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The gate opened.

Here’s a short, reflective piece on the cultural artifact that is the Halo: Combat Evolved CD key. Before the age of seamless Steam logins, before "Play Now" was a single click, there was the CD key. And for a generation of PC gamers in the early 2000s, no key was more sacred than the one printed on the back of the Halo: Combat Evolved manual.

With all keys entered, Blood Gulch loaded. For the next eight hours, the real world ceased to exist. The key was the bouncer, the gatekeeper, the handshake that let you drive a Scorpion tank into your best friend’s face.

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