Yesterday, Kotaku reported on a thread in the TeamXbox Forums that supposedly had a "leaked" copy of the script for Halo 3, in the form of a 119 page (barely 118 not including the cover, looks like the author was shooting for 117) PDF file entitled "Draft4". Shortly thereafter, the thread in the TXB forums was taken down. Kotaku updated their story with a link to the original source-- this thread in the RichesWillRust forum, to which many new users flocked to register and download the file. Meanwhile, several pages of comments on that thread were apparently deleted by a forum mod.

What's in the file?

The contents were written by someone with a passing understanding of scriptwriting formats and at least some familiarity with the Halo universe-- but not much more than could be gleaned by playing the games, reading the books, and browsing the occasional fansite.

There are, of course, many small details that reveal this as a fake, even in the absence of the informed denial provided by HBO's Louis Wu from his sources at Bungie. There are repeated misspellings such as those that would not be caught by most word processors, such as "hanger" instead of "hangar", and even "was" instead of "war"-- and that one is on page 2!

There are lines of dialogue given to the normally reticent Master Chief that seem strikingly out of character for him. There's a lot of unnecessary exposition where characters talk to each other awkwardly about things they already know, just to clue the audience in-- something that the Halo series so far has been studious about avoiding, for the most part.

The script is written as for someone with knowledge of the characters or their appearance at all. I've never seen the scripts for Halo or Halo 2, but as the general plot of the Halo universe, as well as its inhabitants and their general descriptions, is held within the Halo Bible, this level of detail would appear to be unnecessary.

There are also some items that seem as if they were meant to be found to identify it as a fake; the chapter title "A Pimp At Sea", for instance, a reference to Bungie's perennial April Fool's joke.

In short, there's little here to give anyone but a person who has never played Halo any indication that this is legitimate. As a piece of fan fiction, it's certainly no better than average and as a hoax it's nowhere near as interesting as the Enkidu Terminals.