KIRKLAND, Washington – 343 Industries offered the first hands-on with Halo 4 campaign, Spartan Ops and War Games multiplayer at its studio headquarters in Kirkland, Washington. With the huge Halo 4 launch just around the corner, Kevin Franklin, lead designer on Halo 4 War Games, took some time to talk about what gamers can look forward to in this massive new installment to the Halo franchise in the exclusive interview below.
What’s new when it comes to Halo 4 multiplayer?
We have big new additions with new game modes, scoring and ordinance. With Infinity Slayer, we really defined the slayer experience for the first time since way back with Halo 1 and we are really happy with the changes. Players are now earning points not only for their team, but also for themselves. And they’re going to be able to call on all sorts of awesome weapons. We have new big vehicle modes. We have an all new capture-the-flag experience. If you’re a free-for-all junkie we have Regicide, where you can go kill the king and go crazy on your friends. With Spartan Ops you can go play co-op with your friends. It’s monumental the size of our new multiplayer experience.
Let’s dive into Spartan Ops.
With Spartan Ops you have five weekly missions every week that you can do co-op with your friends. These missions are real missions and you have a video that goes along with them. It’s four player co-op and every Friday night you can load it up with your buddies and get through these five missions. They’re all different each week and follow the story of the Infinity. Then right afterwards you can jump on and kill each other in War Games, which is our competitive portion.
Can you explain the new Dominion mode in War Games?
Dominion is all about bases. You have two teams and they’re fighting over these three bases. Your teams are going to get points for capturing them, fortifying them, and resupplying them. These three big actions really define what you’re going to be doing in the mode and how your team is going to get points, get weapons, get vehicles and own this map with these bases. It’s a really unique experience. It took us a long time to develop. We built the bases from the ground up and they really are a big feature and key focal points on the map.
How do the bases work?
When you first capture a base you’re going to go up, flick a switch and it’s going to start capturing. Once the allegiance of the base belongs to your team, it’s going to start fortifying. Fortification is amazing. You get weapons, vehicles, ordinance, and it’s like the whole base becomes alive. The base really just starts filling up. You’ll get shield doors that come up to make it harder for enemy teams to come after. The turrets will come up and start shooting enemies approaching the base. It becomes defensive and a placement that you want to hold to earn points. As you’re earning these points weapons are going to drop and you’re going to be faced with a decision, do I defend this base and with all these new weapons I’ve got or do I go after the enemy bases and try to capture them all. You’re going to earn points through the resupply cycles and also from capturing and stealing enemy bases.
