Halo 3: ODST -- Everything We Know So Far

Get up to date with all things ODST.

April 10, 2009 - Though we finished the fight in Halo 3 and Bungie officially split from Microsoft back in 2007, the saga of Halo is far from over. Bungie is once again turning to the sci-fi universe that made Master Chief a household name to deliver Halo 3: ODST. Since its formal announcement at the Tokyo Game Show in 2008, there has been much speculation, fanboy tears of joy/infinite sadness, and message board discussion. What there hasn't been is a whole lot of concrete information. That's why we've gathered everything we know so far and collected it in one place. Now you can get up to speed on all things ODST before the major marketing push kicks into full gear later this year. First, the vitals:

What's In a Name?
It's no exaggeration to say that Halo 3: ODST stumbled out of the gates. The first public teasing of its existence came during the Electronic Entertainment Expo in July of 2008. Bungie's official website began displaying a teaser that asked visitors to remain calm. In the lower corner sat a countdown clock. Before the timer could reach zero, though, the countdown was aborted and Bungie shortly thereafter posted an apology with the promise to unveil the new project at the "right time."

That time turned out to be the Tokyo Game Show. After another countdown on Bungie's webpage in late September -- this time allowed to reach its conclusion -- the first teaser trailer was released. Dubbed "Keep it Clean," this brief video let us know the game would be related to Halo 3 and little else. The juicy details wouldn't be revealed until the formal announcement a short while later.

Click here to watch the Keep it Clean trailer.

In early October 2008, Bungie and Microsoft finally offered some concrete facts on its next first-person Halo game. The name was Halo 3: Recon and it would be a full, retail disc expansion to Halo 3. The name, along with the press release stating that the game would "require players to employ more elements of stealth and cunning than ever before" quickly led to confusion and misinformation. It wasn't long before Microsoft did an about face and changed the official name to Halo 3: ODST in an effort to focus the attention on the game's new hero.

Wait, What's an ODST?
The acronym ODST stands for "Orbital Drop Shock Trooper." Any fan of the Halo lore -- or anybody that has been playing the recently released Halo Wars -- will instantly recognize these hardened United Nations Space Command special forces, sometimes lovingly referred to as "Helljumpers." They excel at unconventional warfare such as counter-terrorism and personnel recovery, and as their name implies, they oftentimes drop into battle from the sky. The preferred mode of transportation? The Single Occupant Exoatmospheric Insertion Vehicle. These little pods -- which almost look like falling meteors as seen in the Halo 3: ODST trailers -- allow them to be deployed to sections of the battlefield unreachable by normal means.

Though each ODST might not be the equal of a Spartan like the Master Chief, they are no slouches. Each ODST is already a veteran of another Spec-ops unit and they generally operate as members of a small combat team.

They're also the stars of Halo 3: ODST.

Master Chief won't be the hero leaping into battle and deploying a bubble shield just in time to avert total annihaliation in ODST. Cortana will not be at your beck and call. You won't have the luxury of the Spartan II MJOLNIR armor.

(If you'd like to catch up on more of what it means to be an ODST, head over to Bungie's ODST profile.)

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/970/970595p1.html

Similar But Different
Though you won't fill the shoes of Master Chief, don't expect the gameplay to be radically different from that of Halo 3. That, however, doesn't mean ODST will play exactly like Halo 3.

You play as a character that has been referred to by Bungie as "the Rookie", and though there are a few as of yet undisclosed, "notable and interesting differences," in the way ODST controls, the studio has promised that it isn't, "reinventing the way your thumbs have been trained…ODST is, after all, still Halo at heart." Contrary to speculation and rumor, this will not be a stealth game, though Bungie has told IGN it will have "some stealth elements."

Click here to watch the extended Tokyo Game Show trailer.
The few gameplay changes you'll have to get used to appear to revolve around the fact that, as one Bungie employee put it to another during a playtest, "You're not a Spartan, dumbass." ODST's aren't as tough as Spartans, so the player will take more damage than he is used to when running head first into a firefight. During that same update, Bungie revealed that ODST has a new health model and that the campaign levels have a "hub and spoke" level design that is different from what players are used to.

Perhaps the most tangible change to the way ODST will play is the retooled SMG. This weapon, which first appeared in Halo 2, hasn't exactly been a favorite for players. It has a moderate effectiveness when used in conjunction with plasma weapons, but alone it isn't worth holding. That might change with ODST.

The SMG now has a silencer on the end and reportedly is more accurate than ever. It is still said to be most effective in close range spray-and-pray scenarios, but with the improvements it will be more effective in mid-range battles than ever before.

Bungie has also stated that, "there are no Elites to fight in Halo 3: ODST." The primary enemy will instead be the Brutes. This move is deliberate and reflects the timeframe and location in which ODST plays out. This game takes place at the same point in the Halo history as the events of Halo 2 and tells some of the story you didn't see by following Master Chief and the Arbiter.

Halo 3: ODST is set in New Mombassa, a city on Earth devastated -- but not fully destroyed -- by a Covenant attack. You may remember Master Chief's exploits in clearing the city of Covenant forces in Halo 2. Unfortunately for New Mombassa, when the Prophet of Regret made a hasty retreat, the slipstream jump created a vortex which destroyed most of the city. The battle for the control of New Mombassa doesn't end there, though, which is where the ODSTs in this expansion come into play. You'll take the role of the Rookie in a fight through and under the war-torn streets.

And since it is Halo at heart and you're playing as the type of soldier that prefers to travel in groups, it's only natural that you'll start as a member of a small squad. According to the 2008 Holiday Buying Guide from Game Informer, the squad mates shown in a cutscene aboard the orbiting ship before the initial drop are named Mickey, Dutch, Romeo, and Buck. Romeo is "kind of a dick" and is the sniper of the group. Dutch, meanwhile, is your average leviathan toting heavy weapons. The squad leader is voiced by Nathan Fillion, best known for his role in the TV series Firefly. Halo fans will recognize him as the voice of Sgt. Reynolds in Halo 3. Whether this squad leader and Reynolds are one and the same is unknown.

Which of the original squad mates (if any) will be taken control of by your co-op friends hasn't been revealed.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/970/970595p2.html

More interesting, perhaps, is the question of how the promised four-player campaign co-op will work given the description by Game Informer of the game's opening. As the article describes it, upon dropping into battle at the start of the game -- a sequence that Bungie has described as, "the most spectacular cinematic event in any Halo game to date" -- you hit hard and go unconscious for six hours. Once recovered, the search for your squad mates begins. Their story will be pieced together through playable flashbacks. Though the Rookie doesn't have an AI construct with him at all times like Cortana, there will be an artificial intelligence presence in ODST. Dubbed the Superintendent, this construct exists inside the ubran infrastructure on New Mombassa. He has been featured prominently in the teaser trailers, but his exact role in ODST is unknown at this time.

How Much?
The choice to label Halo 3: ODST as an expansion brought several assumptions from most gamers. Expansions are generally shorter than most games and aren't priced as expensively as full releases. Both of these assumptions appear to be good ones.

PR director for Bungie Brian Jarrard told Game Informer, "We don't know what the price will ultimately be. That's not something we'd be the final deciders of, but the spirit of this project is certainly an expansion of a smaller scope." Creative director Joe Staten backed up that statement by saying, "We do not view this as a $60 title, and not in a bad way. It's a great value pack thing that we want to do. We're going to make it worth a lot -- we just don't want to charge a lot for it."

Of course, as we've seen in the past, wanting to charge less doesn't always sit well with Microsoft, the publisher of these games. As of now, we still have no set price for Halo 3: ODST.

As far as the length of the expansion, the Halo 3: ODST design director told Game Informer, "When we were thinking about the Chief or the Arbiter stories that we could tell, there was just no story that fit into a three to five-hour expansion pack, which is what we're building here." This set off something of a fervor on the 'net and Bungie soon clarified those statements by saying:

Honestly it's impossible to really quantify this. Even with Halo 3 an individual's play time can vary dramatically based on difficulty level, modifiers like skulls, and whether or not it's played individually, cooperatively, or within the multiplayer portions of the game, which can amount to near infinite play time. While it's true that we view Halo 3: Recon as an extension to the Halo 3 game experience, it's too early to settle on a specific number of hours of gameplay.

First of all, while Halo 3: Recon did originate with the goal of building a 3 to 5 hour campaign experience, I can safely say that as is always the case with Bungie, the team is continuing to put more and more into it and the final product will end up being some order of magnitude more than the initial design. Game Informer also touches on the new structure to the campaign experience and how there are basically two separate components to the campaign. The initial play time targets were focused on one of those components. And lastly, there are still plenty of things we're not talking about with Recon that will further enhance and add to the experience, play time, and replayability of the final package.

Regardless of how long it ultimately takes you to make it through the Halo 3: ODST campaign, Game Informer was told that the disc will offer 1,000 new achievement points and that all of them are tied to the campaign.

Stop Bugging Bungie for Recon Armor
The adversarial multiplayer is shaping up to be exactly what you've come to know and love (or hate or lack feelings towards) about Halo 3. The reason? It hasn't changed one iota. The online matches will be the same as Halo 3 as will the modes and playlists. Think of the Halo 3: ODST adversarial multiplayer component as an all-in-one map disc that collects everything from Halo 3 in one place… plus adds a little more. All of the Halo 3 maps, as well as all of the maps that have been offered through download, plus three new previously unavailable maps will be included on the ODST disc.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/970/970595p3.html

Nice, thanks for the info. I am very excited for this title and hope it lives up to the Halo name......:)

And, of course, all of the social features from Halo 3 will return as well, including saved games and screenshots, the Forge level editor, stat tracking, and the campaign scoring meta-game. Though we haven't heard direct confirmation as to whether all of your Halo 3 stats and rankings will simply carry over, it seems likely at this point. We also haven't heard any word on if the previously mentioned tweaked SMG will find its way into any of the new maps or Forge options. Cross your fingers.

For the hardcore, the major new addition for the online multiplayer game is that Halo 3: ODST will finally offer everyone the opportunity to earn their own set of the coveted Recon Armor. Currently only available to Bungie employees and the few they decide to dole it out to, the Recon Armor has become something of a unicorn. To get your own set, you'll have to start unlocking all of the Vidmaster achievements that have been added to Halo 3 through recent updates. Once you complete all of them -- including the ones added with the newly released Mythic Map Pack and the ones unlocked when Halo 3: ODST hits store shelves -- you will gain access to the Recon armor.

The Future
But is this the end of Halo 3? In a recent interview with IGN, Bungie's Brian Jarrard said that the group is, "viewing the ODST campaign and the included multiplayer maps as the final exclamation point in our ongoing efforts to extend the Halo 3 experience." The new multiplayer maps, it seems, will end here.

The Mythic Map Pack is out...and one of the last.
Though some comments by Bungie producer Allen Murray at the Game Developers Conference seemed to imply that the studio would be working on more, that misinterpretation has since been cleared up. There are currently no plans for more Halo 3 maps or campaign expansions after Halo 3: ODST releases this fall, though the team will continue to support the community by managing playlists, banning cheaters, and fixing any new exploits that may be discovered.

If the thought of new content drying up for Halo 3 has you all teary-eyed, we recommend keeping your chin up. You can always create your own new maps using the Forge. And Microsoft is most definitely not done with the Halo universe just yet. The recent success of Halo Wars proves that fans brought in by Master Chief aren't afraid to tackle different genres or play games made by developers that aren't Bungie. There's always the long-awaited game in the Halo universe that Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings fame is supposedly working on. That one was announced back in 2006 with little more than rumors coming since. And there's always the potential that a non-Bungie developer will make Halo 4. Microsoft, after all, has been hiring an internal Halo team that will reportedly work on new games in the franchise.

Though that might be getting a bit ahead of ourselves. There's still Halo 3: ODST and you can bet we'll be hearing a lot more about it once a little show called E3 kicks off in early June.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/970/970595p4.html

This will be HUGE.

If you haven't watched this video in a while, you should. You will notice that throughout the movie, you can see the ODST badging on structures and soldiers. Kind of cool if this is an insight into ODST operations.

This is the 7 minute Neil Blomkamp short, btw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOvvKegdhRE