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After watching a Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary presentation that recaps some of the recent news (3D functionality, Headlong returning as a multiplayer map, the upcoming Title Update forHalo: Reach), I directly ask franchise development director Frank O'Connor about Anniversary's Kinect functionality, and he responds:
"We accidentally revealed some of it because someone kept saying one of the keywords during another demonstration. So there will be some basic voice support -- for example you can switch between the two graphics modes with voice commands by saying 'Classic' or 'Remastered.' There is some other functionality that we haven't talked about that is not core to the gameplay per se, but it is germane to the story and fiction fans will probably really enjoy that feature -- and it's a little bit more advanced than just voice functionality. We'll talk about it later, sometime in October probably, but we don't want to oversell it. It's not something that radically changes the gameplay; it's just another additive bonus on top of the other stuff we've added. We think of it like the 3D: something that makes the experience better, but doesn't change it." Another interesting detail that I pick up from the meeting: you can only find Terminals (collectibles that provide more backstory/lore to the game, and will also serve as a teaser for Halo 4) while playing in Anniversary mode. While showing off a remastered Pillar of Autumn (recall that it's the opening to Halo's campaign) O'Connor points out that when you reach the bridge of the Pillar of Autumn, you might notice one of the unattended computers in the area has a flashing "incoming broadcast" message. Go right up to it, and you find out that it's a broadcast from the Halo itself to the ship (it's the video where 343 Guilty Spark initially tells all spacecraft to go away, until he realizes who you are and changes his mood to becoming a lot more welcoming). O'Connor adds, "We're not going to make them crazy Easter egg difficulty to find; it's a much more approachable. We want people to enjoy the story and get more out of the game. So we're making them fairly simple to find in the Regular difficulty -- they might be a bit harder to find on the other difficulties. But one of the ways to find them is to switch to Anniversary mode -- which in itself makes it a bit more than just an aesthetic switch to a real gameplay thing." In this example, even if you switch to Classic mode (where the computer looks like every other computer, with no handy flashing message to distinguish it) in front of it, you can't activate the Terminal. To round out the information from his quick demonstration with a few dates and numbers: the Title Update that will adds things like three-shot pistol, bloomless DMR, and tweaked Armor Lock to Halo Reach will go live on September 21. Beta hoppers for Anniversary multiplayer will go live around October 4 (O'Connor notes that the team will collect data, both anecdotally from players and literally from servers, and make further adjustments and fine-tuning based on said data). Anniversary comes out for $40 on November 15, and while Reach owners can simply buy the multiplayer maps as DLC (without buying the Anniversary product as a whole), pricing for said maps hasn't been finalized or revealed yet.
