Halo 4 Message Board older than one year ago

Are you sitting down? Are you fully braced? You should probably brace yourself for this shocking news: Halo 4 will have Grunts, Elites, and guns. Yes, it's true, Master Chief will once again be blasting through suicidal Grunts and proud Elites in his battle against ... well, we're not really sure.

But these latest shots, freshly leaked on AllGamesBeta, assure us that at least two of Halo's classic foes will be returning in Halo 4. We're holding out hope that the Flood manage to miss this round. Please, 343 Industries? Pretty please?

Regardless, the screen above also indicates it's been over three years since the Chief's last contact with his former UNSC buddies. That's quite a bit of sleep. Enough to call it hibernation, even! And now we're picturing space bears in hibernation. Thanks, Halo.

#halo It's no small thing, the Halo music. In fact, it's kind of a big deal. As I wrote last week, Martin O'Donnell's music for the first five Halo games evolved to become one of the most iconic soundtracks in modern video games. While many chiptune anthems have been enshrined in gamer consciousness, O'Donnell's Halo score is one of the few orchestral, Hollywood-style scores to have achieved a similar consensus. More »

#halo It had a script. It had the backing of two major film studios. It had the support of Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. More »

New Halo 4 footage appeared on Conan tonight. It came on the tail end of a rather lengthy comedy bit featuring 343 Industries' Frank O'Connor and Kiki Wolfkill alongside Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter. There isn't much to see, but we do get a look at the battle rifle doing serious damage to some...

#halo We won't make you watch all nine minutes of today's not-that-funny Conan O'Brien skit about Halo 4. We're cutting to the chase. Specifically: a little bit of multiplayer with much better lighting than we've usually seen in the Halo games. More »

Ahead of tonight's episode of Conan, Team Coco went ahead and posted the full nine-minute Halo 4 segment starring 343 Industries' Kiki Wolfkill and Frank O'Connor. Hot dog! Conan's got pitches for his low-key role as "dude who moves crates in space during war," as well as a variety of subtle costume ideas. See it all for yourself just above.

Microsoft and 343 Industries announced this morning that Halo 4 will launch worldwide on Tuesday, November 6. The news comes one day after teasy tweets from Microsoft's Major Nelson indicated some form of collaboration between Microsoft and everyone's favorite freakishly tall late night host, Conan O'Brien, which sparked rumors of a potential launch date reveal.

Microsoft studios corporate VP Phil Spencer offered lofty goals alongside the launch date announce. "With Halo 4 leading the charge, we're confident 2012 will be the most successful year in Xbox history," Spencer said. He also pointed out that Halo 4 is just the beginning of Microsoft's renewed relationship with the Chief. "We are beginning a new saga with Halo 4 and embarking on a journey that will encompass the next decade of Halo games and experiences." Just no more cat helmets, Phil. That's all we ask.

Additionally, Halo 4 will appear in some form on tonight's episode of "Conan," which Microsoft described as nothing more than a "special segment."

Master Chief fans the world over may now rejoice via their preferred rejoicing method: Halo 4 has a release date. Confirming rumors that began popping up yesterday, Microsoft today let it be known that the forthcoming Halo sequel by 343 Industries will hit store shelves on November 6.

A vote for Master Chief is a vote for reckless teabagging."We are beginning a new saga with ‘Halo 4' and embarking on a journey that will encompass the next decade of ‘Halo' games and experiences," said Phil Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Studios. "Millions of fans worldwide have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to step back into the boots of Master Chief, and, with ‘Halo 4' leading the charge, we're confident 2012 will be the most successful year in Xbox history."

Folks involved with the production of Halo 4 will be on tonight's episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, which airs at 11pm on cable network TBS. The special segment is designed to help celebrate the release announcement, though exactly what they plan to show isn't yet known. If that isn't enough, comedian Patton Oswalt is also on Conan tonight, so even if you aren't a Halo fan, there's still a good reason to tune in.

Hilariously, November 6 is also Election Day in the US, meaning that at least a few people are guaranteed to skip out on the polls in favor of indulging in the latest entry of their favorite sci-fi shooter franchise. Or, perhaps that was Microsoft's plan all along? Truly, we are through the looking glass here, people.

#halo Halo 4 will be out on November 6, 2012, publisher Microsoft said today. More »

Halo 4 will be released on Tuesday, 6th November, according to The Verge...

Halo 4's various competitive multiplayer modes will feature new ways to slaughter your friends, as well as refreshed versions of old classics, according to a video interview with lead multiplayer designer Brad Welch at Game Informer.

One of the new modes, Regicide, is a free-for-all deathmatch in which one player is the "King," and all other players must attempt to usurp his/her throne. Killing non-King players rewards points as per usual, although not as many as are gained by killing the King, who has a substantial bounty placed upon their heads. Said bounty increases with every successful kill the King accrues during the match, until their demise.

Welch also detailed Halo 4's ranking and unlockable abilities system: Players earn XP as they win, eventually leveling up and being rewarded with Spartan Points, which are in turn spent on new armor abilities. "Forerunner vision," which grants the ability to see through walls, as well as "hologram and active cammo" were named specifically, though we expect that's just the tip of the iceberg.

With Bungie moving away from the Halo series, audio lead Marty O'Donnell is gone as well, meaning that Halo 4 will probably sound different. Edge revealed the identity of the new, non-O'Donnell music team today: composer Neil Davidge, formerly of Massive Attack, and orchestrator/conductor Matt Dunkley (The Dark Knight, Black Swan, Inception).

"Hopefully the Halo fans will see that we're being respectful," Dunkley told Edge, "but we've also taken it somewhere else, and maybe onto a higher plane. If you're always trying to reference back, you're not creating new things."

"It's a new journey, it's a new story, it's a new arc," said self-professed Halo fan Davidge, "and so I feel like my job is not to revolutionise or reinvent but to continue the evolution, and I have a slightly different voice to those guys."

Update: Check out a "ViDoc" about the new composers above. And listen to some samples after the break.

With Bungie moving off of the Halo series, audio lead Marty O'Donnell is gone as well, meaning that Halo 4 will probably sound different. Edge revealed the identity of the new, non-O'Donnell music team today: Neil Davidge, formerly of Massive Attack, and orchestrator/conductor Matt Dunkley (The Dark Knight, Black Swan, Inception).

"Hopefully the Halo fans will see that we're being respectful," Dunkley told Edge, "but we've also taken it somewhere else, and maybe onto a higher plane. If you're always trying to reference back, you're not creating new things."

"It's a new journey, it's a new story, it's a new arc," said self-professed Halo fan Davidge, "and so I feel like my job is not to revolutionise or reinvent but to continue the evolution, and I have a slightly different voice to those guys."

#halo A composer behind movies like The Dark Knight and a former member of the triphop band Massive Attack will unite for the Halo 4 soundtrack, according to a report today. More »

You guys are so predictable, except when you're being unpredictable. This year gamers are most excited to play Halo 4 (which still doesn't have a release date) on Xbox 360, Assassin's Creed 3 on PS3 and Madden NFL 13 on Wii, Nielsen reports from a recent study.

What baffles us is how low BioShock: Infinite rates (9th on 360 and 8th on PS3) and how eager PS3 owners are to play Prototype 2 -- it ranks 7th for PS3 gamers and doesn't even hit the top 10 on Xbox 360. We won't even discuss what business Battleship thinks it has being in 3rd place for Wii gamers.

Nielsen aggregated the scores based on eight "key customer metrics," such as "awareness" and "purchase interest." We are now certainly "aware" that we can't guess the general consumer's mindset, when all we hear about is how they have no "interest" to "purchase" another game ever again, but mainstream, full-price titles crowd the most-anticipated list. Check out the complete list here.

#halo Game Informer's Halo 4 issue is now out, and inside are details not just on the game's singleplayer campaign, but what new developers 343 studios are doing with the series' multiplayer as well. More »

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 ...

You have to wonder why Master Chief - essentially a sexless cyborg - has a voluptuous female counterpart, but it's a bit late in the Halo franchise to be asking such questions. Instead, we simply accept that the Chief's virtual partner-in-heroism will once again return in this fall's Halo 4, and now we know what she looks like (care of the latest Game Informer cover reveal, as seen above).

Given the conclusion of Halo 3, we were kinda expecting the Chief's blue buddy to have a straitjacket wrapped around her projected avatar, but perhaps that and more will be explained when the game arrives later this year.

Oh, and for comparison's sake, we've dropped an image of Halo 3's Cortana just below the break. Her newer likeness is kinda ... less blue? A bit? That's all we got.

#halo Cortana sure looks blue in this brand new Halo 4 art, which will be on this month's cover of the gaming magazine Game Informer. More »

Warhouse is a massive mining ship, one of the multiplayer maps available in Halo 4 when it ships later this year. On the outside, there is a beautiful space vista to distract you while a Spartan sneaks up behind you and bashes your billion-dollar helmet in with his Battle Rifle. Inside, there is a giant half-built mech to distract you while -- well, while the same thing happens.

Warhouse is a working title for this map, 343 says in the latest Halo Bulletin update. It's a smaller, symmetrical map designed for Slayer gametypes. "We wanted this playspace to be similar competition-wise to older symmetrical maps in previous Halos, so we sought influence from those, and also from the industrial close-quarters combat in more recent games," the 343 blog post reads.

There are a series of small pathways connecting various areas of Warhouse, allowing for what 343 hopes are many surprising encounters. You know, like that time that Spartan sneaked up behind you and -- well, you get the idea.

There are no plans for Halo 4 to receive a public beta, 343 Industries announced in a Q&A with franchise development director Frank O' Connor. He answered a slew of fan questions about Halo 4, revealing that it would be possible to play Grifball, that there would not be a color-blind mode (though considerations for that audience have been made in art decisions), and a few other tidbits. Check out the full factsheet here.

In related Halo 4 news, Microsoft recently won a legal battle against the bogus website Halo4beta.net, but as there won't be a Halo 4 beta we don't expect it to be put back into official use any time soon. Microsoft has also filed a complaint against Halo4beta.biz.

343 Industries has revealed that a public multiplayer beta is not currently scheduled for Halo 4...

Unlike its predecessors, upcoming Xbox 360 shooter Halo 4 will not have a beta, 343 Industries revealed on its blog today. "Splitting resources to manage and build a beta is not on our schedule," the developer wrote. [The Halo Bulletin] More »

Some of 343 Industries' veteran developers talk about the process of bringing Master Chief back to life.

Few fictional weapons can drum up their own cult following. The cadence and rat-tat-tat ruthlessness of Halo's Battle Rifle is unmistakable no matter which side of the barrel you're on. It's a death sentence in the right hands, punctuated by an ellipse of bullets ... and painfully described in overwrought, armament love letters that say things like "ellipse of bullets." As far as iconic Halo bits and pieces go, the Battle Rifle seems almost as inextricable as Master Chief.

And yet the cyborg with humanity at heart skipped enough games for Microsoft to make a big deal out of his return in Halo 4. The new (ish) franchise custodians at 343 Industries are in a tight spot, where they have to shape a message not only around what's new, but what's coming back. The Battle Rifle's return is an easy way to establish the latter, then, especially to those fans who couldn't wrap their heads around the weapon's disappearance in the first place.

Speaking to Joystiq in an interview last year, former Bungie game designer Jaime Griesemer saw the weapon as a piece of deadly nostalgia. "It's not just a weapon, it's the weapon," he said. "For a skilled player, they spend most of their time using that one weapon. If you never miss, it's the most effective tool in the toolbox. So for them, Halo 3 is the Battle Rifle. All their Halo emotion and experience is tied up in it. So it isn't surprising to me when people react that way."

How daunting must it be to work in a space where a video game gun can reach beloved status? It's no wonder Microsoft is being sensitive and cryptic about Halo 4, which introduces what could be the biggest, most widespread (and controversial) change to the multiplayer in years. According to 343, Halo 4 will add customizable loadouts and abilities that are unlocked through a progression system.

#halo Last week at Microsoft's Spring Showcase, I and a whole bunch of other reporters got our first look at this fall's Halo 4. The fourth proper entry in the franchise (not counting ODST and Reach) will be released this fall, and will feature longtime series star Master Chief in an all-new adventure. More »

When we all saw the teaser for Halo 4, our first question was: "What is up with that armor?" Last time we checked, he didn't have a jetpack. Could Master Chief actually be Barry Steakfries?

Nope, it's all part of 343 Industries' plan to update the Master Chief's armor for Halo 4. A blog post on Halo Waypoint discusses the "800 pounds of tank and jet fighter" strapped to Chief's frame. "So we pulled that design into the armor and HUD. When you play Halo 4, it's important you understand that you're more than just a gun on the screen. To give you that feeling, we have represented that weight with player physics, without interrupting crosshair and shooting accuracy."

Despite Chief's bulk, 343 describes him in Halo 4 as "a nimble yet heavy superhero." His design will contrast against the bulky Spartan armor design seen in Bungie's last effort, Halo: Reach. "When we first looked at the Chief's armor, we studied what was done in Reach. We knew he needed to be understood as a nimble yet heavy superhero, and contrast that with Reach armor design that was more on the bulky side. Our goal is to hit that sweet spot where we represent what is fictionally true about the Chief while making sure you feel like you're a super-powerful human being when you're playing him."

In short, 343 is aiming to better convey his physical weight to the players -- and it sounds like his movement and characteristics will reflect that. Whether it'll come with a more complex, busier HUD remains to be seen.

#halo 343 Industries, you so sneaky. We've already noticed that the Microsoft division tasked with the future of all things Halo debuted the new look of the sci-fi shooter series' hero at Toy Fair 2012. And the Chief's new duds are quite different. Leaner, meaner and perhaps more aerodynamic. More »

We first got a look at Halo 4's Master Chief with this epic picture of him being born from an exploding robot womb, and the physical version made by McFarlane Toys stays true to that rendition, right down to the placement of the chink in his armor. If Microsoft approves this prototype, Halo 4 will mark a departure from previous armor designs, which have generally offered more coverage around Master Chief's vital organs, and more mobility around the neck and shoulders. Because that's what armor should do.

For example, the Halo 4 version offers a squishy black bullseye over Master Chief's heart, while in Halo 3 that area was covered in sturdy green armor. The bicep patches in the above design look large enough to carry your emblem of choice (unicorn), but not to stop advanced-technology bullets from piercing your skin as previous armor versions do. Also, he's fighting a galactic war, not practicing advanced yoga -- there is no reason for that much uncovered space on his hips.

Microsoft will decide if this prototype is close enough to in-game reality before it launches in the fall as part of McFarlane's Halo 4 lineup, which will include brand new weapons, characters and vehicles. This year McFarlane also plans to drop two new product lines based in the Halo universe: Micro Ops, which offers classic figures at 1:100 standard size, and Halo Avatars, 2.5-inch physical renditions of Xbox Live avatars.

#halo Halo 4 will be the first game in the main series to have not been developed by Bungie. If you think that means the new studio at the helm would want to tinker with the design of the game's hero, you are dead right. More »