Sam Reimer / Jul 30th, 2012

At E3 this year 343 industries came out strong with Halo 4, we learnt about the new multiplayer as well as seeing some gameplay from the campaign. Halo 4 sets the return of Master Chief and Cortana just over four years after we left them in Halo 3. If you have never played a Halo game before Halo 4 will encapsulate everything you need to know, including why we’re still fighting the Covenant now that the war is over.

The video below shows us a few new features that are coming in Halo 4, including new enemies, new weapons and Promethean Vision. The ability to sprint is no longer an amour ability; it comes standard for everyone. Instead, amour abilities will include: Jet pack, Hologram and Active Camo and Promethean Vision, which is similar to the ODST visor; your screen will go a slight grey and enemies will light up bright orange and show through cover.

To be honest, there are so many new features coming in Halo 4 that it’s a bit overwhelming. The main thing is that it still looks like Halo though.

The ever popular Forge mode has been given a full rebuild to include features such as player trait zones, which is an area that you can set attributes like gravity, health effects and speed amongst other things that will only affect a player within the area. It also has had magnetic snapping included to make building things like bridges even easier and the ability to lock and unlock objects so you don’t accidently move them. This all means that Forge will be a lot easier to use and better all round.

Climbing on board the UNSC Infinity, we take a look at the multiplayer aspects. Microsoft has confirmed that in order to play the Halo 4 multiplayer you will need either 8gb of free memory on your console or a correctly configured flash drive. One main reason for this would be the inclusion of Spartan Ops which is an episodic co-op campaign that is set aside from the main campaign. It is set six months after the events of the main campaign and new episodes will release weekly.

Both versions of the multiplayer provide you with Spartan points which go towards upgrading your Spartan, by unlocking different armour and also weapons and equipment for load outs. Instead of starting each match with the same load out like you usually would in previous titles, you have the ability to customise your own after you have unlocked weapons and equipment. Low levels need not fear as they are given load outs with higher ranking weapons and equipment to starting players as well in order to balance out the playing field. Very similar to the load out system in games such as Call of Duty.

The series will revolve around our beloved Master Chief and a young UNSC cadet who he inspired to later became a leader aboard the UNSC Infinity. It will be available to watch on Machinima Prime and Halo Waypoint.

As with most of the other Halo titles, Halo 4 brings a limited edition console for those willing to spend the money. The Halo 4 console includes an exclusive design and sounds, two custom wireless controllers with blue LED lights, custom in game content and the game itself. It can be found at Amazon for $399.99.

tags: halo , preview