GP Q&A: Bungie Talks Halo 3 Beta and Beyond

Lars Bakken, multiplayer designer at Bungie Software, explains Bungie's expectations for the Halo 3 beta and fends off a withering interrogation about the single-player campaign like a champ (and a good sport, too).

GamePro: Lars, tell us what we'll be playing in the Halo 3 beta.

Lars Bakken: You'll have access to play three different maps called Snowbound, High Ground, and Valhalla. It's just matchmaking so you'll enter into Bungie's match-making service. They'll match you in with players of similar skills just like Halo 2 and then you'll enter one of these three maps for a multitude of game types.

GP: How final are these particular maps?

LB: There will be things that will be tweaked between here and the final game, but these are as close to final as any of our maps right now. These are the maps that everyone will be playing.

GP: How many total maps will there be in Halo 3?

LB: I can't tell you the total, yet, but there will be a good amount.

GP: What should players be looking for in the beta maps?

LB: You should be looking for the new things in Halo 3, specifically equipment. For instance, you'll have access to the Brute Spiker, which is a dual-wieldable, SMG-style weapon that shoots red-hot spikes And I'm very happy with the way one new weapon in particular turned out, and that's the Spartan Laser. It's this crazy, shoulder-mounted charge laser. You have to hold down the trigger for three-seconds. Once the three-seconds is up it discharges and pretty much kills everything in its path. You'll find the Brute Spiker and the Spartan Laser in all three maps.

GP: Which new weapon is your favorite?

LB: That's an easy one. My favorite weapon is the Spartan Laser. It's so amazingly satisfying to use. The charge up is brutal because it takes three seconds but if you can keep the laser dot on the guy or on the vehicle, then it will destroy them. And that is super satisfying.

GP: Okay, then give us a hint: where can we find the Spartan Laser?

LB: It's in every map. In Snowbound it's inside one of the bases. There are two Covenant structures we call the High Base and the Low Base. It's in the Low Base, which is lower down in elevation. In High Ground it is in a tower on top of the wall, just follow the staircase. And in Valhalla it's located dead center in the map. There's a big ridge and it's at the top of that. But that's a very contested area.

GP: Are there new explosives, too?

LB: There's also a Brute Spiker Grenade that sticks to anything. You can place it on the ceiling or on a wall. It's a shaped charge that unleashes a huge number of spikes that perforate everything. It's very deadly.

GP: Is there any defense against them?

LB: Sure---don't be near them when they go off

GP: Are all the new Halo 3 weapons in the beta?

LB: Absolutely not. There are a bunch of new weapons, new vehicles, and even new game types that you guys won't see until the final game.

GP: What percentage of the final game would you say this beta represents?

LB: That's a good question. I'd rather put a percentage on it because I can't get specific, of course, but there's a bunch of maps, bunch of vehicles, a bunch of weapons, and plenty of equipment that you're not seeing.

GP: Are there any special features we should look for in the beta?

LB: One of the things you're getting access to and that we're excited about people trying out is the Saved Film feature. The feature in the beta is toned down, but in the final game you're going to be able to pause, rewind, go into slow motion, and break out a flying camera all while you're playing the game. In the beta you can only watch saved film from your perspective. We're giving you a tiny taste of what's to come but not the full feature set.

GP: Instant replay for Halo, sounds like a great way pump up your ego and to taunt your buddies.

LB: In fact, The purpose of Saved Film is community building. It's about watching what happened, but it's also about playing a game and then sending it to your buddy and saying, "Remember, when I sniped you in the face? Here's the film of me sniping you in the face. Watch it now."

GP: Bragging is fun?

LB: It's bragging but it's also community building. Everyone will have a share that they can place their movies into. Then they can send a message to their friends telling them its there so they can down load it and watch it.

GP: How does Saved Film work?

LB: You play a game and the in the post-game carnage report you press the X Button and save your film. It doesn't matter how long or short it is. Then you can go back and watch the whole thing. You're only limited by your hard drive space.

GP: Will players get to try any of the new Halo 3 vehicles?

LB: You're only seeing one new vehicle in the beta. That's the human ATV which we call the Mongoose. That's going to be in a couple of the maps, in High Ground and Valhalla.

GP: Will there be some vehicles from the previous Halo's?

LB: Yes! You'll be able to fly the newly redesigned Banshee, which will show up in Valhalla during certain game types.. And we did bring the bomb back from Halo 2.

GP: What's featured in the new Banshee design?

LB: You can fly around with it, of course, but you'll not only have your main guns; you'll have the Banshee bomb, which was in Halo 2 single-player but not in multiplayer. We couldn't quite get it to work properly with the rest of Halo 2 multiplayer, but in Halo 3 it seems to work very well.

GP: What exactly are Microsoft and Bungie hoping to achieve with this early public beta test?

LB: We want people to tell us what they think of the game, of course. But there some things we just can't do internally. One of those is to completely stress the system and how else do you do that except by getting hundreds of thousands of people to play the game, use file sharing system, play online in matchmaking, enjoin games with their friends, share films, and do all those things at the same time. We don't have the capacity at Microsoft to have one hundred thousand people playing at the same time. So this gives us the chance to try out the servers and check everything before the game goes live in the Fall.

GP: Is this the first time you've every done something of this magnitude to test a game?

LB: Yes.

GP: Okay, that's multiplayer. What everyone wants to know about is single-player campaign. What can you tell us?

LB: Ahhh. I can't tell you anything.

GP: Why is it so important to keep the single-player game a secret?

LB: We want to keep that close to our chests because single-player is a crucial part of the Halo game. We just don't want people to know too much about it ahead of time. We want them to go in fresh and the get the story for the first time themselves and not get versions of it on the Internet. We want people to have that fresh experience.

GP: The ending of Halo 2 left so many unanswered questions. Drop us a bone.

LB: The only thing I can say is that this will be the end of the Master Chief story arch and everything will be resolved. Everything you were left wondering about at the end of Halo 2 will be resolved. That's all I can say.

GP: Are you saying that the Halo franchise is just ending?

LB: As you know Halo Wars is in development so Halo the intellectual property is not done, but the Master Chief's story in terms of Halo is done at the end of Halo 3.

GP: So Halo 3 might live on at least like Halo 2 if only as a multiplayer online game?

LB: Halo 3 will hopefully have a similar life cycle to Halo 2. We still see 200,000 unique games a day for Halo 2. That's kind of crazy. It's almost been three years and people are still playing it. Obviously we want that for Halo 3 and I think there are a lot of things we're doing that will make people want to play the game for a very long time.

GP: Will Halo 3 online mean the end of Halo 2 online?

LB: If people want to continue to play Halo 2 they still can there's no reason why they'd have to stop. It's not like we're going to shut off servers or anything. Because of the way Xbox Live works it's all peer-to-peere with Halo so as there's a guy with an Xbox and an Internet connection you can play Halo 2.

GP: What can players do during the beta test period to sort of help you out?

LB: Definitely try the equipment. Find a Bubble Shield and use it. Try the portable grav lift. Grab a turret and rip it off. Grab a Spartan Laser, and try to get a vehicle kill with it because that's super fun. Save films and send them to your friends. That's one of the things we want to stress. We want people to play and then give us feedback.

GP: Lars, there's no chance of Halo 3 sliding into 2008, is there?

LB: We haven't announced an exact date, yet, but it's definitely coming out this fall. There's no getting around that--it's 2007.

[Editor's Note: Shortly after this interview took place, Bungie announced Halo 3's release date as September 25, 2007!]

Comments [0]

post a comment

Post a Comment