The Noble 14 | A Halo 2 War Hymn | Progressive Metal by Dr. Drift (Official Lyric Video)

On April 15th, 2010, Microsoft ended support for Halo 2, but players who left their Xbox consoles running overnight discovered that they were still connected to the multiplayer servers. However, anyone who had disconnected could no longer rejoin them. In defiance, hundreds of players continued to play, keeping the servers alive for a game they treasured. One by one, they disconnected, be it voluntarily or due to power/internet/system issues. In a matter of days, a select few, The Noble 14, were all that remained in keeping the candle in the dark. Internet outages, power failures, and overheating consoles continued to wreak havoc on this doomed battle, but they pressed on. Alas, by May 8th, only two remained: Agent Windex and Apache N4SIR. Agent Windex was booted on May 10th, and Apache N4SIR was booted on May 11th, ending the Halo 2 era once and for all. ____________________________ Hey everyone! It's Matt! Thanks for listening (and reading). As a reward, here's a look behind the curtain! This song took me months to get right. There was an insane amount of research done before the lyrics were even written (thank you years of Reddit comments). For example, I learned that Shoagie took a ton of heat both during the battle and years later after voluntarily turning off his console to later play Reach on beta. People called him a traitor, among other things. What they don't know is that his console started to overheat and make a terrifying noise, and he didn't have the money to buy another one. Much love to you, Shoagie. You deserved better. Writing the lyrics was its own challenge. Most songs are written about one person, and I tasked myself with writing a song about 14 people. I also set a goal to call them out by name in each verse. The first verse was designed to be energetic and battle-focused, while the second verse was intended to have a sadder tone as each warrior falls in combat. While I wanted to stay as close to historical accuracy as possible, I did take some creative liberties. There's only so many ways to say, "their power died" or "they lost internet." I chose Booker D to fall by the symbolic Red Ring of Death as a means to honor all Xbox 360 players (including myself) who had our systems fry on various games. Much love to you, brothers and sisters. We deserved better. :) I've been playing guitar for over 20 years. The riffs here aren't anything special. Anything more would take away from the storytelling aspect of the song. The war hymn melody you hear in the intro (and throughout) I got from my dog when he was howling. My channel is small enough to where I can respond to all comments, so please, don't be shy. Tell me what this song means to you! Unless you're mean, in which case, don't. The world has enough negativity. :)