Halo 4

"Wake up, John."

- Official tagline

Halo 4 is the seventh installment in the bestselling Halo franchise for the Xbox 360. A teaser trailer shown at Microsoft's E3 Media Briefing on June 6th, 2011 confirmed that Halo 4 is to be the first installment in a new trilogy of games, which was identified as the Reclaimer Trilogy during Halo Fest at PAX Prime 2011.

Plot
"Set in the aftermath of Halo 3, Master Chief returns to confront his own destiny and face an ancient evil that threatens the fate of the entire universe. Halo 4 marks the start of a new trilogy that begins with its release in 2012."

- Official summary

Halo 4 marks the return of John-117 as a playable protagonist after three Halo games focusing on different sets of characters. Having been lost in space for five years after the finale of Halo 3, John-117 and Cortana, adrift aboard the wreckage of the UNSC frigate Forward Unto Dawn, find themselves near Requiem, the Forerunner Dyson sphere first seen in the Legendary ending of Halo 3.

The story of Halo 4 will be heavily focused on mystery, exploration and discovery, and has been described as being grand in scope and scale. Forerunner elements will be featured extensively. It has also been suggested that the game will reveal how humanity and the UNSC have adapted to the post-war world, particularly how they have co-opted Forerunner technology. The Covenant Empire returns in the game, with the supposed Sangheili allies and their former Unggoy subordinates, turned enemies, have banded together and engage with John-117 in combat. However, the Covenant are taking a backseat to an entirely new antagonist, which has been said to be a "threat beyond anything that Master Chief has faced before."

Beginning approximately on July 20th, 2557, four years and seven months after the armistice ending the Human-Covenant War, a prologue cinematic will educate new players and refresh fans on the events leading up to the the present day. Cortana, laying silent for years, notices that the ship's intruder alarms have activated and attempts to wake John-117 from cryo-sleep. Cortana notifies him that in his sleep, she rewrote the firmware of his MJOLNIR Mark VI armor, upgrading the HUD, armor capabilities, while giving a new overall appearance. With the intruders spreading to multiple decks, John slips Cortana's chip back into his neural interface and upon opening a sealed hatch, unpressurized rooms rip him from the deck and send him into vacuum. After climbing up an elevator shaft, suddenly, a Sangheili swordsman comes charging at the Spartan supersoldier. After a brief close quarters engagement with the soldier, he kicks him down the shaft to his death. John questions the AI construct on why his once formidable allies have attacked them to which she has no answer for. After fighting the Sangheili and their "repatriated" Unggoy subordinates, John makes his way to the aft observation deck, viewing a large Covenant fleet surrounding the Forward Unto Dawn while multiple boarding craft dock with the heavily damaged frigate. Shortly after, John and Cortana make a crash landing on the Forerunner Dyson sphere later to be known as Requiem.

Unlike the original trilogy, the story has been designed to be part of a three-game arc from the beginning. In addition, 343 Industries strives for more complete connectivity among all of their future media than before; therefore, the Forerunner Saga novels Cryptum and Primordium, the Kilo-Five Trilogy novel Glasslands and its sequel The Thursday War, and the terminals in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, will "definitely" have "resonant connections" to Halo 4's story.

Characters

 * Cortana
 * John-117

Equipment

 * MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor
 * Upgraded Mark VI
 * Unidentified light variant

Locations

 * Requiem
 * Unidentified Forerunner solar energy facility
 * Unidentified gas giant
 * Civilian orbital manufacturing facility

Organizations

 * Covenant Empire
 * Misriah Armory
 * Sangheilian Armed Forces
 * United Nations Space Command
 * UNSC Marine Corps
 * UNSC Navy
 * Naval Special Warfare Command
 * SPARTAN-II Program
 * Office of Naval Intelligence
 * SPARTAN-IV Program

Species

 * Human
 * Kig-yar
 * Sangheili
 * Unggoy

Vehicles

 * Cyclops Mark II
 * M12 Force Application Vehicle
 * M831 Troop Transport
 * Type-26 Ground Support Aircraft
 * Unidentified Covenant boarding craft
 * Type-26 Ground Support Aircraft
 * Unidentified Covenant boarding craft
 * Unidentified Covenant boarding craft

Weapons

 * BR85 Heavy Barrel Service Rifle
 * Type-1 Energy Weapon/Sword
 * Type-25 Directed Energy Pistol
 * Type-51 Carbine
 * Unidentified/undesignated weapons
 * Assault carbine
 * Designated Marksman Rifle variant
 * High explosive weapon
 * MA5 Individual Combat Weapon System variant
 * M6 Personal Defense Weapon System variant
 * UNSC rocket launcher variant
 * UNSC shotgun variant
 * UNSC sniper rifle variant

Gameplay and design
Halo 4 is being developed for the Xbox 360 console. The game's creative team, which comprises nearly 200 individuals who have been developing the game for nearly two years, is led by creative director Josh Holmes. The game will continue the Halo series' tradition of inspiring wonder in the player while providing engaging, visceral gameplay. The game will utilize much of the "sandbox" that has been featured across all six prior Halo games and other media, in addition to introducing new characters, weapons, vehicles, and other elements. The game's "sandbox" and overall style are meant to be evocative of Halo: Combat Evolved moreso than of later installments.

John-117's experience and the player's experience are meant to be intertwined, with the Master Chief essentially serving as the player's avatar within the Halo universe. John's character will also be explored and developed in more depth than in the prior games, and the relationship between John and Cortana will be heavily featured and greatly expanded.

The art director for Halo 4 is Kenneth Scott. He described the visual style of Halo 4 as being more ingrained in the expanded universe fiction, and more "mature" than before. With the game's increased focus on the Forerunners, the artists have invested heavily on the look and feel of Forerunner technology. It has also been stated that there will be more diversity to Forerunner structures, including fully active Forerunner technology as opposed to the mostly inert and abandoned structures seen in the earlier games.

With the increased focus on the character of Master Chief, the Halo 4 art team has redesigned his MJOLNIR armor from the ground up. The first look into the redefined armor, which differs considerably from the suit seen in Halo 3, was seen in the announcement trailer, generating a considerable amount of confusion and speculation among fans. 343 Industries later stated that the design seen in the trailer was not the final version. The final iteration was later seen alongside the first Halo 4 gameplay reveal following Microsoft Spring Showcase 2012. It has been stated that the changes in the design are mostly cosmetic and were made with the intent of giving the suit a more functional look in order to suit the new art direction of the game. It has been stated that there will be a "fictional reason" for the difference as well, although this explanation will not be as extensive as the transition from the Mark V to the Mark VI generation in Halo 2.

Audio
Sotaro Tojima, best known for his work on Konami's Castlevania: Circle of the Moon and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, serves as Halo 4's audio director. The team has performed many live audio recording sessions, several of which occurred in Tasmania, Australia. Some of these recording sessions have taken place in generally inhospitable environments, such as underwater, in fire, and in ice, through the use of specially designed microphones; other recording sessions have utilized "home made" explosives. Tojima intends for the game's audio to be clearly grounded in the Halo universe, though to also have a more realistic quality than in past titles. A video was released on February 23rd depicting 343i recording weapon and explosion audio alongside the U.S. Army Special Forces. Weapons such as the M4 carbine, M240 general purpose machine gun, M107 sniper rifle, M2 heavy machine gun, and the M72 rocket launcher were used in the recording.

The composer for Halo 4 is yet to be announced. It has been stated that the music will be taken into a different direction than Martin O'Donnell's work in the previous Halo titles, while being grounded in the Halo universe.

Multiplayer
Multiplayer for Halo 4 is also meant to be tied to the Halo series fiction. Known as "Infinity," players will take control of SPARTAN-IV supersoldiers performing adversarial combat training aboard the advanced warship, UNSC Infinity. However, due to the emphasis on the SPARTAN-IV commandos, players will not have the option to use Sangheili soldiers for their multiplayer character.

343 Industries is aiming to provide a "brand new experience" in Halo 4 multiplayer. This includes a reworking of the series' traditional balance system. For example, the class progression system will be more extensive; unlike in the prior games where multiplayer armor permutations were simply aesthetic, in Halo 4 custom armor will have an effect on gameplay. Players will also be able to customize their loadouts. It has also been stated that multiplayer gameplay will be "much more fast-paced, more intense and visceral" than in the prior games. Weapon pickups on maps will also be marked on the player's heads-up display.

Spartan Ops
Replacing the Firefight gameplay introduced in ODST and expanded-on in Reach is a secondary campaign experience called "Spartan Ops." Much like traditional campaign cooperative play, Spartan Ops will allow friends to create a team of up to four players to participate in weekly objective-based episodic missions. Missions will intertwine directly with events in the main Halo 4 campaign, expanding on the story of the UNSC Infinity and her crew. Compared to a season of a television program, each "episode" of Spartan Ops will feature cinematics and five playable missions complete with new events, characters, locations, and gameplay challenges. 343 Industries will be supporting additional Spartan Ops missions for months after launch of the game and unlike Reach challenges, players will have the opportunity to play from the beginning of the episodic campaign regardless of when they started playing.

Multiplayer maps
Unlike Halo: Reach, where the original multiplayer maps were shared in the campaign as gameplay spaces, all multiplayer maps in Halo 4 will be purpose-built for multiplayer alone much like in the first three Halo games.


 * Warhouse
 * Wraparound

Announcement trailer
Released during Microsoft's E3 2011 media briefing, the trailer depicts Cortana awakening John-117 from cryo sleep on the wreckage of Forward Unto Dawn, followed by John securing Cortana's storage chip and rushing through the wreckage to witness the ship being pulled into an enormous opening on the surface of a mysterious planet.

Director's cut
This version of the Awakening trailer, which was released during GamesCom 2011, features a few changes from the original version. The background melody is different from original video, and continues until the end of the trailer. When John reaches the holotank, he does not speak to Cortana. Near the end of the trailer, he throws away his weapon rather than reloading it.

Concept Art Glimpse
A video presenting several pieces of concept art was initially presented at Halo Fest and was subsequently released on Halo Waypoint. The trailer presents concept art of an Earth-like alien world, several location drafts which feature buildings and ships that follow the Forerunners' style of architecture and design, concepts of the Forward Unto Dawn 's wreckage, and some concepts of the unidentified planet. Two of these images were repurposed as the cover art for Halo: Cryptum and Halo: Primordium.

Gameplay reveal
This video revealed the first in-game footage of Halo 4 along with various gameplay elements. The video shows the most recent design of John-117's MJOLNIR armor; it also reveals the game's battle rifle, which resembles the BR55HB Service Rifle, albeit with significant aesthetic changes. The video goes on to show various clips of multiplayer with new elements revealed. Two multiplayer maps are revealed along with the first visual appearance of the SPARTAN-IVs. The video is presented and narrated by various 343 Industries employees.

Trivia

 * When recording dialogue as Sergeant Major Avery Johnson for Halo 2, David Scully humorously said, "In Halo 4, I get a woman!"
 * The toy specialist Re:creation is producing replica figures and die cast vehicles based on content from the game.
 * When asked whether or not, Certain Affinity will be assisting with multiplayer maps for Halo 4, Frank O'Connor stated that he values their service and he would hire them to assist with the production multiplayer maps for Halo 4.