Halo 4

[Flawless]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

Muliplayer info I posted on the previous page is true. High-res scans are out.


More info (Campaign):

• Brand new enemies threaten the galaxy, and some familiar foes return.
• Smart AIs descend into madness after 7 years, which eventually leads to death. Cortana's relationship with Chief and the idea of rampancy are going to be very, very important to the story. It's about finally moving their relationship beyond the realm of videogame exposition, and what it really means to have your only friend be more human than you, but be an AI.
• Connecting the player to Chief with a deeper level of immersion and exploring more of him a character and a man.
• H4 uses redesigned Reach tech. Game Informer praises how good it looks compared to Reach.
• True 720p (not sub-HD like H3, ODST, and Reach). Also using FXAA and not temporal AA which caused ghosting in Reach.
• New performance and motion capture work.
• Cortana rewrote Chief's suit firmware during cryo-sleep. New helmet HUD - subtle paralax movement during athletic actions and more visual cues.
• Narrative focused scenes - offering action moments outside combat, while players remain in control as unique situations unfold.
• Forerunner shield worlds to play a big part in new trilogy.
• First level begins in the shattered interior of the Forward Unto Dawn.
• Covenant are your first encounter. Cortana reckons it could just be a rogue ship. Outside the ship though, Covenant ships are everywhere. Chief and Cortana don't know why their hear. They get off the ship and end up on the mysterious planet at the end of H3 called Requiem.
• First level reintroduces players to familiar Halo, before they take us and turn the whole thing on it's head and change all the rules.
• The new antagonists offer a full array of different enemy types, with new weapons and equipment. They aren't a new race in the Covenant or Flood. These are all new enemies. Offering something that feels very different to fight against.
• The environments on this planet are strange and alien, reminiscent of H1. Forerunner structures litter the countryside, but different from what we've seen in the past. These spaces will be much more alive and dangerous. One piece of art shows a giant floating squid inhabiting a tree. Huge pillars hang down from the sky.

More on Spartan Ops and Multiplayer:

• Spartan Ops - along with each story component, five objective-based missions will release. These are new content offering unseen events, locations, and challenges for that week. These events are crossing over with the missions that are available to you and your friends to play as apart of this story driven online experience. Each week brings a new cinematic story with 5 new missions and this will last for several months. This isn't DLC and won't be paid.
• Multiplayer now lets players apply gameplay changing to their character, essentially Call of Duty and Battlefield. You start out as a recruit and as you progress, you'll unlock stuff.
• Customizeable loadouts to suit your playstyle - primary, secondary, grenade type, armor ability, and one was grayed-out.
• AR, BR, DMR, Carbine, Covenant Carbine, shotgun, rocket launcher, sniper rifle, magnum, and plasma pistol return. There will be numerous new weapons.

[Sandman42]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

Not a fan of armor abilities returning, but I figured they would be back in.

The random weapon drops and instant respawns sounds awful though. As does the CoD style level progression with "perks".

[SinisterAlex]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

More Halo 4 MP news: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/122/1222537p1.html

A substantial quantity of alleged Halo 4 details have started appearing online. The latest issue of Game Informer, of which 343 Industries' next game is the cover story star, is hitting subscribers, some of which have been sharing details in various forums.

The story details Master Chief waking up four years after his cryo nap at the end of Halo 3. Cortana's detected an intruder on board, which happens to be Covenant invaders probably joining them from the fleet outside Chief's derelict ship. No word on why the Covenant are there at all, never mind why they've broken their truce with humans, nor what role they play in the narrative.

The story that follows Chief's wake-up will, as we know, explore the humanity of John 117, as well as continue Halo 3's theme of Cortana as a rampant AI. In that four year break, Cortana's adopted a new look. As usual, the campaign allows for four-player co-op.

IGN breaks down Halo 4's debut trailer.

In addition to new weapons to be revealed, the Covenant carbine and plasma pistol return alongside the human sniper, assault, and battle rifles. We'll also get to wield the magnum, rocket-launcher, shotgun, and assault carbine.

The story carries over to Halo 4's multiplayer, which 343 is calling Infinity. This answers our question from earlier this week regarding Microsoft's newly registered HaloInfinity.net and HaloInfinityMultiplayer.com domains. Infinity has direct and indirect connections to the campaign, though details aren't present in the article.

Frank O'Connor mentioned in the Halo 4 ViDoc that 343 came up with a valid reason for red to fight blue, and that comes in the form of military training on the combat deck, an adversarial simulator. This means we won't play as Elites online, as 343's focus lies on the Infinity's Spartan IVs.

Adding to the Infinity experience is Spartan Ops, a separate story-centric campaign for four players. It presents objective-based missions and cinematics, both of which will be added weekly to expand on Spartan Ops' story. These updates will happen for months following Halo 4's release to hold players' attention long-term. Spartan Ops replaces Firefight, which won't have its own dedicated mode this time around.

Another interesting change to Halo 4 is loadouts. Rather than everyone rolling out with the same weapons online, players bring customized gear into battle. Everyone packs a primary and secondary weapon, armor abilities (including active camo, jetpack, and hologram) grenade type (plasma grenade is still unconfirmed). Weapons still appear around the map, of course, but they appear in random spots via drop pods. In another interesting minor tweak, the respawn in Team Slayer is instantaneous rather than reliant on a clock.


What are you up to, Chief?

Oh, and since Chief vanished, Spartans have since learned to run; sprinting is an innate ability in everyone. Players can also use Forerunner Vision to peek through walls, Batman style. The X-ray vision upgrade is an armor ability you'll equip. Other abilities are unlockable via Spartan Points, the currency fueling the in-game economy. Points unlock additional Ops missions, armor abilities, and cosmetic upgrades.

343 Industries doesn't seem to be pulling any punches in creating a Halo experience with a unique yet familiar identity. What do you make of the online changes and single-player story details?

[Flawless]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

Great people scoring H4.


EDGE: Halo 4's music headed "to another level"

With the series out of Bungie's hands, and development passed to 343 Industries, it's clear that Halo 4 will be something of a departure from the established series template. That's certainly the case for its soundtrack; Neil Davidge, a former member of Bristol-based trip-hop outfit Massive Attack, is composing the game's music.

Both he and Matt Dunkley believe it is time for the series to move on - meaning O'Donnell's iconic compositions are being left behind. Dunkley, an orchestrator and arranger whose CV features the likes of Inception, Batman: The Dark Knight and Iron Man, tells us that Microsoft and 343 made a conscious decision to move on, but insists that should not be interepreted as disrespect or distate for the Bungie composer's work.

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Sotaro Tojima talks about his early composing work for Castlevania and what it was like to work on the audio team for four Metal Gear Solid games before moving on to be the audio director for Halo 4.

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[Flawless]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

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[EpicGingy]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

As long as the core gameplay is Halo I don't mind customizable load-outs, but random weapon spawns is an awful idea. No more fighting over the powerful weapons at the beginning of a game, which is really fun and chaotic, the way Halo is. Spartan-Ops really needs a new name. Sounds too similar to Spec Ops, and aside from the fact new levels are released every week, seems a lot like it too

I'm kinda meh about covenant returning, as long as you don't fight them too often. I've had 4 games to go through them, lets kill some new crap.

[Steel5]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

As long as the core gameplay is Halo I don't mind customizable load-outs, but random weapon spawns is an awful idea. No more fighting over the powerful weapons at the beginning of a game, which is really fun and chaotic, the way Halo is. Spartan-Ops really needs a new name. Sounds too similar to Spec Ops, and aside from the fact new levels are released every week, seems a lot like it too

I'm kinda meh about covenant returning, as long as you don't fight them too often. I've had 4 games to go through them, lets kill some new crap.

Agreed on all points.

[Candyman5]

I'm kinda meh about covenant returning, as long as you don't fight them too often. I've had 4 games to go through them, lets kill some new crap.

Idk, I have a feeling that the first two levels you will be fighting the covenant but then all hell breaks lose and you fight the new stuff.




Sent from me, duh.

[EpicGingy]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

A new thought came to me. Maybe random weapon drops will be marked on the map and you'll have like a 5-10 second warning to get there, and everybody will congregate and the chaotic battles will happen a few times throughout the match. If it works like that, it could be a good idea.

[Flawless]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

Halo back to releasing in November.


The Halo Bulletin: 4.17.12

Save the date!

November 6 is an important date in Halo’s vast and fascinating history. For the uninitiated, that was the day the Master Chief found a weapon, a parched Grunt stumbled upon the starship, and Staff Sergeant Avery Junior Johnson discovered the answer to one of life’s most perplexing questions. He wasn’t born knowing what the ladies like, you know. (Frankie wants me to point out that if ANYONE had been born knowing what the ladies like, it would be Sgt. Johnson, possibly related to his case of Boren's Syndrome, whatever that means….)

Now we’re adding another data point to that particular date on the Halo timeline, and that’s the release of Halo 4.

The end of Halo 3 found the Master Chief deep in cryogenic sleep, drifting toward a mysterious Forerunner planet, with Cortana instructed to wake him if she needs him. You can now consider his alarm clock officially set because Halo 4, the game that marks the much anticipated return of legendary hero Master Chief, will launch worldwide on November 6, 2012.

Whether you like redheads, Irishmen, or slumbering Spartan super-soldiers, you should tune in to the popular late night program “CONAN” tonight at 11 p.m. Pacific Standard Time to find out how Conan O’Brien and his side-kick Andy Richter are connected to Master Chief and Halo 4 in a segment that features our very own Frank O’Connor and Kiki Wolfkill.

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[Flawless]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

New 343 Sparkast somewhat expands and clarifies the changes to multiplayer from the Game Informer cover story.

http://halo.xbox.com/blogs/post/2012/04/17/343-Sparkast-012-A-Halo-4-Multiplayer-focused-Extravaganza.aspx

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Summary

"Random Weapon Drops"

• Sill have initial weapon drops at the start of a match, control openings, team game strategy
• Timers set for when they pop in, communicate to player, no need for stopwatch
• Each map/mode specific weapons and drops for different maps
• Weapons will make sense, sniper for bigger maps
• Random seems to lean towards different weapons themselves, not different times/areas
• Can see which weapons have dropped where
• Information not distracting, subtle UI elements
• Drops from space into the map
• Drop ins can kill you
• Weapon indicators disappear, you'll know a player has them.

Respawns

• Control timing
• Lots of debate about 4v4 or 5v5 experience.
• Can customize loadout during play
• In premier slayer experience
• Can customize spawn system
• "Premier experience" particular play style on particular maps
• Ultimate experience in every mode
• Maps can support any gametype, but each map is tailored to a certain gametype.

Armor Abilites balanced

• Learned lessons for Reach
• How they're implemented in 4: Similar, but different
• Changed because everyone has sprint
• Sprint by far most popular AA in Reach
• More interesting combinations
• Can't use sprint to flee combat
• Levels designed for faster mobility
• Sprint meter
• Slow down mechanic if getting shot, can't run up and double melee
• Can't run away as fast
• Base movement isn't slow, jumping higher, running/walking faster in H4 than Reach
• Looked at Halo 1 for specific weapons
• Looked at Halo 3 for movement benchmarks

• Forerunner Vision: Visor mode from ODST.
• More like Sonar, won't go forever, specific distance, delay on knowledge
• Players within range of vision can hear you using it
• Counter each other, some can be used to counter (Rock, Paper, Scissors)
• More tradeoffs and the way they interact with each other
• Armor Lock didn't make the cut, ruined the flow and balance
• Every armor ability from Reach has been altered and changed in some way

Customs/LAN

• Turn off instant spawns
• Will support unlocking of weapons and unlocking AAs for tournaments
• "Career" mode in the game for grinding, no Warrant Officer 3
• Tournaments!
• Choice, concept, give players choices, what loadouts are for
• Empowering individual play styles
• "Preferences" favorite weapons, starting weapon discussion

• Once you put in the work and effort to unlock that BR, then you can use it
• Base weapons balanced for no "god tier" weapons
• All about how you play, sneaky, distance, etc
• Why have the BR and DMR? Different purpose, subtle differences, mechanical
• Each have their own distinct role
• BR better for jumping and fanning up, DMR for lateral movement
• DMR set RoF, DMR fires at a slower rate, balanced against BR
• BR has recoil, 3 bullet more upwards, distance between bullets will spread out
• BR not as effective at longer ranges, BR will lose to DMR
• Outer range of encounter space, DMR built to win
• Closer, BR will win
• AR also a beast, each gun has effective range
• Not every weapon can go in loadouts

• Assault Carbine, renamed
• Love using the gun
• Sound is terrifying
• Style has been in the game before
• Shield mangler, not head mangler
• Feels like a finisher, not a depleter

• Can unlock items for competitive in Spartan Ops
• Take your character from PvP games is meaningful going into Spartan Ops
• Building a character you feel attached to
• Planning, being strategic in Spartan Ops

[Spongedaddy]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

I am kind of burnt out on Halo, but if they have something different and interesting I'll bite.

[Flawless]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

LOL

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Doesn't look like there's much aim assist and the damage feedback (sparks) is a nice little touch.

Spoiler

[Sandman42]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

That new info has me excited again. Still wondering why they have the DMR, BR, and Carbine though. Even though it sounds like they are differentiating them I feel at least one of them will be redundant.

[Candyman5]

Re: Halo 4 trailer....

LOL

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Doesn't look like there's much aim assist and the damage feedback (sparks) is a nice little touch.

Spoiler

I hope some of the stuff they say make it into the game like a Legendary only thing or they can do like they did in Halo 3 with the Red vs Blue characters.