A loose-knit modding community is showing defiance in the wake of the recent DMCA takedown of the leaked, closed beta code for the Halo Online. Members of that community spoke to TorrentFreak recently about their goals to create a microtransaction-free version of the game that's playable outside of the Russian market that is the game's only official home for the time being.

[Update: A Microsoft spokesperson sent Ars teh following statement: “While we’re thrilled there’s so much interest outside of Russia, the beta of Halo Online is a PC experience tailored specifically for the tastes, tech and infrastructure of the Russian market and furthermore, is still in an early state. As such, we want to ensure a quality experience for our beta participants within Russia which could be impacted through unauthorized use.”]

Much of the motivation for the "ElDorito" hacking project seems to be a desire to simply play a new Halo game on the PC, a desire Microsoft has failed to satisfy since releasing a 2007 port of Halo 2. "The PC audience has been screaming for Halo 3 for years and years, and we saw the chance with this leak," modder Neoshadow42 told the site. "The fact that we could, in theory, bring the game that everyone wants, without the added on stuff that would ruin the game, that’s something we’d be proud of."

That "added stuff" refers to the free-to-play game's microtransaction model, which appears to let players purchase different classes of armor and rent time-limited weapons for real-world cash. As Neoshadow42 sees it, developing a truly free version of Halo Online that works independent of that infrastructure isn't the same as cracking a standard pay-to-play game.

"This whole project would be completely different in an ethical way if we had taken a paid game and reversed it for everyone to access for free," he told TorrentFreak. "At the end of the day, El Dorito aims to deliver exactly what everyone wants. The closest thing to a Halo 3 experience as possible, but on PC. If we can manage that, I’ll be more than happy."

After initially obtaining what appears to be an "early internal alpha" of the game from a link on 4Chan, the modders say they haven't been deterred by Microsoft's successful DMCA takedown of the files from an online Github repository. "In terms of DMCA/C&D mitigation, we have made redundant git backups on private and public git servers," modder Woovie told TorrentFreak. "Further DMCAs may happen potentially, it’s not really known at the moment. Our backups will always exist though and we will continue until we’re happy."

Hackers and interested parties have started to gather around a Halo Online subreddit and an IRC channel to share updates on development progress. While multiplayer still isn't working, hackers have already been playing around with modifications such as a third-person view and tools for taking near-total control of the accessible single-player environments.