Halo 3: ODST’s waypoint system makes it my favorite Halo game

Because it first launched on the Xbox 360 again in 2009, Halo 3: ODST has remained a novel entry within the sci-fi shooter Halo collection — and in keeping with builders who labored on the sport on the time, that was fully the purpose.

In response to Joseph Staten, ODST’s artistic director and lead author, the core growth group that labored on the sport had initially been assembled to work on Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson’s cancelled Halo Chronicles. “When that mission fell aside, we had been left with this actually skilled core group of men, all of whom had been round since [Halo: Combat Evolved],” Staten instructed Kotaku again in 2009. With the dissolution of Halo Chronicles and Halo Attain already properly into manufacturing, Staten and the remainder of the group determined to create a brand new entry within the Halo universe — one that might probe at in any other case ignored corners of its world by the attitude of somebody aside from franchise hero Grasp Chief.

The end result was Halo 3: ODST, a first-person survival shooter that takes place in the identical time interval as Halo 2. It’s set within the ruins of the East African metropolis of New Mombasa, performed from the attitude of a non-enhanced particular ops shock trooper tasked with discovering their misplaced group members within the aftermath of the town’s occupation. The sport is a subdued, down-to-earth detective story in an deserted metropolis riddled with scattered patrol squads of Covenant troopers able to tear the participant aside in the event that they’re not cautious. It’s additionally my favourite recreation within the Halo collection.

In Halo 3: ODST, the waypoint system includes environmental messages like “slow down”

Picture: Bungie through Polygon

There’s so much to like in regards to the recreation, from its free-roaming open-world setting that allowed gamers to understand the expertise of combating the Covenant in a futuristic metropolis first glimpsed in Halo 2’s E3 2003 demo, to its emphasis on tactical stealth and survival versus the collection’ extra offensive-driven fight loop, to its moody, noir-inflected, orchestral jazz rating. However what endures as my favourite a part of Halo 3: ODST is one thing that has by no means fairly been replicated by another Halo recreation, or actually another recreation I’ve encountered, and that’s the narrative design of ODST as seen by its diegetic waypoint system.

The opening minutes of Halo 3: ODST positioned gamers within the position of “the Rookie,” a silent protagonist and a latest addition to a shock trooper group. Awakening inside a drop pod that crashed right into a constructing following the Covenant slipspace rupture seen in Halo 2, the Rookie falls from the pod and is pressured to heal themselves and fend off a gaggle of Brute troopers and Grunt underlings. After you defeat these enemies, your heads-up show will direct you to interface with the Superintendent — a man-made intelligence accountable for New Mombasa’s city infrastructure — to be able to acquire a greater grasp of the place you might be and what occurred to your group.

When you work together with a close-by payphone that begins ringing by itself, a waypoint compass will seem on the prime of your HUD, and an interactive map of the city-hub will grow to be accessible by the sport’s menu. This waypoint directs you to the primary of a number of artifacts left behind by members of your ODST group, prompting playable flashback missions as seen by the attitude of one in every of your 4 teammates. However that’s not all. As you make your means by the city-hub to your vacation spot, one thing unusual begins occurring to the setting round you.

A number of of the video billboards all through the town start to vary, as if reacting to your presence. Whereas at first these look like innocuous environmental particulars, it slowly begins to set in that these supposedly automated site visitors warnings and instructions are literally makes an attempt by the Superintendent AI to speak with and information you thru the town, alerting you to roaming Covenant patrols and alternate routes to soundly keep away from detection. Whereas it is a cool element in and of itself, it’s much more fascinating that the Superintendent AI additionally directs you to collectible audio logs housed in telephones and kiosks scattered throughout the town, every of which tells a aspect story centered on a younger New Mombasan woman named Sadie with a robust bond to the Superintendent AI. Whereas the missions of Halo 3: ODST are skilled by the attitude of the Rookie and his squadmates, the cutscenes that arrange these missions are relayed by the attitude of the Superintendent AI, who stays an unstated but ever-present character inside the recreation’s world.

Halo 3: ODST’s diegetic waypoint system tells the player to “detour” down a hallway

Picture: Bungie through Polygon

Replaying by Halo 3: ODST not too long ago, I discovered myself impressed by how totally the Superintendent’s presence has been woven into the setting of New Mombasa, and I questioned why so few video games since have discovered a means of incorporating waypoint markers and instructions into their worldbuilding. The closest up to date to Halo 3: ODST’s Superintendent that I can consider are the ethereal messages that materialize across the island of Blackreef in Arkane Studios’ Deathloop, guiding the character Colt on his journey to kill the Visionaries and break the time loop that traps him there. Other than that, most waypoint techniques in first-person video games exist as both non-diegetic features of the sport’s consumer interface or comically apparent techniques just like the glowing inexperienced arrow that factors the participant within the “proper” route in 2013’s Bioshock Infinite. As a lot as I’d like to see different builders take a web page from Halo 3: ODST’s design by crafting storytelling mechanics that incentive exploration and a spotlight to environmental design, I additionally acknowledge that a lot of what I really like in regards to the recreation’s narrative design is an intrinsic byproduct of the actual story Bungie was attempting to inform by that recreation — which solely additional emphasizes why Halo 3: ODST is my absolute favourite Halo recreation.

Followers of Halo haven’t seen something within the collection fairly like Halo 3: ODST within the 12 years since its launch. Whereas 2010’s Halo: Attain was a prequel, it was additionally Bungie’s swan music from the collection, and subsequent entries produced by 343 Industries (except for Halo Wars 2) have largely centered across the post-Halo 3 story arc of collection protagonist Grasp Chief. Whether or not there’ll ever be a possibility for a future aspect story-like entry within the Halo collection much like Halo 3: ODST remains to be an open query. Till then, the sport stays a powerful and deservedly lauded entry within the franchise, stuffed with tiny touches which can be nonetheless price remembering, appreciating, and studying from.

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