Halo 2A Sound Restoration

A script for restoring classic audio to the entire Halo 2 Anniversary campaign.

Why a Script

Even with official mod tools, reverting every piece of audio in Halo 2's Anniversary campaign requires changing almost 2,000 files. Completing this process once is painful. Doing it again each time an official update touches the campaign and breaks the previous mod is prohibitively frustrating. This is why, even years after launch, the game is without an up-to-date, comprehensive audio restoration mod.

This project breaks the cycle. With two clicks, it generates anniversary maps from fresh tag files with all classic audio restored, rebalanced, and ready to play in MCC.

Restoration Options

Everyone who grew up with Halo 2 has strong feelings about its soundscape. I've tuned the default restoration settings to match classic Halo 2 as closely as possible. But to accommodate differing perspectives, the project includes a config.txt file that gives you control over some of the more contentious details. The options are below.

Restoration Option	Description	Valid Input
MUSIC_VOLUME	Controls music volume. Decibel integer added to the gain of all campaign music tracks.	[-15, 15]

Running the Project

Prerequisites

• Install Java
  • Download and run JDK installer with default settings.
  • Add "<your jdk install path>\bin" to PATH environment variable.
  • Test installation by verifying java -version on the command line produces java version.
• Install Halo 2 Mod Tools
  • Install Halo 2 Mod Tools via Steam.
  • Navigate to the H2EK installation directory and run H2EK (Extract).bat to extract tags.

Project Setup

• Clone this repository.
• Create Config.txt at <repository>/Source/input/Config.txt.
• Copy the following to the file (replacing the value of TAGS_DIRECTORY with your own from the last step - no quotes, just paste).

  TAGS_DIRECTORY=D:\My Games\Steam\steamapps\common\H2EK\tags
  
  MUSIC_VOLUME=0

• Edit restoration preferences to your liking.

Restoration

• Once the project is setup, simply run the script run.bat on command line to restore all classic audio.
• Then, follow the directions the script provides to package the final map files and move them to MCC.
• That's it! You're ready to play. 🎮