Editor’s Note: Looking for our review of Halo Reach? You’ll have to hold on a bit longer, we will have a review up tentatively during the week of September 13th. – Will
With Halo Reach nearing its release date of September 14, we have some information that might interest you about two of the upcoming multiplayer maps as well as the changes made to this year’s Firefight.
The first map, Corvette, takes place in a cargo bay of Covenant cruiser and is effectively an arena style zone where players will face off against unrelenting hordes of enemies. The map centers on a big circular space but there are offshoot hallways to gather ammunition and supplies. If you stick around too long, however, the Covenant will eventually come around and enter these hallways. Some strategic vantage points are available as you can position players on catwalks that flank the outer edges of the map to hold the high ground and funnel the Covenant forces coming in.
Another map we’ve seen, debuted at GamesCom, is Outpost which sets the scenario around the latter half of the game where the Covenant is increasingly taking ground. It takes place on a cliffside where two Covenant AA guns have taken point on each side. The coloring and aesthetics are different to reflect the change but it really functions as an open ended outdoors playground – so there are vehicles scattered about the map.
Now as for the changes made to Firefight in this year’s Halo: Reach, there are a plenty. Expect additional matchmaking support for Xbox Live and customization options to boot. Players can now go into a playlist and will automatically find three friends for you and get you into a Firefight game real quick. In addition, the customization options for Firefight provide new open ended opportunities for the types of games you can build and play. These can range from the types of skulls you can activate, weapons loadouts, weapon arsenal, to how fast your Spartan moves, and the varying levels of damage resistance and power. Bungie has even allowed for user sharing so players can save the game types and upload them into file share so that the whole community can download and play it.
Its hard to fathom that Firefight is only a small piece of the overall game but it just goes to show you the massive scale and effort being put into what is effectively Bungie’s last Halo game. Check back for the Fall of Reach on September 14th.
