Halo 3: Recon

"A New Helmet"
10/14/2008 6:18 PM | 3 Comments | Page 1 of 2

Following Bungie's recent deployment of the teaser trailer for an unknown Halo project, the Halo community went completely nuts. No matter how much it dissected each frame of the teaser, exactly what Bungie was planning was still a mystery.

Bungie's new Halo project was officially revealed during Microsoft's Tokyo Game Show keynote speech late last week. Titled Halo 3: Recon, we learned that this expansion would feature a new hero and campaign, and would be released in fall 2009. But we still had many questions. Fortunately for us, Bungie's Community and PR Director Brian Jarrard and Writer Luke Smith were on hand to tell us Halo 3: Recon actually is, and frankly, what it isn't.

Halo 3: Recon is Bungie's way of giving something back to the fans, as Jarrard put it. "This is a labor of love for our fan community from Bungie. This is listening to their demands to play more Halo, to have more Halo adventures."

Recon is an expansion to Halo 3, but it will be a standalone boxed product. You don't need to own Halo 3 to play Recon, but the game will include new Halo 3 multiplayer maps -- including the new Mythic map pack that will be released in the Xbox Live Marketplace next spring. Even though Recon is billed as an expansion, it's a fully featured Halo 3 title. That means you'll still have four-player cooperative gameplay, 1,000 Achievement points to earn, and so on.

Recon's new campaign will contain hours of gameplay, but it's going to be a different experience than what Halo fans have come to expect. You will not take the role of Master Chief this time, since Recon takes place at the end of Halo 2, with Master Chief, Sergeant Johnson and the Arbiter battling the Covenant somewhere light-years away. Instead, you'll actually be an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, which will offer a number of different gameplay possibilities. As a lone soldier without Master Chief's supersoldier abilities, you'll have to approach combat situations a bit more tactfully since you're more fragile. That's not saying you won't encounter some friendly non-player characters that will help you in battle.

To clear up some rumors and confusion, Recon is still a first-person shooter. It's not a third-person shooter, and it's not a squad-based tactical shooter. Even though you'll have to use your wits a bit more, Recon is still going to play like a Halo game. All the features from Halo 3 will be in Recon, including The Forge, Save Films, Screenshots and more.

Bungie is keeping most of the plot under wraps at this point, but we do know the general premise. When Regret's capital ship left Earth in Halo 2, there was a massive explosion, marking the last point at which we saw the city of New Mombasa. That's where the beginning of the Recon trailer picks up. New Mombasa has been destroyed by the slip space rupture, and you've concurrently descended into orbit in your dropship and crash-landed in a city occupied by Covenant. You're outnumbered and must figure out how to survive in your new surroundings. New enemies, new vehicles and new weaponry are all a possibility, but Bungie isn't commenting on them.