Halo 4 Announcement Imminent

[† cloud1414]

For all you Master Chief fans out there, I'm sure you'd love to know that he will be returning for a fourth Halo. A Microsoft studies employee, who is part of 343 Industries, has indicated that Halo 4 is well under development.

Paul Ehreth Linkedin, who is a designer at the Microsoft Game Studios, stated on his profile that ever since July 2010 he has been busy designing new levels and missions for the next Halo project at 343 Industries.

Bungie's boss Brian Jerrard even confirmed that he had considered making a Halo 4 before deciding on Halo: Reach. he quotes "Even before the idea to build a game based around Reach came about, a lot of other concepts were explored, up to and including a proper "Halo 4", where Master Chief was going to wake up from cryo-sleep. We were going to tell that story."

Microsoft's 343 Industries website has put up several ads of job offers, which are advertising for a new halo project. An ad read: "343 Industries, Microsoft's internal Halo studio, is looking for a an experienced Missions Designer who can design and build missions for our next big project." They are also looking for a Senior Character Artist to work on a "new experience in the Halo Universe". The chosen candidates will "play a significant role in establishing and maintaining the vision for both new and redefined characters, levels and missions."

343 Industries doesn't think the core game mechanics needs to be changed, but the next Halo game will feature both "slight tweaks" and "dramatic innovations" to the traditional Halo format.

Frank O' Connor, the director of Microsoft's 343 Industries, says he doesn't think the Halo series needs to be taken in a new radical direction. It just needs to go "deeper".

"Ultimately the core game mechanic and strength of the universe doesn't need to be changed, it just needs to be taken deeper. We want to make Halo games-dont' want to make Call of Duty or Ridge Racer. We want to make Halo games because we understand what's special about Halo."

Chances are we will see something regarding Halo 4 at this year's E3 expo. Keep your fingers crossed.

Source: http://www.dualshocknexus.com/2011/04/halo-combat-evolved.html

[Kasoivc]

I don't see the purpose of them continuing the story imho. The current Arbiter already kind of established peace between The Covenant & UNSC Right? Wtf would Master Chief be fighting after all that? More Flood/Brutes? They'd have to try hard to invent some kind of storyboard for a "Halo 4" to work, even then I think they should be doing spin-offs not actual additions to the main series.

Imho, Halo Reach was a success because it was a prequal/spinoff story; if anything, they need to go back and re-do all three of the first Halos, Halo:CE, 2 ,& 3.

Hell, creating a game out of the storyboard provided by the books would be good enough for me to watch/play through. Kurt/Ambrose was one of my favorite characters in the books.

[† cloud1414]

Well if you watch the legendary ending of Halo 3. MC and Cortana land on a planet. They can go from there. Also another company is working on the HD Remake of Halo: CE.

[Kasoivc]

I don't remember that... at all, and I beat it on legendary without skipping the credits. All I remember is that scene where Master Chief's part of the ship is "drifting" towards a supposed planet, not actually landing on a planet - and from what we learn in Halo Legends, during that period Cortana is watching over Chief in the Cryo, she's supposedly becoming "Rampant."

Edit: Regardless, the Halo "Main Series" was considered a trilogy for one reason. It sounds silly to call it "Halo 4" and be all hunky dory about it. It just sounds like it's destined to crash and burn other than be super shiny.

[DrumRoll]

not another one:(

halo 3, odst and reach were practically the same game as it was.

[† ballard]

I'm personally interested in the direction 343 will be taking Halo. I can't really comment on whether or not "Halo 4" will be good until I start to see concepts for the game. I just hope they don't mess it up. Changing a few things here and there doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be bad... just different than the halo we have all come to know.

It's a cash cow for Microsoft... I don't think they want to ruin that.

[† Anras Rune]

Lyung, the story has a few pretty interesting twists it hasn't used. If you've read the books, or seen Halo Legends, you'd know that the planet could be The Forerunner homeworld, which would be interesting indeed. Either that or it could be Oynx from the books, which has a massive amount of isolated Covvies, but that wouldn't be nearly as interesting. Also, as you said, Cortana is becoming Rampant, which again could add to the drama...^^

[Dude888]

They said "new experience in the Halo Universe", this does not mean Halo 4 but i agree that it would be awesome to see more of Master Chief's story. I guess we have to wait for the E3 in June.

[MABFanForLife]

I'm willing to give a fourth Halo a chance.

[Kasoivc]

Lyung, the story has a few pretty interesting twists it hasn't used. If you've read the books, or seen Halo Legends, you'd know that the planet could be The Forerunner homeworld, which would be interesting indeed. Either that or it could be Oynx from the books, which has a massive amount of isolated Covvies, but that wouldn't be nearly as interesting. Also, as you said, Cortana is becoming Rampant, which again could add to the drama...^^

I would rather they take the Onyx route. It's been awhile since I last read the books but iirc Kurt/Ambrose and a few other Spartans are there. Besides~ Master Chief and Cortana are out in the middle of nowhere, the UNSC already lead themselves to believe the Chief died during the ending of Halo 3; it would be horrlbe imho for them to make "Halo Two, Part 1 of 3, Second Trilogy!"

From Halo Legends - iirc, as it was portrayed, most of the Forerunners are extinct as a result of the Flood invading/inhabiting their home world. Though, weren't a few Forerunners stored into a advanced form of cryo somewhere offplanet? Regardless, Chief would be !@#$'ed if he crashlanded on a Flood-infested planet without some kind of weaponry, and I'm not going to buy "Cortana: CHIEF! ITS A FORERUNNER WEAPON! USE IT TO KILL THE FLOOD" ...That would be trash imho.

Also I don't think Cortana becoming Rampant is enough to make her health status the priority of the game, like in Halo 3 where Chief spends the majority of his time fighting off covenant & then "rescuing" her from the Gravemind, all while hallucinating from prior memories of her.

[ObeyMyEgo]

Lol, so they are milking this series dry.

Honestly, i dont see the point of another halo game.

[Kasoivc]

Lol, so they are milking this series dry.

Honestly, i dont see the point of another halo game.

They're not really milking the series, they just have a lot of story to work with and to get out there. I don't want to be immature and call you out as fanboy-ing or trolling but not many people actually look at the game for "story & depth." Not many people read the books either, let alone even know of their existence outside of the crap that gets commercialized. Most people just play the game nowadays because of the "aweseome/orgasmatastic online competitive multiplayer" I can't say its the greatest but it's good, but not "Omg, BESTEVER."

Reach was phenomenal in my opinion when it came to narrating the actual "Fall of Reach" when the planet was glassed; though I can't comprehend for the life of me how the entire Noble Team consisted of Spartan III's, Ackerson did oppose Halsey with the Spartan Project but iirc, he prposed the S3 project, and most of the S3's were trained/treated as "disposable" soldiers under Ackerson. Jorge for example seemed like late thirties early forties for a unmasked Spartan and the Covvie War has been going on for some time now so he must've been through a lot since he was trained (and most likely he was trained under Kurt when he took on the name Ambrose). :/ Mind boggling... I think I just confused myself.

They tried really hard imho to tie the story up as tight as possible without loopholes, like near the end of Reach when Six fends off Covvie ships so PoA can get offworld.

My only complaint with the creation of another Halo Game to the "Main Plot" is that they make it coherent with what's already happened, instead of making up a whole new concept. We're lead to believe that Halo 3 was the ending to the series, but apparently with this supposed "Halo 4" it'll add more to the actual ending.

When Halo 4 comes out, I don't want to Chief to be like "Oh !@#$, there's another Gravemind in the next universe over." That's really milking it.

[† Anras Rune]

They're not really milking the series, they just have a lot of story to work with and to get out there. I don't want to be immature and call you out as fanboy-ing or trolling but not many people actually look at the game for "story & depth." Not many people read the books either, let alone even know of their existence outside of the crap that gets commercialized. Most people just play the game nowadays because of the "aweseome/orgasmatastic online competitive multiplayer" I can't say its the greatest but it's good, but not "Omg, BESTEVER."

Reach was phenomenal in my opinion when it came to narrating the actual "Fall of Reach" when the planet was glassed; though I can't comprehend for the life of me how the entire Noble Team consisted of Spartan III's, Ackerson did oppose Halsey with the Spartan Project but iirc, he prposed the S3 project, and most of the S3's were trained/treated as "disposable" soldiers under Ackerson. Jorge for example seemed like late thirties early forties for a unmasked Spartan and the Covvie War has been going on for some time now so he must've been through a lot since he was trained (and most likely he was trained under Kurt when he took on the name Ambrose). :/ Mind boggling... I think I just confused myself.

They tried really hard imho to tie the story up as tight as possible without loopholes, like near the end of Reach when Six fends off Covvie ships so PoA can get offworld.

My only complaint with the creation of another Halo Game to the "Main Plot" is that they make it coherent with what's already happened, instead of making up a whole new concept. We're lead to believe that Halo 3 was the ending to the series, but apparently with this supposed "Halo 4" it'll add more to the actual ending.

When Halo 4 comes out, I don't want to Chief to be like "Oh !@#$, there's another Gravemind in the next universe over." That's really milking it.

ah...a fellow follower of the mythos...

well as we all know Jorge is an S2, meaning hes the most battle hardened soldier in Noble, definatly considering they are S3. But one of the main differences between the two, despite the S3 being cheap knock-offs, is the S2's slower aging process. Or rather the fact that all the upgrades and enhancements mean that their bodies dont appear to age no where near as fast. Even though he was a swarthy mofo, his constant battle against the Insurrectionists and the Covenant wouldn't really leave much scars.

Another bit of food for thought is the SPARTAN-II wash-outs. The ones who didn't survive or came out of the augmentation process crippled. They weren't buried or cremated but cryogenically frozen, in hopes of future revival. According to halopedia 80% of them are in the process of revival by the events of halo 1 but the end results aren't seen in the games. So thats 42 potential S2s sitting in a cryo lab somewhere, 12 of which are only crippled. 42 extra S2s...now all you need is a valid enemy.

We shall see...^^

[Odeiux]

Isn't 343 working on the HD Remake? I'm sure that's the case, because 343 can't just pick up the Halo title in a single year and come out with a sequel to Halo 3. They would need a lot of time to work on it, maybe like 2-3 years.

[Pinkie Pie]

Hopefully this one will be more story and less LOL SHOOT EVERYTHING THIS IS SPARTA LOL! like the other ones. If there was a Halo game that was more cutscene heavy then I'd actually be somewhat interested in the series.

[Kasoivc]

ah...a fellow follower of the mythos...

well as we all know Jorge is an S2, meaning hes the most battle hardened soldier in Noble, definatly considering they are S3. But one of the main differences between the two, despite the S3 being cheap knock-offs, is the S2's slower aging process. Or rather the fact that all the upgrades and enhancements mean that their bodies dont appear to age no where near as fast. Even though he was a swarthy mofo, his constant battle against the Insurrectionists and the Covenant wouldn't really leave much scars.

Another bit of food for thought is the SPARTAN-II wash-outs. The ones who didn't survive or came out of the augmentation process crippled. They weren't buried or cremated but cryogenically frozen, in hopes of future revival. According to halopedia 80% of them are in the process of revival by the events of halo 1 but the end results aren't seen in the games. So thats 42 potential S2s sitting in a cryo lab somewhere, 12 of which are only crippled. 42 extra S2s...now all you need is a valid enemy.

We shall see...^^

That make much more sense now, I remember reading once somewhere that Jorge was a S2, but why didn't he have a higher ranking above Carter then? S2's were already dubbed superior to S3's anyways and I'm willing to be he obviously had far more combat experience than the rest of Noble Team.

@S2 Washouts, Ooh yeah, I remember that. I didn't realize majority of them were put into cryo for future revival, I just remember quite a few were put into desk jobs within ONI and I figured they weren't actually put on the battlefield.

Hopefully this one will be more story and less LOL SHOOT EVERYTHING THIS IS SPARTA LOL! like the other ones. If there was a Halo game that was more cutscene heavy then I'd actually be somewhat interested in the series.

Erm. 3 and Reach were quite cutscene heavy. I don't know where you got the "LOL SHOOT EVERYTHING" from because a lot of the games you can easily continue the story without even fighting during the enemy encounters, for the most part at least. Also the game series isn't the entire series; you sound like you obviously haven't bothered to look around and read the books/novels/comics.

[† Anras Rune]

That make much more sense now, I remember reading once somewhere that Jorge was a S2, but why didn't he have a higher ranking above Carter then? S2's were already dubbed superior to S3's anyways and I'm willing to be he obviously had far more combat experience than the rest of Noble Team.

@S2 Washouts, Ooh yeah, I remember that. I didn't realize majority of them were put into cryo for future revival, I just remember quite a few were put into desk jobs within ONI and I figured they weren't actually put on the battlefield.

Erm. 3 and Reach were quite cutscene heavy. I don't know where you got the "LOL SHOOT EVERYTHING" from because a lot of the games you can easily continue the story without even fighting during the enemy encounters, for the most part at least. Also the game series isn't the entire series; you sound like you obviously haven't bothered to look around and read the books/novels/comics.

The S2s were generally trained to be lone soldiers or work in small tight knit groups. Not to mention at the very beginning they were considered a high guarded secret, even among the military. Thus, high ranks weren't requiered as they weren't in as much contact with the common military as the S3s. The S3s were made to fight along side the normal soldiers and take control of troops along the way. To stop confusion in rank they were given much higher ranks than most soldiers, the lowest being Lieutenent. Jorge-052 was an S2 so he still has the Navy ranks, like Senior Cheif Petty Officer or Master Chief Petty Officer. It is the little details...

Also to teddi, as kas Lyung said, if thats youre opinion on the past 2 games fair dos but both were pretty heavy cutscened and had damn good plots. Especially Reach...

If you really like the series you should go out and look for the books or other medias...

[Kasoivc]

The S2s were generally trained to be lone soldiers or work in small tight knit groups. Not to mention at the very beginning they were considered a high guarded secret, even among the military. Thus, high ranks weren't requiered as they weren't in as much contact with the common military as the S3s. The S3s were made to fight along side the normal soldiers and take control of troops along the way. To stop confusion in rank they were given much higher ranks than most soldiers, the lowest being Lieutenent. Jorge-052 was an S2 so he still has the Navy ranks, like Senior Cheif Petty Officer or Master Chief Petty Officer. It is the little details...

Also to teddi, as kas Lyung said, if thats youre opinion on the past 2 games fair dos but both were pretty heavy cutscened and had damn good plots. Especially Reach...

If you really like the series you should go out and look for the books or other medias...

Ooh okay, I understand now. That explains the mission in which Noble Team split up and Six rallied nearby troops to retake Swordbase. I suppose that makes much more sense knowing that S3's were given high ranks right off the bat in order to command soldiers more easily.

[sgj]

It really isn't surprising considering IT IS halo but it should be cool to see what 343 does if they do anything different.

[Zypher42000]

i agree more story would be nice but to many cut sceans would kill it