Halo 3 fan believes Bungie brought weed into play

Since I first saw it a month ago, I’ve been obsessed with a video called “Since when did Halo have weed?” It’s the perfect time capsule from late 2007 when Halo 3 had just come out. The theater mode and the forge level editor made it easy to record in-game footage and explore every detail in the game environment. There are no weeds in it Halo 3, but for some reason YouTube user GamerHelper seems to believe otherwise, as the video makes clear.

The video from GamerHelper, which inexplicably came from “Dire, Dire Docks” from the Super Mario 64 Soundtrack, offers a slow exploration of Halo 3Guardian’s card. The video specifically focuses on the beautiful, fern-like plants that grow on the walls of various structures in the level. Crucially, GamerHelper’s video begins with a title card instructing viewers what to look for: “On The Map Guardian, did you ever notice there was weed in it?”

As the camera view zooms in on the ferns, the accompanying title cards from GamerHelper take on a tone of increasing astonishment and dismay. First a question: “Was Bungie On Weed?” Then: “What was Bungie thinking?” Later: “Bungie is confused” and finally: “Who knows why Bungie did this?”

I can finally answer GamerHelper’s question, and I don’t even need an official comment from Microsoft or Bungie to do that. There are no weeds in that Halo 3 Map Guardian (though there’s a fun fact that there is several fictional recreational drugs in the Halo Universe).

These are ferns in this video. this is weed:

I cannot blame GamerHelper for your confusion, and I very much hope that you have made some important discoveries on the subject since 2007. (I found GamerHelper’s old Xbox Live profile and sent them a message about this video, but I didn’t hear anything. Unfortunately, I don’t expect to ever hear anything as their profile appears to have been unused since 2008.) For me Speaking for yourself, I didn’t know much about weed either in 2007 and it was not easy to find out more about it.

In 2007, recreational marijuana wasn’t legalized anywhere in the United States, where I live and where GamerHelper lives, according to her Xbox Live profile. It was not until 2012 that Colorado and Washington legalized recreational marijuana, with other states slowly following suit in the years since. Although attitudes had changed somewhat by 2007 and medical marijuana became increasingly accepted in the early 2000s, many people were (and are) in jail for marijuana possession.

That changed in 2021, with People from across the political spectrum in the United States that cannabis should be legalized. It has become more socially acceptable to talk about participating in weed while playing video games – two great flavors that have always tasted great together. So a friend of a friend of mine rediscovered this video.

It all started when Sullivan shared several screenshots from GamerHelpers video on his Twitter account on October 9th. That’s how I saw it for the first time, and since then it has become a joke among my friends to ask, “What was Bungie thinking?” I contacted Sullivan to ask how he even found this video as it only has 1,443 views at the time of writing.

“We were fooling around on voice chat and I haven’t been able to find out what came out of it all my life, but I searched for ‘Halo Weed’ on YouTube,” he explained on Twitter DM. “It was like the third result, and I found it extremely hilarious. I’ve opened it assuming it is would have to be an amazing content in it. ”(I replied,“ Which is of course. ”)

Since then, I’ve watched this video dozens of times and shared it with multiple friends, colleagues, and now Polygon readers. I’m just as intrigued by it today as I was when I first saw it. I can only hope that its Creator will step forward to acknowledge their work.

Sullivan also hopes GamerHelper will emerge from the fog of time to look back on their past creation, but he has another wish: “You should bring weed in Halo infinite – for her.”

I don’t disagree. Times have changed, Microsoft, and you wouldn’t be screwed up to put weed in it Halo infinite. It would actually be very cool. Master Chief has been under a lot of pressure for a very long time and he deserves to relax.