Halo 4 Preview Part 1 - The Campaign

This is 343 studios first true game in the Halo universe. The anniversary edition of Halo Combat Evolved was handled by the fledgling studio but it would have been hard to mess that game up. In fact 343 could have released the original Halo game on an XBOX 360 disc wiht no improvements to it and it would have still been loved by all halo fans. So here is 343 studios first important foray into the halo universe and there are already two planned sequels to this game. When Halo 3 released in September 2007 it was arguably the most important franchise on any console but that was before a handful of competing games saw break out success, it was before the first Call of Duty Modern Warfare, before Resident Evil 5 came to the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and before the first Assassin’s creed. It was so long ago that you hadn’t even started pretending you could sing and play the drums in Rock Band. The landscape has changed and Bungie has moved onto its next IP.  The start of this new triology is a pivotal moment for Halo .

 Halo 4 picks up after the events of Halo 3, which may seem like it doesn't need to be said except for the fact that Halo ODST was released after Halo 3, a game the chronologically takes place during the events of Halo 2, Halo Wars released, the Halo Real Time Strategy game which chronologically takes place before all the other games, and Halo Reach has been out for two years and Reach takes place before any of the other shooters in the franchise.  So while it makes sense from the idea that the number 3 follows 4 it’s worth mentioning that a slew of other Halo games have come out none of them have featured the Master Chief as the protagonist.

We last saw the Chief urgently trying to get off of a Halo ring that was set to blow up and destroy the Ark – A repair and command station for all 7 of the Halo rings (if you’re honoring Bungie Studios persistent love of the Number 7 with a drinking game you can take a swig now). The Chief and his pal the Arbiter make it into a ship however the Arbiter makes it back alive while the back end of the ship containing the Master Chief is cut off by the ensuing explosion, that explosion saved all sentient life in the galaxy from the Flood.  Last we knew the Master Chief was in cryo-sleep floating towards a strange forerunner planet and Cortana was keeping an eye out for him.

Between Halo 3 and Halo 4

The end of Halo 3 was also the end of the end of the covenant-human war but that does mean all the fighting between these two groups is done. The truce between the Covenant and Humans has been shaky, the start of the game will certainly have to touch on this issue but the key location for a more in depth back story can be found in the Halo books Grasslands and the Thursday War. Part of these new rumblings of war will likely be part of the reason the UNSC Infinity is crusing around the galazy

What's Known So Far

One of the largest UNSC warships, the UNSC Infinity is captained by Andrew Del Rio whose likely to become a key character in this new trilogy. The ship is crewed by the best of the UNSC fleet and this includes a number of Spartan IVs on board. So far all we know is that this ship is crash landing on Requiem. 

The Master Chief is awake again and it looks like the first thing he'll have to do is fight is way out of the distressed ship Forward Unto Dawn and make his way onto Requim. Cortana is with him but it appears she's going Rampant. Rampancy has been on the horizon for Contana for sometime. In the Halo universe AIs have about a 7 year life span (more love for the perfect number) and Cortana is about 8 years old.  We've seen a number of allusions to Cortanas Rampancy.

It's almost a little surprising that it hasn't happened in the series yet, Bungie even considered having Cortana become engorged with information in Halo CE and becoming Rampant at that early time in the series. Take a look at the video "Origins" to see more of Cortanas Rampacy begin as well as some backstory into the Forerunners. 

The forerunners are central to this new story and the real enemies to fear are no longer the shielded elites but the Prometheans. Not much is know about these Forerunner entities, the Prometheans were a warrior class of forerunner but these menacing creatures don't appear to be truly alive and don't seem to be robotic. What we do know is they're will be plenty of them to fight as the Master Chief learns more about this forerunner planet. 

What To Be Excited For

The New Story

Halo 2 and Halo 3 struggled with the story. Halo 2 opened up a new side of the story by making the Arbiter a key character, in doing so they placed a lot of the story on the covenant. Halo 2 muddled through revealing there are 7 halo rings (no surprise that there are 7 of them) and then came close to unleashing their death ray on the galaxy. After all that everyone was left with a rather dissatisfying cliff hanger. Halo 3 got it right by putting the story back on the shoulders of the humans and Master Chief but then it had a number of odd twists and a strange little love story between Cortana and the Chief. Halo 3 was able to finish off the war and come to a conclusion but both of the games seemed to try and get so much of the Halo Universe in that all of it was a little unpolished. One of the big keys to Halo CE was that all of the game took place on or near a Halo ring. The locations in Halo 2 covered a brief stint in an orbital defense gun around Earth, a city on Earth, a new Halo ring, an orbiting gas mining center, and the covenant capitol ship, all the while bouncing back between the Arbiter and the Master Chief.  Ignoring the head turning pace of locations, which was still a lot of fun at times, both games struggled to tell a well put together story, as often happens the first story in a trilogy stands well alone and the second two try so hard to be as engaging that they drown in their own narrative. Bungie struggled with the campaign in Halo 2 and while they did their best it was hard to pick up the pieces and finish the fight. 

All of those problems are what makes this trilogy and Halo 4 so exciting. Halo is the same engaging shooter with so many of the characters fans love and is set for a new story that has been penned as a trilogy from the start. On top of that they've dug out some deeper parts of the Halo story and started to weave them into the shooter. The one thing that has gone exceptionally well for Halo is the ever mysterious forerunner and discovery of the universe that they inhabited and controlled until the flood overran them, Halo 4 puts that story and the aftermath of that ancient Forerunner- Flood war center stage for the Spartan-117. 

 The Chief is Exposed

The Master Chief has always been an interesting character whit seemingly two sides. He's a fairly well fleshed out character in the books but the side that gets seen in the games isn't that deep. That's understandable for a character that always has a helmet on but that's all about to change (not all of it, he'll probably keep that helmet on). 

 "There's such a rich fiction around Chief that we get in the books and other media, but it hasn't traditionally come through in the game. So how do we take some of that and really pull back the curtain on Chief and his motivations? We want to look under the mask, without being disruptive to the game experience." 
           -Kiki Wolfkill Halo 4 Executive Producer

An Ancient Evil Awakens

We'll be doing a preview to try and cover all of the forerunner information and backstory, there is a lot and it's been almost non-existant in the games so far, but expect to see some of the Didact.   Most everything in the Halo games has been a war over forerunner technology and Halo 4 will be a clash with the forerunners on the largest forerunner structure that's been found, Requiem. 

Things to Look Out For

Linda and Dr. Halsey we're last seen together and Halsey is mentioned in a trailer. Halsey is the most important human knowledge base on forerunner technology and if something goes wrong with Cortana she's probably the only person who can fix it. Linda is the best Spartan II Sniper and while no one is holding their breath to see these characters in the game it would be interesting. 343 gave a nod to Linda with an Easter Egg in Halo anniversary. 

Master Chief vs the Everyone else

One thing that became pretty prominent in Halo is the Chief is teaming up with everyone he meets. He helps the gravemind for a while, he's working with the arbiter in Halo 3, and it's hard to find a level without guilty spark or another monitor tagging along with you. The moment in Halo 3 when the flood want to team up to stop the prophets from starting the great journey was likely the worst alliance ever formed in a video game campaign. Halo CE made you feel like a super soldier that was destroying the covenant and then the flood and then 343 with just you, your rifle, and Cortana. Halo 4 needs to get back to that formula. We're all for having a few marines that throw grenades at our feet on occasion but can we get back to feeling like only the MC can save the world from certain destruction?

 Other

The achievement list has been released

The soundtrack has been released

The game takes place in 2557, Cortana was put into service on November 7th 2549, John -117 was born in 2511 and is about 46 years old.  Not that we suspect any importance to Johns age in this series we just thought it was a fun fact. 

Immerse yourself in more back story of between Halo 3 and 4 

Read on to...

Halo 4 Preview Part 2 -  The UNSC