Halo 4 – First Details on Story, Innovation and More

Halo 4 has finally had some info revealed and I can tell you one thing. I’m already excited. Instead of rewriting all the info about the single player portion of info we reported on at Only SP I will quote here and then focus on the other bits of info, which is quite a lot. So get ready to get excited Xbox owners, you have a reason to play your Xbox’s again this winter!

Over at Gamerlive, the first in-game screenshots of Halo 4 have been leaked online, showcasing Master Chief in his all-new armor.

Previously seen in CGI form in Halo 4’s debut trailer at E3, the redesigned armor looks amazing with the all-new graphics from 343 Industries, which have been touted as being built from the ground up.

However, things aren’t looking so good on the environment side. At TheSixthAxis, a screenshot has leaked showing what appears to be an in-game corridor plagued with sub-par textures and jaggy edges. However, the image looks pretty low-res, so it’s probably not a proper screen grab and keep in mind that this is from the ALPHA code.

A couple of videos have made their way to us as well. Kyle Bailey has posted the Making Halo 4 video, in which the development team speaks freely about the development of Halo 4′s characters and story, and shows off some gameplay clips from the multiplayer modes. At Gamereactor, GRTV’s Gillen McAllister sits down with Frank Conner for a thirteen minute interview on Halo, the mythos, and what’s in store.

Over at Msxbox-world, a slew of details were given behind closed doors by Frank Connor and crew. 343 is looking to stay true to the past Halo games made by Bungie, but have a strong desire to innovate on the franchise and call it their own. In basic 343 sees Halo 4 as a reboot of the series and in doing so they want to take risks to present their own vision for Halo and their new trilogy.

The new trilogy will expand over the next decade with a team of over 200 dedicated developers behind the helm. Halo 4 will continue the story directly after the original trilogy and as expected, follow Master Chief and what happens to him next. As we saw in the E3 2011 teaser, the Chief’s armor has been redesigned to really give him that “super soldier” feel.

What’s really important about Halo though is the story and with Halo 4, 343 is looking to increase the lore in the series and have a stronger focus on character interaction and development. Cortana and the Master Chief will have more of a character behind them this time around as 343 wants to make a deeper and darker story. A problem with previous installments in the Halo series involving the story, was that it was in a way, hard for players to follow, but 343 is looking to fix this and make the story accessible to newcomers and veteran players. 343 has complete control over where the story goes so it will be interesting to see what they do with the new threat at hand.

Finally we have the development team expressing  their love for the project. As mentioned in Nick Calandra’s post, 343’s Corrine Yu pridefully claimed that Halo 4 is the best looking game on the Xbox 360. And according to OXM, 343’s Frank Connor has stated that work on Halo 4 is pushing the Xbox 360 to the limit:

“We’re out of space, we’re out of horsepower, we’re out of everything,” he told us [OXM] at Microsoft’s Spring Showcase event in San Francisco. “If you’re doing your best work that machine should be exhausted when you’re done, and we’re getting there.”

“I think the clever thing to do is make your trade-offs early and then go over what you intend to do, and that’s where we are now.”

[Only SP]

Check out the next post on Halo 4 for all the details on the multiplayer side of things.