New Mombasa was supposed to be a tomb. When Bungie first started sketching out what would eventually become the expansion-turned-standalone-hit Halo 3: ODST, the vibe wasn't "super soldier saves the world." It was "regular guy lost in the rain." Looking back at Halo 3 ODST concept art, you can see exactly where the developers pivoted away from the bright, bombastic greens of Master Chief’s journey and dove headfirst into something much moodier. It’s gritty. It’s lonely. Honestly, it’s probably the most visually cohesive thing the studio ever produced.
The game didn't start as ODST. Originally, it was Halo: Recon. The art team, led by legends like Isaac Hannaford, had to figure out how to make a city we’d already visited in Halo 2 feel completely alien and threatening. They didn't do it by adding more monsters. They did it with lighting and shadow. If you look at the early environmental sketches, the city of New Mombasa is treated like a character in a film noir.
The Brutalist Beauty of a Digital New Mombasa
Most people think of concept art as just pretty pictures of characters. For this game, the environment was the whole point. The "streets" were designed to feel claustrophobic. You have these massive, brutalist structures towering over the Rookie, dwarfing him to remind the player they aren't a Spartan.
Hannaford’s work often focused on the intersection of human industrial design and the "cleanup" crews of the Covenant. One specific piece of Halo 3 ODST concept art shows a lone ODST standing in a plaza, illuminated only by the neon glow of a "Say My Name" billboard and the smoldering wreckage of a Pelican. It’s evocative stuff. The color palette shifted from the primary blues and greens of the main trilogy to deep purples, teals, and harsh oranges. This wasn't just an artistic choice; it was a gameplay necessity to make the VISR mode feel like a relief when you finally turned it on.
Architecture as Storytelling
The city isn't just a grid. It’s a circle. The Superintendent (Vergil) is the heart of it. In the early sketches, the AI's "physical" presence in the city—through cameras and monitors—was much more overt. The artists wanted the player to feel watched. Not by an enemy, but by the city itself. This is where the concept of the "Urban Explorer" comes in.
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Bungie’s artists looked at real-world African architecture but then layered it with a heavy dose of futurism. They wanted New Mombasa to look like a pinnacle of human achievement that was currently being dismantled. You see this in the sketches of the space elevator's base. It’s broken. That shattered skyline is the most iconic piece of imagery in the game, and it was one of the first things the art team locked down. It represents the fall of Earth's defense.
Why the Armor Design Changed Everything
The ODSTs themselves needed a facelift. We’d seen them in Halo 2 and Halo 3, but they looked like NPCs. Just guys in green suits. For ODST, they needed to be "Hero Characters."
Eddie Smith and Isaac Hannaford spent a lot of time refining the silhouettes. Buck, Romeo, Mickey, Dutch, and the Rookie all have distinct profiles. If you look at the Halo 3 ODST concept art for the squad, you’ll notice the backpacks. That was a huge addition. These guys were behind enemy lines. They needed gear. They carried rucksacks, extra pouches, and specialized tech that Master Chief never bothered with because he was basically a walking tank.
- The Rookie: His art emphasizes the "faceless" nature of the player. He's often depicted in the dark, blending into the shadows.
- Dutch: His concept sketches emphasize bulk. He’s the heavy, and his armor reflects that with reinforced plating and a wider stance.
- Romeo: Lean. His gear is stripped down for mobility and sniping.
The helmet is the kicker, though. The ODST "visual" is that iconic blue-tinted visor. In the concept phases, they experimented with different levels of transparency. Eventually, they went with the opaque, reflective look. It adds to the mystery. It makes the soldiers look like part of the machine, which contrasts beautifully with the very human, very vulnerable story being told through the "Sadie’s Story" audio logs.
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The Covenant Under a Different Lens
We've fought Grunts a million times. But in ODST, they’re scary again. The concept art for the enemies in this game focused on scale. When you’re playing as a Spartan, a Brute is a peer. When you’re an ODST, a Brute Chieftain is a nightmare.
The art team leaned into the "beast" aspect of the Brutes. They stripped away some of the more "clean" armor from Halo 3 and gave them a more scavenged, feral look. Then there are the Engineers (Huragok). Their concept art is fascinating because they had to look organic but artificial. They’re basically floating computers made of meat and gas. The sketches show them glowing with an internal light, which served as a beacon in the dark streets of New Mombasa. They weren't just enemies; they were objectives. Their design had to communicate that they were "different" from the rest of the Covenant—peaceful, even.
Mood, Jazz, and the Power of Negative Space
You can’t talk about the art without mentioning the atmosphere. The concept team worked hand-in-hand with Marty O’Donnell (the composer). While Marty was writing saxophone solos, the artists were painting rain-slicked pavement.
A lot of the Halo 3 ODST concept art is surprisingly empty. Usually, game art is packed with explosions. Here, you have paintings of empty alleys. This use of negative space was a bold move for a shooter. It tells the player that the silence is just as important as the gunfire. The city feels "lived in" because of the debris. Trash on the ground, abandoned cars, posters for long-canceled concerts. The "lived-in" aesthetic is hard to pull off in sci-fi without looking like a Blade Runner rip-off, but Bungie managed it by keeping the "Halo" DNA—the clean lines and high-tech UI—underneath the grime.
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Misconceptions About the Development
Some people think ODST was just recycled assets. That’s a total myth. While it uses the same engine, the vast majority of the environmental art was built from scratch to accommodate the "open world" (hub world) nature of the Mombasa Streets. The concept art proves this. There are hundreds of sketches for unique signage, storefronts, and interior assets for the office buildings that you just don't see in the rest of Halo 3.
Actionable Takeaways for Artists and Fans
If you're an aspiring concept artist or just a die-hard Halo fan, there is a lot to learn from the way ODST was visualized. It wasn't about "more." It was about "mood."
- Study the Silhouette: Notice how the ODST team is recognizable by their shapes alone. This is the gold standard for character design.
- Color Scripts Matter: The transition from the "day" missions to the "night" hub is a masterclass in using color to shift the player's emotional state.
- Environmental Storytelling: Look at the concept art for the "Data Hive." It’s cold, sterile, and blue. It feels like the "brain" of the city. Use your environment to tell the story so your dialogue doesn't have to.
The legacy of this art style lives on. You can see its influence in Halo Infinite’s nighttime cycles and even in the way other developers approach "tactical" sci-fi. ODST proved that you don't need a golden super-soldier to make a world worth exploring. You just need a good pair of boots, a silenced SMG, and a city that feels like it’s breathing down your neck.
To truly appreciate the depth here, track down the "Art of Halo 3" books or the digital archives from the Bungie era. Many of these pieces are now available in high-resolution galleries online. Study the brushstrokes on the New Mombasa skylines. It’s a reminder that before a single line of code is written, a game is born in the sketches of someone trying to capture a feeling—and for ODST, that feeling was the beautiful, lonely rain of a dying city.