User:JackVibe/Sandbox

• Jason Sussman: I'm Jason Sussman, I'm the architect on Breakpoint. It's one of the maps you'll be playing in the Noble Map Pack.

• Ray Broscovak: And my name is Ray Broscovak, I was one of the two finishing artists on the space. I was responsible for terrain, snow, rock, that wonderful stuff.

• Matt Bennier: Uh, I'm Matt Bennier, I was also a finishing artist on this level. I worked on a lot of the structures and buildings that you find throughout the space, such as the lab and the Hub. And for the most part, I just pretended to contribute to the team.

• Derek Caroll: I'm Derek, I'm a designer. This is Breakpoint. It's really big, it's really snowy.

• Jason Sussman: Avalanche 2: Electric Boogaloo.

• Derek Caroll: Oh yeah, this is Jason. Did Jason introduce himself? Jason Sussman, the man who invented Avalanche.

• Jason Sussman: That's right. That's right, suckers.

• Derek Caroll: Well, if you liked *Avalanche*, you'll love Breakpoint because it's unlike it in just about every way.

• Matt Bennier: The snow—

• Derek Caroll: It is snowy, though.

• Matt Bennier: It's *Avalanche* sans man cannons.

• Jason Sussman: I'm going to go on record and say that Mike Buelterman made Avalanche, finally, after all these years.

• Derek Caroll: All right, so Breakpoint is definitely the largest map in the Noble Map Pack. It's designed primarily for the Invasion game type but will also be used in Big Team Battle.

• Jason Sussman: One of the challenges on these maps, just having them be as large as they are, is that you get a lot of, uh, viewpoints where you're looking back across a map. And so we're—we're constantly having to balance memory and budgets to give it the same level of fidelity that you get on a smaller map.

• Matt Bennier: I think especially like, when you have architectural elements like buildings on a large map, it becomes even more of a problem, 'cause terrain only has to be so detailed, when you see like a human-scale building, you expect there to be a certain level of detail.

• Ray Broscovak: In other words, I got the easy job.

• Jason Sussman: No... oh, basically the weight of the—of the visual look of the entire level kind of rested on Ray's shoulders as far as the terrain goes.

• Matt Bennier: Absolutely, the terrain is definitely the hero of this map.

• Derek Caroll: Yeah, and from a high-level design goal was to make this an Invasion map that is big enough for Invasion, but that we use more of the space so there's some cool circuits through it for vehicle combat.

• Jason Sussman: Yeah, we definitely wanted to make—make it where you could still drive around, have fun, and actually have enough space that you don't feel like you're getting cramped or you're running into anything that's going to slow you down.

• Derek Caroll: There are plenty of vehicles. The Elites get Ghosts and Wraiths with a Banshee in the third phase, while the Spartans get the Falcon as well as a Rocket Hog and a standard Warthog. The Rocket Hog makes its triumphant matchmaking debut in Invasion. It's been in Forge World, but it's just too much fun.

• Ray Broscovak: Yeah, actually out of all the like large-scale, big team style, uh, maps, I think this one's my favorite for aerial combat between like the, uh, the Banshee and the Falcon, definitely.

• Derek Caroll: All right, so in Breakpoint, the Elites are trying to basically get at the UNSC science installation. Spartans don't want that to happen, of course.

• Matt Bennier: I think it's also the first time we've seen like UNSC really tapping into the Forerunner stuff. As far as fiction and stuff like that, you've never really seen any kind of like UNSC this close to the Forerunner except for like the ONI buildings and whatnot.

• Jason Sussman: Also fictionally, this is—this is all tied into the ONI base. This is basically like another—it's basically a Site B to that. This is where they, uh, siphon the beautiful science out of the, uh, Forerunner structure.

• Derek Caroll: Yeah, that's one thing I really like this project is how we made science into a noun.

• Matt Bennier: Exactly. He's now stealing science.

• Ray Broscovak: It always was a noun.

• Derek Caroll: It's a concrete noun now. Yes, it's something you can carry.

• Jason Sussman: Well, everyone loves science, but this is science in suitcase form.

• Matt Bennier: That's right, yes, we've packaged science. Yep.

• Derek Caroll: Shows that the humans had—and they're hiding contact with the Forerunner stuff much more than we thought.

• Matt Bennier: They're hiding the Forerunner really well as it hangs out over the side of a mountain.

• Jason Sussman: Well, that was revealed by the glassing beams, silly.

• Derek Caroll: That's right, glassing beams. How did this Forerunner structure get trapped in the mountain?

• Jason Sussman: I think we decided that they accidentally teleport into the world.

• Matt Bennier: Hey, Forerunner stuff's mysterious. That's how they travel. They're just like constantly teleporting around, they just like sometimes end up inside of a planet.

• Derek Caroll: That is just speculation. This is not canon, this is speculation.

• Jason Sussman: That's canon. In fact, nothing in this playthrough is canon. Out, they're like, "Oh, this is on Reach. It's on Reach, come on! It's a part the Covenant didn't find."

• Matt Bennier: Well, they just found it. They're here now.

• Ray Broscovak: They're here now, they just found it in the DLC pack, jerks.

• Derek Caroll: From Matt, Ray, Jason, and myself, that was Breakpoint. Noble Map Pack drops November 30th on Xbox Live. Go get it.

• Jason Sussman: Thanks, hope you guys enjoy it.