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The first Halo was chock full of memorable levels. Know what would’ve made them even more memorable? Goddamn dinosaurs.


Modder Spartan464748 decided to turn that weirdly specific fever dream into a reality, creating gorgeous renditions of Halo: Combat Evolved’s second and fourth levels—“Halo” and “The Silent Cartographer”, respectively—in Ark: Survival Evolved. Lots of evolution going on here, is what I’m saying.

Here’s a video of Silent Cartographer, courtesy of TheBeachedHippo:

If you’ve played Halo before, you’ll pretty much immediately recognize the level geometry, and you will probably struggle to keep your heart from swelling with nostalgic retrojuices (and possibly also hypertension, given that Halo: CE first launched in 2001 and you have Aged—decidedly devolved, to keep with the theme).


You will probably not immediately recognize the dinosaurs, but don’t worry: they’ll grow on you. Or they’ll devour you and poop your remains into a convenient little dung boulder. Either way, you won’t have to worry about them anymore.

You can grab both levels on Ark’s Steam Workshop, which is quietly turning into one of the coolest things about the game. Now then, who wants to reminisce about how Silent Cartographer is one of the best levels in anything ever—console or PC? Yeah, it had its repetitive moments, but what a fucking tour de force. I’ve played it more times than I can count, and I still itch to go back and play it again. So many happy memories, so many moments of dumb bullshit with friends. And now it’s old and overrun by dinosaurs—much like myself. An analogy equal parts fitting and existentially chilling, if ever there was one.

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To contact the author of this post, write to nathan.grayson@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @vahn16.