10 Things We Know About Halo 4

New guns, new gear and ancient aliens – here’s everything you should be getting excited about.

Start of a new trilogy
Bungie might have flown the coop, but the story of the Master Chief is far from over. Halo 4 is the first in a brand new trio of games known as ‘The Reclaimer Trilogy’ so expect to see the big MC activating plenty of ancient technology.

New UNSC weaponry
Humanity’s researchers have had over a year to fiddle about with all that new alien technology, and you’ll see the fruits of their work in Halo 4. Expect an array of improved UNSC armaments, as well as new alien treats to try.

Could these iconic weapons be making a return in Halo 4? We'll just have to wait and see...

More vehicles to control
Halo: Primordium might not be coming out until 2012, but the cover art tells us everything we need to know: it’s confirmed concept art for Halo 4, and the ships in the sky are of Forerunner origin.

The Forerunners are alive
We might not have seen the Halo system creators for thousands of years, but it doesn’t mean they’re dead. According to 343 Industries’ Frank O’ Connor, Halo 4 will let you explore Forerunner architecture ‘when it’s not completely inert and empty.’ If it isn’t empty then surely it’s inhabited, right?

Mysterious new foes
We only caught a split-second glimpse of this screeching cybernetic enemy during the Halo Fest presentation. Could it be some kind of Forerunner Sentinal AI? All I know is that is doesn't look at all friendly...



Cortana’s in trouble
She’s one of the smartest AI programs in the universe, but it comes at a cost. After seven years of service Cortana will become ‘rampant’, and quickly begin to lose her marbles. She’s not got long left now, So Halo 4 will likely focus on finding a way to save her.

The Chief has changed
Don’t get too attached to the Chief you’ve seen in Halo 4’s first teaser trailer. 343 Industries recently admitted that the model has seen four separate revisions since then. It’s still not confirmed that he’ll even have a jetpack.

He won't change much. Don't panic.

It’s not long after Halo 3
Some have suggested the events of the game occur 36 years after Halo 3, but 343 assures us that the game begins in 2553, a mere one year after the game’s finale.

Five years for us, but only one year for MC.

The Flood may show up
I reckon we’ll fins out more about The Flood in Halo 4. Originally found in powdered form on an abandoned cargo ship, it’s created by another species. If The Flood only affect organic beings, is it possible that they’re agents of Halo 4’s robotic looking foes?

The most hateful creatures in video game history? Quite possibly.

More clues are coming
If you’re dying to know more about Halo 4, I know where to look. Halo novel Glasslands promises to tease info on new UNSC technology, and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, out on November 15, is said to contain loads of clues.

10 Things You Didn't Know About Halo 2

Chris Butcher - Bungie’s senior engineering lead - described the game’s development as a “three-act tragedy.”

Bungie’s two founders had left the game – Alex Seropian had quit to return to Chicago, and Jason Jones was working on another project – and Halo 2 was instead being lead “by a committee,” said Butcher, “who were trying to deliver something impossible…we were standing there after E3 2003 saying, we can’t possibly build this game.”

The initial graphics engine used for Halo 2 was totally unsuited to the Xbox. “We had these levels that just really didn’t make sense with the Halo engine or any kind of shooter engine”, said Butcher. The new tech had to be considerably scaled back.

The experience of Halo 2 changed Bungie. The studio introduced new systems and processes from Halo 3 onwards, which enabled it to better coordinate development, and enable it to experiment without risking huge and complicated delays.

Halo 2’s multiplayer swallowed a huge amount of Bungie’s time and resources. Having to create multiplayer maps that looked as good as singleplayer contributed to its late running. In fact, Bungie’s input shaped the development of Xbox Live itself. The developers liaised with Microsoft engineers building the first - and still the best –console gaming network.

The multiplayer maps were enlarged from the original. They’re multi-tiered, labyrinthine and always offer several different routes to a single all-important location. Brilliantly, the best weapons are placed in the most exposed positions, creating satisfying risk/reward scenarios. It’s a design choice that’s been used in every Halo game since.

New species join the burgeoning alien congregation, most noticeably the Prophets and Brutes with their devastating melee attacks. Elites and Jackals are upgraded to have access to new weapons like the Covenant Carbine and Beam Rifle. Halo 2 also introduced vehicle hijacking, providing both balance and crowd-pleasing spectacle.

Having planned a final dramatic showdown on the surface of earth, Bungie had to cut the final act entirely just to get the game finished in time. We see Master Chief promising to “finish the fight,” then… the credits. It was a disappointment to players and Bungie themselves. Audio lead Jay Weinland admitted it “had most Halo players throwing their controllers at their TVs”. Chief Operating Officer Pete Parsons went further: “a gigantic flaming turd of failure, would probably be the right way to describe it.”

The month Halo 2 launched was the only month in the original Xbox’s lifespan in which it turned a profit. But its legacy was less the singleplayer campaign and more the multiplayer, which became the most popular game on Xbox Live on launchday and stayed there for the life of the Xbox, until it was dislodged by Gears of War on Xbox 360.

Which isn’t to say that Bungie was entirely satisfied with that, either. “Even the multiplayer experience for Halo 2 is a pale shadow of what it could and should have been if we had gotten the timing of our schedule right.” Chris Butcher told Edge in 2007. “It’s astounding to me. I cannot play Halo 2 multiplayer. I cannot do it”.

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Halo: Combat Evolved

The idea for Halo was first conceived in a Catholic girl’s school in Chicago.

Halo’s very first press release in 1999 described the game as a “third-person perspective sci-fi action epic that takes place indoors, outdoors, in the sky and beneath the surface of a world of astonishing realism.” It featured both “epic single-player” and “role-based co-operative multiplayer…that is as much lived as played.” It would “release simultaneously on PC and Mac”.

Halo was originally called Solipsis, after the planet it was set on. Other oddball concept names included The Crystal Palace, Hard Vacuum, Star Maker, Star Shield and The Santa Machine.

Halo’s initial setting was a planet known as the ‘Dyson Sphere’ (built around a sun at its centre) and then a ringworld with a population that included sea monsters, dinosaurs and strange chicken-like creatures that could be captured and used for transport.

Before he was limited to only two weapons, Master Chief had a ludicrious arsenal at his disposal. This epic loadout included not only pistols and rifles but machetes, flamethrowers, spearguns, harpoon guns and even a gravity wrench.

For all it breathless hype, Halo wasn’t considered the jewel in the Xbox’s launch line up. That accolade was instead bestowed upon Oddword: Munch’s Oddysee.

During Halo’s first European press tour the demo computer blew up (literally there was smoke). Joe Staten, lead writer and cinematics director, remembers it well: “Having no computer made our first demo go, er, poorly. ‘Imagine if you will, there’s this green guy called Master Chief, and he’s fighting against some purple space aliens called The Covenant. Cool huh?’”

A huge amount of time was spent working out how to map the quintessentially PC shooter controls to the Xbox’s huge joypad. The analogue stick would never match the precision of the PC’s mouse, but auto targeting would be considered too easy, so Bungie built in a mild assist that helped the cross-hairs stay on target for an extra second.

Bungie spent the final months on Halo working until the small hours whittling down the game’s 10,000 bugs to the handful that survive today.

Halo arrived alongside the Xbox on November 15th 2001, the biggest game on Xbox and the first Microsoft title ever to carry a “Mature” rating signifying it was for adults only.

Once the Christmas season had passed Microsoft sold 1.5 million Xboxes and shipped a million copies of Halo, making it by far the biggest game on the console.