Halo: Reach Firefight Preview

“

Bungie's designers give you some tip and tricks for taking on Firefight on Waterfront.

”

Halo: Reach Firefight Preview is a promotional video for Halo: Reach showcasing a Firefight match on Waterfront. It features commentary from Bungie staff members Lars Bakken, Sage Merrill, Josh Hamrick, and Mike Tipul. It was released on September 13, 2010.

Transcript

HALO: REACH

FIREFIGHT PREVIEW WITH BUNGIE DESIGNERS

• Lars Bakken: Hi, I'm Lars Bakken, senior designer at Bungie.

• Sage Merrill: Sage Merrill, senior sandbox designer.

• Josh Hamrick: Josh Hamrick, sandbox designer.

• Mike Tipul: Mike Tipul, mission designer.

• Lars Bakken: So today, we're going to play a little Firefight on Waterfront.

• Sage Merrill: Wow, it is really hard to talk and play.

• Josh Hamrick: I died just trying to listen to you, so...

• Mike Tipul: It's 'cause Heroic is legit these days.

• Sage Merrill: I'm dead.

• Lars Bakken: I remember looking at, like—going back to this particular area—I remember looking at this area pretty early on and thinking it's... when I first looked at this, this was one of the early maps, aside from Overlook, that I remember looking at in the campaign and saying, "This is going to be a really cool Firefight space." Because one thing that was completely different about this space from the others is that it actually... you get surrounded by the Covenant in this one, which I remember—I know Tipul and I talked about that way, way back in the day—and I remember... it just plays very different from the other maps, because you have an area that you're holding, but that area you're holding is completely surrounded. And when you look at the Covenant being dropped off, they actually drop off in 360 degrees around you, which is pretty cool.

• Mike Tipul: Yeah, when Cotton and I were making it, one of the encounters we were kind of going after was the mass encounter from Halo 1.

• Lars Bakken: Oh, awesome.

• Mike Tipul: Which was second mission of the game... like, right before you get the first Warthog.

• Lars Bakken: Where you have to defend the marines, right?

• Mike Tipul: Exactly. Like, and you can see a lot of the same kind of stuff in terms of, like, the geometry, the choke points, and that general feeling of, "Oh my God, we're surrounded, what are we going to do now?" Oh, the other crazy thing about this space is this entire mission takes place above the next mission, which is Tip of the Spear. So you can start seeing little references to Tip of the Spear in this mission, like this lake that we're on. If you were allowed to go to from one end of the lake to another, you would go over a waterfall that ends up outside the facility in Tip of the Spear. And then on the last space, the cliffside space, there's like a broken bridge that got wasted by the Covenant. It's right where you start on Tip of the Spear, like you can see the fallen rubble in front of you.

• Lars Bakken: That's awesome.

• Josh Hamrick: I didn't realize that either.

• Mike Tipul: Yeah, 'cause these missions used to be the same map. They used to be the same mission. So before we got a little bit crazy with Cotton and started making this mission bigger, it was all on the same geometry.

• Josh Hamrick: King of the crazy.

• Mike Tipul: Indeed.

• Sage Merrill: One thing I was thinking about when I'm shooting these guys... yeah, for a while I had made the majority of the Grunts...

• Lars Bakken: I think I know where you're going with this. I believe I entered a bug.

• Sage Merrill: Yes, Lars, you wentered the bug. So anyway, the artists had redone all the Grunts, and they looked awesome. I was going through and setting up the damage, and so I had set them up so that you had to blow off their little face masks before you can headshot them. Well, it turns out that was like 80% of them. And so, Lars entered the bug that was like, "Change them all so that they're one headshot." And I think I...

• Lars Bakken: I remember walking over to Sage and being like, "Hey man, this is like really not fun, 'cause the Grunts are very hard to take out now." And normally the Grunts were... they show up, they're fodder, they're really fun to fight. They can be really deadly if they show up with the correct weapons, like flak cannons, or if Catch is on, and all of a sudden we had turned them into this like, an actual challenge.

• Sage Merrill: Anyway, I resolved the bug, but I didn't... as you'll see when you play the game, I did not make them all...

• Lars Bakken: Correct.

• Sage Merrill: ...one headshot.

• Lars Bakken: And we talked about that, which is good. I mean, I am actually really happy with what we ended up doing. I'm getting screwed over here on this building, by the way. Anyone have a drop shield? I don't know what's shooting at me, but something with concussion, maybe. Oh no, it was a Phantom.

• Josh Hamrick: Oh, why don't we talk about the Phantom gun, Sage?

• Mike Tipul: Yeah, talk about the Phantom gun.

• Josh Hamrick: The guns of doom.

• Sage Merrill: I was just like, "Man, this thing needs to be a little bit beefier." And you know, again with the... I mean, it's always surprising how big of a difference in the feel of the game... from the designer, you think, "Oh, it's all, you know, the actual damage that does, whatever." No, actually that has very little to do with it. It's the effects and audio make such a big difference in the perception of danger that... even not changing the actual damage, but having new effects in audio, everyone freaked out. You know, they're like, "What happened to the—" and I'm like, "Well, it's a giant dropship, you should be scared of it. Run away."

• Lars Bakken: I... Yeah.

• Sage Merrill: ...and so you know, I mean, there was some agreement, but I probably put it in a little bit too strong...

• Josh Hamrick: "A little bit"—

• Lars Bakken: Actually, no, no. I actually will go down on record saying I think it's fucking awesome, because...

• Josh Hamrick: It is for sure.

• Lars Bakken: The dropships now suppress you, and, yeah, you're scared when they show up. You're like, "Okay, I should be... not on this roof right now, because I am scared about what this thing is going to do to me."

• Sage Merrill: Right, you're scared, you move, you know, you move away. They suppress you some, but they also don't instantly kill you, like it felt like they were doing before. Can someone kill that sniper?

• Mike Tipul: Yeah, and if anyone wonders where I got the idea for the Legendary snipers on this encounter, it's Firefight.

• Lars Bakken: Nice.

• Mike Tipul: I saw these guys in here last minute. I'm like, "Oh my God, that's evil. I'm totally putting them in."

• Josh Hamrick: Awesome. And then Tipul called me over and didn't tell me what was happening, just to get me to scream like a girl. Like, it had to be like one in the morning. It was the scariest thing ever. I was like, "What? There's nobody in here," and then I started getting fried.

• Lars Bakken: Yeah, well, originally those snipers up on the cliff, actually...

• Josh Hamrick: There's a Hunter standing right behind me.

• Lars Bakken: They had needle rifles, and I remember people being like, "What the fuck is going on? I'm getting hit and I don't—" and I'm like, "You know, what will solve that? It's giving them focus rifles."

• Josh Hamrick: Help.

• Lars Bakken: Oh, there's a lot of dudes in that room with you.

• Josh Hamrick: Thank you, Tipul!

• Mike Tipul: Right on.

• Lars Bakken: Oh god.

• Sage Merrill: Oh, I'm so going to get killed.

• Josh Hamrick: Oh! Oh, yeah. My bad.

• Lars Bakken: What are you doing over there?

• Sage Merrill: Getting killed. Is that what I just said?

• Lars Bakken: So, we hope you guys enjoyed watching us play horribly. Sorry we're a little bit rusty, but...

• Josh Hamrick: Don't judge us.

• Lars Bakken: ...some insights, I think...

• Josh Hamrick: Some fun facts, some insights, some how-to...

• Sage Merrill: A few things we covered. But yeah, the game obviously coming out soon. We're all super excited.

• Lars Bakken: Yeah, I can't wait to play it online with you guys.

• Josh Hamrick: Absolutely.

• Mike Tipul: See you on the fourteenth.