One of the fall’s biggest games, Halo 4, was released on Nov. 6. It is the first main entry that was not developed by the original developer Bungie. This entry is instead handled by 343 Industries, a new subsidiary of Microsoft completely dedicated to sustaining the franchise.
Halo 4 picks up four years after Halo 3, with the protagonist Master Chief awoken by his AI Cortana. Their ship has reached orbit over the planet Requiem, where Halo’s mysterious Forerunners once lived.
A problem becomes immediately apparent; eight year old Cortana has started a gradual deterioration known as Rampancy, a condition that causes AI’s to start thinking themselves to death. The central conflict of the game therefore arises from needing to quickly return to Earth, in order to reverse the deadly condition.
Halo 4 introduces a number of wrinkles to the franchise, most notably in the introduction of a new race of creatures known as Prometheans. They bring with them several new weapons, including the Scattergun (a shotgun variant with ricocheting beams), the Lightrifle, and the Incineration Cannon. 343 Industries hopes that the new enemies will provide the game with some much needed freshening in enemy variety.
There have also been several tweaks to the game’s multiplayer component. Players can now instantly respawn after dying, and new modes have also been added. These additional modes include Regicide, which places a point bounty on the winning player, and Dominion, which allows several points around the map to become outfitted with turrets, ammo, and weapon drops. 343 also added a cooperative mode called Spartan Ops, which aims to tell an episodic story while delivering small cooperative missions weekly.
Halo 4 is reputed to be Microsoft’s most expensive game, and while no numbers have been released, it is reported to be well beyond Halo 3’s estimated budget of 55 million dollars (and 200 million dollar marketing budget). Halo 4 made 220 million dollars on its release day.