| File:TCTF7.JPG | File:TCTF12.JPG |
| The room is more than 2 times wider now. There are windows on the right and catwalks running across the far side. The entrance door changed a lot, but the van didn't change much... | |
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| The elevator was between the two sets of ramps. Solid floors had a tiling pattern, and ramps were transparent. | |
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| File:TCTF13.JPG | File:TCTF14.JPG |
| File:TCTF15.JPG | File:TCTF17.JPG |
| The ramps had really nice railings (I wish they'd kept them), overall the room was much lighter (there's a light wall on the far side). Same "V" structures at the ceiling as above: they're gone now. The layout of the rooms on either side is different, too. | |
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File:TCTF11.JPG |
| File:Genesis Level8 11.jpg | |
| The model didn't change at all, but now it's placed at the center (floor 2/3) of a really tall, open room. As for the terminals, there are primitive ones with similar looks around Damocles and elsewhere. Note the Marathon logo on Damocles' chassis (an Easter egg). | |
| File:TCTF1.JPG | File:TCTF10.JPG |
| File:TCTF9.JPG | File:TCTF4.JPG |
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| The parking lot was more lushly lit on the outside. Now there's no light on the sidewalks. There used to be a lot more cars in the garage, too. The building used to have lettering on the outside reading "TCTF", which is clearest in the brightly-lit version of the level depicted in the above scan from an unknown magazine. You can also see the back end of the Syndicate van that crashed into the building; it also seems to be visible in the screenshot immediately before that one. (The design of the building was obviously in flux since some of the textures differ between those two screenshots.) | |
| File:TCTF5.JPG | File:TCTF19.JPG |
| File:TCTF20.JPG | |
Atmospheric Conversion Center
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| These shots are probably from the time when this was an electric plant. Note that the giant tube that serves as the end of the level (seen in the first pic) has a floor to walk on, in place of the electrified beam suspended in the middle, which Konoko runs down while being pursued by the TCTF. The pipe is also connected directly to the building, rather than being at the top of an elevator shaft. In the current version of the level, the mid-air beam is also the shaft for the giant fan; adding the fan was probably a hasty improvisation to make the level seem more like an ACC and less like an electric plant... but the fan shaft is still electrified! | |
Regional State Building
Hardy once stated that RSB was the first building that Bungie completed. Apparently that is also why it's been through so many changes.
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| File:RegionalState23.JPG | File:RegionalState1.JPG |
| File:RegionalState4.JPG | File:RegionalState6.JPG |
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| These stills are from a long-lost show floor trailer that can be seen playing in the background of the video Harry made at Macworld NY in 2000 (see the "Video footage" section below). The last three images show a sequence using multiple camera angles in which an Elite Striker dives to the floor to dodge enemy gunfire, then gets up and shoots the Security Guard with his Plasma Rifle. An energy effect no longer used in Oni can be seen emanating from the places where the pre-beta Plasma Rifle's shots land in images 1, 3 and 4, though in 3 and 4 the effect is emanating from an illogical place. | |
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File:RegionalState10.JPG |
| File:RegionalState11.JPG | File:RegionalState2.JPG |
| File:RegionalState7.JPG | File:RegionalState8.JPG |
| By the time Bungie took the outside shot with the Iron Demon, they'd barred in the foyer. Also, notice the missing wall of glass in the last set of pics. This section is now occupied by a wall with a normal-sized door set in the middle of it. The original wide-open entrance is an odd design choice. Could it have been a pet door for the Iron Demon? Most likely the ID was only shown in this level because it was their "test-bed" level, since it was really meant for BGI HQ, but perhaps an initial skirmish was once planned here. Finally, note the multiplayer HUD in the top-right of many of these pictures; the screenshot-taker was in MP mode at the time. | |
Rooftops
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| If this is the area that leads up to the roof where Konoko fights Mukade, it looks like the original plan called for a staircase, not an elevator. The overall flow of the level must have been different too, as the blocks that Konoko jumps up are missing from the area to the right of the floor that the staircase starts on. The buildings with the rounded and steepled roofs in the background are now in a different position with respect to the Mukade building. Perhaps a block of buildings was rotated for the final model. |
TCTF Science Prison
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| New wall textures. Looks like the scanner's textures are actually higher-res than what we have now. |
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| There used to be some very interesting lit walkways leading in and out of the security tower. They were replaced on all three sides by corridors with laser obstacles. The last picture shows an interesting area that was apparently removed, which is roughly in the same position as the acid vat complex in the final model. | |
Syndicate Mountain Compound
| Pre-beta | Now |
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| File:Compound3.JPG | File:Compound4.JPG |
| File:Compound15.JPG | |
| The basic layout of the room is the same, but it was much more crowded with "computers" and the existing catwalks were aligned differently.
In the last picture (early development?) there are no computers at all, the bottom floor is missing, and the set of catwalks/stairs is minimal. | |
| File:Compound7.JPG | File:Compound6.JPG |
| Apparently the Syndicate is also in league with BLAM Transport Inc.! Another BGI front?
("Blam" is a reference to Myth's dwarves, also used in Oni's bail-out routine on Windows.) | |
| File:Compound14.JPG | |
| In this last picture (early development), the general concept is there but the ceiling layout (slope, girders) is different and the room size is larger overall. Because of the picture quality, it is hard to make sense of the window in the far corner (it looks like it is a rectangular pod with glass walls hanging under the ceiling, not unlike in Airport Cargo Hangars). | |
Cut levels
Names of these levels
Level names in Oni are stored in the global resource file known as "level0_Final", so that the out-of-game loading dialog can display them. Somewhat surprisingly, the names of missing levels are present even in retail versions of Oni.
It appears that levels below 20 were intended as single-player levels, 30-35 were multiplayer maps, and the rest were test levels. For some of those levels, there are fragmentary scripts which can be found in the Big Blue Box release of Oni. If there was any info to be gleaned from those scripts, it is described in that level's section. Here are the missing levels alongside their presumed BSL folder names. Click the name to jump to that section below:
| # | Name | BSL |
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| 05 | The Airport Part Deux | Airport_II |
| 07 | Obsolete | |
| 16 | BGI HQ | BGI |
| 30 | The Arena of Pain | aop |
| 31 | Crossing Zone | CZ |
| 32 | Pit | pit |
| 33 | Crossing Zone Too | CZ_II |
| 34 | Capture | cap |
| 35 | Territories | |
| 36 | Test_Stuff | |
| 55 | AlexTestSite | ats |
| 66 | Experimental_II | |
| 68 | MARTY'S SOUND CORRIDOR | |
| 71 | FiringRange | SR |
| 77 | One Room | |
| 88 | One Room 2 | |
| 99 | Test Barn II |
Airport Part Deux
The presence of the Airport_II IGMD folder in BBB Oni explains why retail Oni contains an Airport and Airport_III folder but no "Airport_II". The scripts in this folder are very short and little of the level can be gleaned from them. However, a mention of the animation "KONOKOlev5_outro_run" allows us to pin down Airport_II as the missing level 5 in the sequence of levelx_Final folders in GameDataFolder. This is consistent with Airport being linked to level4_Final and Airport_III being linked to level6_Final. This post by Chris Butcher indicates that there was an underground portion to the Airport which was removed.
Obsolete, etc.
This level, which would have been level7_Final, represents the gap between the end of the airport levels and the first TCTF HQ level. Since Bungie blanked the name of this level, we can only speculate on this level and the unnamed levels 15 and 17 (for 16, see below). However, Chris Butcher's comment above and Hardy's comment here indicate that levels were originally planned according to an earlier version of the story, hence the gaps in numbering are mostly indicative of a change in plans, rather than of content actually being created and then cut.
BGI HQ
This level was likely intended as Konoko's final confrontation with the shadowy BGI, which was later excised from the story as Oni's development ran out of time. Fragments of a script for this level can be found in BBB Oni. The scripts contain two cutscenes, one of which describes Konoko setting a bomb and taking cover, and the resulting explosion, and the other cutscene introduces the Iron Demon that would end up getting cut from the game. The number of the level indicates that these events would take place before Konoko returns to the TCTF to confront Griffin and after meeting with Kerr in the Science Prison.
Below are the only four screenshots we have for the level. Similarities to the architecture in TCTF HQ have been noted, and were explained by Hardy LeBel:
The BGI level turned into TCTF HQ. [...] [A]ll of the levels in the game ultimately ended up being composites of architectural details that were stripped from various other pieces that the architects had made. The screenshots that you have of BGI were part of [an earlier, unused] building, as were a lot of the pieces of TCTF HQ.
| File:BGI1.JPG | File:BGI2.JPG |
| File:BGI3.JPG | File:BGI4.JPG |
Arena of Pain
A very simple arena level, at various stages of development, or in various flavors. This level also featured heavily in mid-development footage, found in the "Video footage" section below.
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| File:1999 Trailer - MP arena 1-8.jpg | 
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Crossing Zone?
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| Alex Okita remembered this as "Just a bunch of tubes"; "It was pretty big, lots of falling and dying, from what I remember". The cross-beams are also reminiscent of Construction Pit. | |
Construction Pit (The Pit)
A giant playground where most of the 1999 trailer gameplay was recorded.
| File:Pit1.JPG | File:Pit2.JPG |
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| The first three pictures show some basic elements of the level's architecture (most notably, very steep stairs). The third picture shows Konoko knocking down an early Tanker, with what looks like a collision glitch. The fourth picture is a rare glimpse at the Iron Demon. | |
| File:1999 Trailer - MP arena 2-5.jpg | File:1999 Trailer - MP arena 2-6.jpg |
| File:1999 Trailer - MP arena 2-7.jpg | File:1999 Trailer - MP arena 2-8.jpg |
| File:1999 Trailer - MP arena 2-9.jpg | 
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AlexTestSite
The script for this level, found in the ats folder in BBB Oni's IGMD, shows that this was a test level for Mukade's teleportation (with a comment referencing the "bamf" sound effect of comic book fame).
2000 demo level
The arena Steve Abeyta played in when he demoed netplay in 2000 (see Multiplayer for a video of this demonstration). Looks like it could be BGI HQ, except that there's no similarities with the four screenshots in the BGI section above.
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| This is not the same side of the same room; probably both sides of that room. It is unknown what other rooms there are and where the overhead ramps are going. The ramp briefly flattens out before continuing to ascend, halfway through the room, which in these screenshots can be easily mistaken for some kind of distortion or modeling error. | |
Miscellaneous mysteries
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File:Compound5.JPG |
| According to Alex Okita, the picture on the left was part of Manufacturing Plant, but "was cut out later since there wasn't any need to go in there".
The picture on the right has been attributed to Compound, but doesn't like anything at Compound or elsewhere. | |
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| This looks like the Syndicate Warehouse or Atmospheric Conversion Center (interior), but doesn't match with the current versions of either. | |
Cut weapons
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| The above now-extinct pistol was seen all over the place back when Bungie was taking pre-beta screenshots. This was the Shibume SH-40, a fully-automatic pistol that fired 10 rounds/sec. | |
| File:Compound4.JPG | File:Vago8.JPG |
| Above, an unnamed machine gun with a visible clip of ammunition. Note the visible laser sight emanating from an odd place on the weapon. Ubiquitous laser sights and unique aiming reticles for all weapons were added in the final month of development according to Hardy, but it looks like they were experimenting much earlier with the use of a laser sight to help the player see where they were aiming. The laser-plus-dot system can be seen in use with the Shibume SH-40 HERE, and a dot-only system can be seen in use HERE. | |
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| The Iron Demon can be seen firing this weapon in the trailer at 1:25; apparently Konoko would salvage the gun from the ID after destroying it. Although fans were impressed by its size, some also wanted to know how petite Konoko could even hold the thing. Okita joked that it was filled with anti-gravity. This was probably the basis for the (much smaller) Scram Cannon. | |
| File:Pre-beta enigma 5.jpg |
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| This was some sort of energy weapon, firing small shots which had lens flare-like sprites attached to them which rotated as they flew. | |
Iron Demon
See Iron Demon to learn about the mech that Konoko was supposed to fight, which did not make it into the final game.
Altered characters
Some characters are considered to have declined in appearance since the 1999 trailer that was cut during Oni's development, particularly Muro:
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Besides the wardrobe change, his facial structure has been altered to make him, well, coyote ugly. When asked about Muro's redesign shortly after Oni's release, Hardy stated:
There were some issues with a few of the original characters, specifically the way they were modelled and textured. When Chris Hug[h]es got around to redoing them to remove sorting issues and correct their "physiques" (which is an 3D animation term relating to the way the vertices interact during animation) he often changed their clothes from the outfits Alex Okita originally gave 'em. Chris and Alex had what you might call a "friendly rivalry" in the art department ;^>
Cut animated textures
The 1999 trailer also reveals that computer screens were going to be animated. The engine still allows animated textures, but Oni only seems to use this feature once, for the 15-frame news broadcast on the giant screen in Rooftops. Animated textures would have brought more life to the environment, but at the cost of added memory — especially for the smooth computer screen animations that the trailer displays at 0:16, 0:28, and 1:17, which each appear to be 30 frames long. Here's the first one:
Video footage
- Multiplayer at E3, May 1999
- Multiplayer at Macworld NY, July 1999
- Multiplayer at Macworld SF, Jan. 2000
- Multiplayer at E3, May 2000: [1], [2], [3]
- Oni teaser video at Macworld NY, July 2000
- Mid-development footage: [4], [5]