Halo 4's online multiplayer components will feature a new way to differentiate your own Spartan from those used by the other seasoned warriors you'll be battling with over Xbox Live. Dubbed "Specializations" and available after reaching Level 50, Halo 4's version of character classes each feature nine levels of various unlockable cosmetic upgrades (outfits, armor and weapon skins, etc), capped off by a final tenth level that grants a class-specific ability. There are eight different Specializations in total, two of which will be available to everyone as soon as the game launches on November 6: Wetworks, which allows the use of Promethean Vision without the usual drawbacks, as well as a quieter sprint, and Pioneer, which gains XP at an accelerated rate, provided that perk is active.
The other six Specializations (Engineer, Tracker, Rogue, Stalker, Patherfinder and Operator) will be gradually made available to players post launch, unless they preorder the Halo 4 Limited Edition, in which case all eight classes will be available from day one. Hit up that source link below for specifics on each Specialization and more pictures of weird space-bug helmets.
#halo
The big changes to Halo multiplayer keep coming to the next entry in the sci-fi shooter franchise. Microsoft's just announced that a new set of class-based Specialization ranks that players can earn after they hit level 50. More »
Halo 4 not only re-imagines the multiplayer conflicts of games past and the Spartans who engage in them, but also the tools available to these insatiable part-machine murderers. The video above from Halo Waypoint takes a quick tour of Halo 4's new arsenal and the remastered sound effects for each.
Most of the guns have an added oomph - we like the whooshing sound behind rockets now, for example - but one thing is kind of odd: the shotgun still sounds like it's being fired inside a sound-proof room. Maybe that's just a special feature of all future shotguns.
#halo
The history. The purpose. The sound effects. The enormous write-up over on Halo Waypoint (linked below) has everything a series fan - or firearm fetishist - could ever want with regards to humanity's weapons of choice. More »
You're reading Reaction Time, a weekly column that claims to examine recent events, games and trends in the industry, but is really just looking for an excuse to use the word "zeitgeist." It debuts on Fridays in Engadget's digital magazine, Distro. Thanks to a polite and fiscally beneficial agreement between movie studios, you were saved from seconds of paralyzing indecision last weekend. Had Total Recall and The Bourne Legacy stuck to a shared release date in theaters, as originally scheduled, you'd have become a seated participant in an extravagant and mutually destructive showdown. Between Colin Farrell and Jeremy Renner, which pouting action star would have gotten your twelve bucks and two hours?
If you're a movie buff, you might not even hesitate spending time and money on both consecutively. But what happens when you bump the price up to $60, and extend the temporal investment to something between 8 and 80 hours? Now you see the dilemma squeezed in-between this holiday's most anticipated shooters, Halo 4 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and all of a sudden one week doesn't seem like much of a buffer at all.
Our first taste of Halo 4's live-action tie-in Forward Unto Dawn gave us a glimpse at what to expect from the live-action series, but a behind-the-scenes trailer issued today promises that we'll eventually see one epic Warthog action sequence.
#fineart
Meet Thomas Scholes. Well, meet his art. An illustrator and concept artist who has worked at 343 Studios, ArenaNet and Disney, he's now a freelancer who can draw some of the nicest pieces of environment art around. More »
Above, your eyes can gaze upon the cover of the upcoming Awakening: The Art of Halo 4 art book, featuring all sorts of concept art and designs from Microsoft's upcoming Halo 4. It's got everything you want in a Halo book cover, including Master Chief, some crazy epic Forerunner structure, and a trusty assault rifle.
Actually, that's not quite true; we could use at least a little Covenant. Is that a Covvie ship flying through the background? Unclear. You'll have to wait to get a better look when the book arrives on store shelves in November, along with the new game itself.
Maybe these new shots of the Halo 4 Legendary Edition 360 and controllers will put some of the spark back in your relationship with professionally taken photos of gaming equipment.
Italy's View Conference - taking place in Turin from October 16 to 19 - is a show focused on video games, interactive media and film. Halo franchise creative director Josh Holmes will give a special presentation on Halo 4 during the show: Halo Reborn: Building a Studio, Crafting a Universe. As one might imagine, the presentation will focus on the hurdles of employing a new studio to create a new entry in the popular Microsoft franchise.
Holmes will discuss the challenges of "creating a game with a storyline that encompasses over 100,000 years of fictional history and connects through and across multiple mediums including print, a live-action digital series, an ambitious story-driven campaign and innovative episodic content that will continue beyond the launch of the game." Holmes will also address how Microsoft went about creating its first internal studio from scratch, and the talent that helped make Halo 4 a reality. Finally, it's not listed in the presentation description, but we expect Holmes will talk about what Master Chief's been eating all this time that's made him put on all that weight.
#halo
The "Legendary Edition" Halo 4 console bundle, outed on Thursday, was officially revealed yesterday at Comic-Con. What we didn't know is that it'll have some Halo 4-themed controllers sold separately. More »
Microsoft's $400 Legendary Edition Xbox 360 bundle was "officially" announced today during SDCC, despite having been ousted yesterday by IGN. As we originally heard, the bundle includes a remarkably fancy transparent Halo 4-themed 360 with blue lights and bespoke Halo sounds, two matching transparent controllers with matching blue lights, vouchers for both in-game and Avatar DLC, a headset and (of course) a copy of the game.
What we didn't know, however, was that snazzy Halo 4-edition controllers, blue LEDs and all, will also be sold on their own at $59.99 a pop, starting Oct. 21. Both controller and console are available for your inspection in the gallery below.
Update: The controllers sold separately differ in design from the controllers packaged with the bundle; the wording of this article has been updated for clarity.
Microsoft's $400 Legendary Edition Xbox 360 bundle was "officially" announced today during SDCC, despite having been ousted yesterday by IGN. As we originally heard, the bundle includes a remarkably fancy transparent Halo 4-themed 360 with blue lights and bespoke Halo sounds, two matching transparent controllers with matching blue lights, vouchers for both in-game and Avatar DLC, a headset and (of course) a copy of the game.
What we didn't know, however, was that snazzy Halo 4-edition controllers, blue LEDs and all, will also be sold on their own at $59.99 a pop, starting Oct. 21. Both controller and console are available for your inspection in the gallery below.
Update: The controllers sold separately differ in design from the controllers packaged with the bundle; the wording of this article has been updated for clarity.
Microsoft's $400 Legendary Edition Xbox 360 bundle was "officially" announced today during SDCC, despite having been ousted yesterday by IGN. As we originally heard, the bundle includes a remarkably fancy transparent Halo 4-themed 360 with blue lights and bespoke Halo sounds, two matching transparent controllers with matching blue lights, vouchers for both in-game and Avatar DLC, a headset and (of course) a copy of the game.
What we didn't know, however, was that the bundle's snazzy controllers, blue LEDs and all, will also be sold on their own at $59.99 a pop, starting Oct. 21. Both controller and console are available for your inspection in the gallery below.
Are you in the extremely unique position of both being a big Halo fan and not owning an Xbox 360? Microsoft's hoping that's the case, as the publisher is releasing a special Halo 4-themed version of its Xbox 360 alongside the game this November - altogether, the whole shebang will run you 400 big ones.
Beyond the schnazzy console and the game itself, you'll also get two branded wireless controllers, and a less thrilling generic black headset. And you'll have plenty of space for all those Forge-created maps with the 320GB hard drive built-in.
It looks like Microsoft doesn't want anyone to see its bundle just yet, however, as the listing was taken down from Microsoft's web store after IGN spotted it. We expect to hear more official news on the bundle in the coming weeks (or whenever Microsoft's marketing team decides to acknowledge the leak).
#breaking
A Microsoft store listing, since removed, said a limited edition Halo 4 console bundle will be released, delivering the game and a specially designed case on a 320 GB Xbox 360 configuration for $400. More »
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The upcoming Halo 4 live-action series will cost between $5-10 million to produce, reports the Los Angeles Times today in an excellent new feature about Microsoft's ambitious new project. More »
Microsoft president of interactive entertainment business Don Mattrick says Halo 4 will interact with Microsoft's upcoming tablet computer, Surface. Exactly how the two will interact, however, remains a mystery. Mattrick noted the news during a VentureBeat event in San Francisco yesterday; later, he reconfirmed the functionality with a reporter on-hand but refused to give any more details.
If we had to guess, though, we'd say the only functionality between the two will be the already announced SmartGlass stuff from E3 (say, using Halo Waypoint, or viewing the game's encyclopedia). After all, Microsoft told us at E3 that SmartGlass would be part of all Microsoft Studios games going forward after its fall 2012 launch.
Of course, Microsoft could always go totally off the rails and add full-on gamepad support via Surface's touchscreen. Or maybe just a personal Cortana app where she freaks out and yells at you randomly while you're playing. Maybe they should just stick with the Waypoint stuff, actually.
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This is Daniel Cudmore. He's a Canadian actor who you'll probably recognise most easily as Colossus from the X-Men movies. You'll also soon be seeing him play the role of Halo's Master Chief. More »
Halo 4's iteration of the Forge map editor is currently under development at Certain Affinity, the development studio responsible for Age of Booty, Crimson Alliance and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary's multiplayer. The announcement was made during a presentation at Rooster Teeth's second annual RTX event in Austin, TX.
While a wide breadth of changes and additions have been made to the Forge editor, most interesting are the "Player Trait Zones," which allow map builders to modify the characteristics of any players that enter the effected area, changing the height of their jumps, the speed at which they run, etc. It's even possible to reverse the gravity in a given area by using "Grav Volume" field.
Enhancements have also been made to the objects that can be placed by users: Elements can now be locked in place, magnetized and more efficiently duplicated. The editor's lighting system has also been overhauled; objects placed now cast and receive shadows normally. Finally, a map editor capable of bringing our upside-down film noir Halo dreams to life.
The good ship UNSC Infinity will play quite the hands-on role in Halo 4's various multiplayer modes, delivering ordnance both to teams and to individual players themselves, provided they've done an awesome enough job during the fight.
Unlike previous Halo games where kills would only accrue points for your team as a whole, Halo 4's Personal Ordnance system introduces a secondary, personal inter-match progression system to provide a little extra self-centered motivation. Medals acquired through kills, assists and "style" gameplay (ending a kill spree, killing someone attempting to hijack a vehicle, etc) fill up an Ordnance Meter, which upon being filled completely will allow the player to select from three randomly generated rewards, two weapons and/or grenades, plus one power-up.
Each additional round of Ordnance takes 30 percent more gumption to acquire, with most players acquiring one or two rewards per round, according to The Halo Bulletin. Check out the footage above for shots of the system in action, as well as a look at the game's new multiplayer modes Infinity Slayer and Regicide.
