Halo: Reach Multiplayer Trailer Analysis

It's here!

I know it isn't a huge deal since the trailer has been out for a while now, but I hope that if you aren't a super-detail-oriented Halo fan, this could give you some good information about what to expect in Reach. If you are a super-detail-oriented Halo fan, then I think you'll have a good time looking over the stills I've grabbed, and reading my analysis of what I think it all means.

So lets get started!

You'll also notice a slight change to the Blog page. I had to do some HTML editing to get the whole post to fit correctly. Welcome to the new, wider, format =P.

Here's how this is going to work: I will post a screenshot from the trailer, followed by my comments about said screenshot. Each screenshot is going to contain some graphic work. The things highlighted in blue is the stuff I'm actually talking about in my post. Everything else if purely entertainment value. Sometimes, you'll see no blue boxes or circles, because the stuff I'm going to point out is fairly obvious. I tried to go as linearly as possible through the trailer, and I hope I don't mix you up somehow along the way.

Enjoy!

And we begin. This is an easy starting place. Already, we see Elites, Scorpion Tanks, and bullets. Good, right? I like that we're seeing the tank re-designed again, I've always thought that they haven't ever gotten it quite right. Looks good this time around though.

Now, there has been some controversey that we'll talk about later over whether the Elites and Spartans are segregated in the Multiplayer arenas. That would mean that Elites and Spartans could not fight on the same team, and you would not have the option to play as one in a normal Matchmaking game. We don't know one way or the other, but what I see here is a dead elite leg. It's unclear whether the Elite in the tank is shooting at this other Elite, or if it just died off screen. I can't tell you one way or the other, so I guess we'll just have to wait for more information on this one.

I appologize for the lack of Blue on this one, Photoshop decided to be a bitch with this particular image...Anyways down to the important stuff. Here, we see two unarmed Spartans apparently duking it out. This is a pretty commonly mis-interpreted sequence. Most analysts will tell you that the red spartan is punching the grey spartan. This is incorrect. If you look closely at his hand, he is gripping an invisible knife.

Note that the red spartan's hand is positioned to stab, rather than an upper-cut. This is clearly some form of the advanced assassinations we've seen before. However, since this is Alpha, they probably haven't modeled in the knife yet. More evidence of this to come.

The question here is, how the hell does one go from assassinating someone, to stabbing them in the gut?

This picture is important because we see something different here that we don't see in any other shot in the trailer. In the foreground, we have 2 red elites, presumably on the same team. In the background, we see a dead BLUE elite. I'm thinking this might mean this is a standard gametype, and there are Elites allowed on either side. This is the strongest evidence we've seen so far, however there is a lot more evidence that suggests otherwise. We'll get to that.

This is almost directly after the previous shot. In this shot, we get our first look at the Elite doing a dive-roll. Keep in mind this is MULTIPLAYER, so we can assume that the player actually gets to roll around. More on this later.

Oh the controversy. This shot here is probably the single thing that's caused the most upheaval in the Halo community. We see "Loadouts" next to a bunch of Spartans who are all using different armor abilities. This immediately called on the CoD haters who have claimed for years that "making classes will RUIN Halo". These guys say that "Loadouts" refers to the ability to modify your starting weapons and armor abilities.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that these guys are probably way, way wrong.

Check out what's circled in blue. Every single one of these Spartans has the same starting weapons. And, in one of the previous Bungie podcasts, Bungie claimed that they considered choosing starting weapons, and then botched the idea. So, no starting weapon choice. However, the issue of starting Armor Abilities does come into play. Perhaps Armor Abilites are not something you find in a map and equip, and maybe they are something you start with. However, I don't think that Bungie would do that to their core game. They've stuck with the "everyone starts out equal" formula for this long, I don't think they'd go mucking it up now.

Here's what I think. I think that Loadouts is a gametype, or game mode of some kind, that is exactly like normal Halo, only you get to pick your starting Armor Ability, and keep it throughout the match. This would keep the core fans happy while allowing the more adventurous among us to experiment and have fun in a more social, less competitive environment. We know Bungie has always been good about appeasing both sides of the spectrum, so I think this is probably what they're going with.

I will point out that if they do incorporate starting Armor Abilities full time, I think it'll backfire. No matter how balanced they think they're making them, I guarantee at least one of them will be overpowered in some way. So don't do it Bungie! Stick with the stuff that works for competitive play.

Interesting bit we see here! Apparently, the "little medal" idea from ODST is coming into Reach's multiplayer, with some new additions as well! In this pic, we see the presumed "grenade" medal, and some text that says "You killed SoandSo with grenades". Also, King of the Hill is obviously returning with a new barrier idea that I fully approve of! Looks much more visible this time around. Also there is your Assault Rifle =)

EDIT: Something that was pointed out by some people on Bungie.net: The medal we see here could be for grenades, or it could be for the First Strike! text we see right above the grenade kill. The two are simply too close together to determine which the medal was for, but thank you all for pointing out my mistake. Hope this edit makes up for it.

New Armor Ability! JETPACKS! YAY!

Or so you'd think.

This is the second most controversial thing we've seen so far in Reach's multiplayer. Some people are nerd-raging all over the place at this one, claiming that it will totally flip multiplayer balance. Personally, I don't see it, and I think they're over-reacting way, way too much. We know that equipment isn't coming back, and that's why AAs are in the game to begin with. I see the Jetpack as the AA equivalent of the Gravity Lift. Now, was that really overpowered in Halo 3? No, it was barely used. Now, of course now that its rechargeable, it will be used much more often, but I don't think it's a huge game changer. It'll add just enough new feel to mix things up. A question for all the skeptics out there:

When using the Gravity Lift in Halo 3, you become _____.

A. Mobile

B. Elevated

C. Exposed

D. An airplane...Woosh!

The correct answer is C, Exposed. Anyone using the Jetpack will become a giant floating target for your DMR or Pistol. I look forward to doing some skeet shooting with my sniper rifle at these technologically enhanced birds =D.

Lots of tidbits here, and a mystery as well! The first I'd like to mention is the weapon in the upper right hand corner, that the player is now pressing the X-button to pick up. This is the icon for the needle-rifle, the new covenant headshot weapon. As said before, apparently now we're pressing X to pick up weapons again in the default control scheme. That's cool!

Secondly, directly below it, note the new friendly icons. One is obviously dead, and the other is an odd orange color, with a circle above that...Hmm...

At the bottom of the screen we see the the words Invasion, purple/green team markers. WHAT COULD IT MEAN?!? Seriously, lots more on this later. What you should note now is that the teams are PURPLE and GREEN. Very important.

Oh also, a ghost. Its right there.

I put this picture here for one reason only. Notice that lightning bolt under the ghost? New anti-grav effects! You can see it under the Wraith in the latest Vi-doc as well. I guess the Covenant finally figured out how to control the powers of the Force...

MOMENTS LATER...

These screens are all in sequence here. However, we pull out to third person now for some reason. Presumably, because the player has just initiated his Armor Ability. This one is new, and is represented by a small lock. It looks like it also has some physical manifestations as well. In the trailer anywhere, I never saw these odd attachments and backpack again. I can assume that they are part of the armor ability we're about to see.

...?

!?!?!??!!!!!??!??!?!??!??!

Yeah, this had a lot of people going "WTF JUST HAPPND?!?!", myself included. Apparently, this new Armor Ability is some kind of invincible shield. I don't show you guys, but the Spartan does survive this little encounter, and yes, his shields do appear to be invincible to the barrage around him. Crazy stuff!

Imbalance rears its ugly head on this one, but I hope this turns out to be a long-recharge, short durration move. Like a last-ditch-effort type of thing. It should also be mentioned that this in the Invasion gametype. There might be different AAs for Invasion and regular team games.

Apparently this poor bastard was using a jetpack. He got shot a little, in his face area. We see both a new medal for killing someone in mid-air, or someone who was using a jetpack, and a headshot medal alongside it.

Enjoy the new nose hole...

Colors! Yay! We get those back. Now, note the color coordination on this Spartan's body. It'll come up later.

This is a wonderful overview shot of one of the new maps. I'd also love to point out the Alpha glitch here. See that little explosion out in front of the Spartan with the rockets? Thats where the rocket comes out =).

You got some work to do, Bungie.

So this is a cool little tidbit. We see in the bottom left that active-camo is a multiplayer Armor Ability. No more map-spawned powerups I guess! We also get our first look at the sniper rifle, and watch as something very interesting happens to the reticule...

Reticule expansion! They've added it into Halo! Yes!

Now you'll be able to tell when your shots are off and what not. Apparently, they're adding this to all weapons, meaning that you won't be able to no-scope as effectively with the Sniper anymore. However, we see later that it resets pretty quickly, but not nearly as quickly as simply squeezing off another shot. It looks like the Sniper is being turned into a real long-range gun this time around! Lets keep going.

Oh wait, note the strange ID of "Noble6" on the sniper rifle. Huh...Wonder what the hell that means...

Okay so here's an interesting look at right after the kill. You can see the reticule is resetting, and the person is dead. However, also look at the Active Camo. The circle that indecates usage has stopped. Apparently, if Camo is interrupted, you will have to manually re-engage it. Neat!

Other than the awesome ninja moves going on here (and possible rectal violation O_O), take a look at this guy's armor. Compare it with the previous Orange and Green spartan. The coloring is WAY different! I think this means we finally get to have more customization as to where we want the colors to go on our Spartans/Elites. I love it!

Oh man, big stuff here. This is the first look we get through an Elite's eyes. The biggest thing we see here is the Needle Rifle! It's looking bad-ass. And of course, the icon in the corner. Above the player's screen is the health bar for Elites. It should be noted that the Spartan appears to have more bars than the Elite, but I'm thinking this is simply a design decision, and not an actual impact on gameplay. We also see that the gametype is again, Invasion. Invasion, so far, is the only gametype we've seen the Elites in.

If you look to the bottom left, check out the AA slot. We haven't seen this one before...And we never see a Spartan with it. Race-specific AAs? Maybe so, for Invasion anyways. I'm guessing that this AA is the Elite's Roll ability, considering it is the only thing different that we see the Elites do in this trailer.

Just below the health bar we see that odd friendly indicator again. But this time, it's green, or standard color for the HUD. Last time we saw it, it was orange. Maybe this is an Invasion thing? Hmm. More to come on this.

To it's right, we see a new indicator that seems to only show up on Elite's HUD. It's a waypoint of some kind, probably an objective of sorts. More on this later.

Here is another strange thing we see in Invasion. Note the color of the two Spartans here. One is bright green, while the other is the grey color we see Noble 6 wearing in the campaign. This is a pattern we see in both sides of Invasion. Some players are different colored than others. What could it mean? Well, there are some theories:

The first is that it's random. Simply there to add flavor to the game.

The second is that certain colors indicate AI players or Bots, and the others indicate actual players. This is a possibility, Bungie has mentioned something that will "flip" multiplayer that they've yet to reveal.

What I'm thinking is that there is some kind of hierarchy going on in Invasion. Maybe some Spartans and Elites have different roles to play, or advantages based on rank in the playlist. I don't know, but I'm putting my money on some kind of hierarchy system being present in Invasion. More evidence of this later.

This picture is almost exactly the same as the previous, but we'll focus on different things. The first, is the return of the invisible combat knife. This confirms that the red vs grey earlier was simply the Alpha build doing its thing. It was an assassination, albeit an interesting one.

The second thing here is the shielding on both the Elites. Both of them are being assassinated, but for some reason one of them has a shield-aura over them, and the other does not. I've seen some other examples in the trailer and other videos of Elites that seem to have this odd aura around them, while others don't. I know that the Elite's shields start lighting up under fire, but this weird outline seems to stay with some of them. I don't know whether to chock this one up to Alpha, or think that somehow shields are different between Elites. Not too sure on this one, but if it is a shield thing, it'd support my idea of hierarchy in Invasion.

Cool little picture of battle here. Note the odd-looking weapon that the right blue spartan is holding. It's not a rocket launcher, I'll tell you that much. More on this later.

Hey, remember the Reach reveal trailer? Yeah, me neither. However, I do remember the Elite at the end. Remember how his sword came out kinda like a slow lightsaber? Well, check this out. A spartan just dropped this sword.

Expansion! Apparently it'll keep its lightsaber-eque traits in-game as well. Awesome!

Few things to note here. Firstly, the jetpack AA icon. Pretty minimal.

The game is CTF, but notice that the flag is grey. Some people have speculated that Reach will have neutral flag, but we'll see later that all the flags they're using right now are grey. I'm chocking this one up to Alpha, and waiting for more information to come.

The last thing to note here is quite possibly the most important. Look at the service tag right above the bottom-left spartan's gamertag. It's blue right now.

Look at the tag now. It's red. The spartan isn't dead, but maybe it's some kind of indicator of shield status or health status. This would prove incredibly useful to determining the fighting shape of your team, and seeing who needed help, or the next available healthpack.

Also, we see the return of an old favorite! The Needler! Some thought it would perish with the Needle Rifle being created, but I always believed. Good to see you back buddy.

Right before we get to Invasion, we see this picture.

PHANTOM, YOU SAY?

IN MULTIPLAYER, YOU SAY?!?!

Nah.

Bungie don't roll that way. What I see here is possibly some kind of cool spawn system. What I don't ever see happening is flyable dropships. As much as I'd like to see it happen, I just don't see this becoming a human-controlled feature. However, coming in on a dropship to begin a multiplayer match? HELL YEAH! Possibly calling in support or vehicles via dropships? F%@$ YEAH!!!!!!!!

And we see it, Invasion. This is presumably a gametype that pits Spartans vs Elites in some kind of new scenario that we have yet to see. We also see the new Banshee, coming up a bit roughly on the side. It does look a little different, maybe it's finally gotten an overhaul. BUT LOOK CLOSER.

The Elites are RED. Up to this point, we've only seen Purple elites in Invasion. But we saw those two Red elites earlier! Yes, on a normal multiplayer map. I'm going to also go out on a limb here and say right now that Invasion will have specific maps for it. More on both these theories later.

I still sense hierarchy here.

Again with the different colors. Also, note the map. Looks awfully similar to the first shot, and looks nothing like the other maps at all. Invasion specific maps? Mmhm.

More evidence here. The map pallet looks similar. I'm almost entirely convinced that this map is ONLY for Invasion. But what we see here is a human sniper being used by an Elite. So, in Invasion, you can pick up the enemy's tech. That would explain the Elite in the Tank we saw early on.

We also see the return of this weird little waypoint. Must be Invasion specific.

What I see, and what many others see, is an odd looking reddish field back there in the distance. What the hell is this? A shield door? An objective? A race-specific barrier? This brings up a LOT of questions. Coupled with something we see later, I'm beginning to think Invasion has a lot more in store for us than we think.

More Invasion?! It can't be! But it is. Check out the the text at the bottom: Invasion Slayer. So, we're getting more modes than just simple Invasion. Very cool! I love that Bungie has created a whole new game mode to play. I cannot WAIT to play any of the Invasion varients.

However, there are other tidbits here. Check out the weapon. Remember that weapon we saw the blue spartan wielding earlier? Well, this is it. It's apparently a charge-up, multiple-shot, locking-on vehicle killer. Sounds deadly to me. Do want.

Map also looks FAMILIAR DOESN'T IT.

Had to point this one out. F@$!ing spark STORM. New engine at work for sure.

Finally moving away from Invasion! Here we see a look at the new gametype, Headhunter. There have been a lot of questions as to what this gametype is exactly, but I've done my research.

Headhunter is actually a scrapped game from Halo 3. The goal is to collect Skulls that you get from headshots, and turn them into receptacles for points. The number over the player's head represents the number of skulls they're carrying. You presumably gain one per headshot, and you can collect them off of dead enemies. When you die, you lose all your skulls.

You can see small waypoints in both pictures that probably indicate receptacles. What Headhunter seems like is SWAT with a fun purpose. I don't think it'll be MLG anytime soon, but I like the idea =).

Ooo! The big mystery! Nothing is shown about this ominous two word phrase. All we know is that it's SOMETHING in Reach. There is speculation based on the footage that follows, but I think most of it is poppycock. I'm waiting on further information.

But.

I'm hoping it might be Bungie bringing back the clan system, and maybe even a playlist just for clans to battle each other. That would be VERY cool to have.

Nice look at the new boundary thing we saw earlier. As you can see, it's not entirely translucent, but much better than before. This is probably territories, judging from the flag. Going back to the flag idea, we can see this one is grey as well. Definitely just the Alpha at work.

And in drops my favorite! Check out the shoulder pad on this Spartan. It's different! As far as I'm concerned, unless this is part of some new Armor Ability, this pretty much confirms Armor Permutations.

I can has Reconz?

And just as I was getting happy, I'm all of a sudden very confused. Well, not too bad, just very curious! Look at the damned waypoint over the team-mates head. It's f@#!ing ORANGE. What the HELL does this all mean?! We only saw it in Invasion, but now it's in CTF?! What in gods name does that damned color change mean!?

I am totally baffled by this and am very curious to see it for myself in May.

Also check out the bottom of the screen. Some people have said that this is a "sticky" medal to indicate that the victim was stuck with a grenade from the launcher. Wrong. Check it, it's an EMP medal from ODST. The guy's shields were obviously down. This also aleviates any fear that the Grenade Launcher is a 1-hit kill. It's probably just like it says, a tube that launches standard grenades.

Or "Pro-Pipe" as some have started calling it...

What is with Bungie and blowing my mind today? This is obviously Invasion we're seeing here. It SAYS Spartans vs Elites, but I think it's just Invasion being over-advertised. But look closer!!!!!!

F#@$ IT ALL ITS GOD DAMN BROWN SPARTANS.

WHAT.THE.-BLAM-.

When I noticed this, I flipped. I am now SO sure that there is some purpose to the color difference but I don't know yet, and there is no evidence in the trailer to point me in a direction. This is gonna drive me up a wall.

So here we see another shot from an Elite's perspective. But oh boy do we have a lot of new info here.

Firstly, we see the return of these wonderful little waypoints we've seen all along. They're positioned over these Generators. It looks like the Spartans are defending them, and the Elites want to destroy them. But, it's a mystery gametype! There is no indication in the bottom right hand corner! However, I might be chocking this one up to very, very early Alpha. Check out the hand holding the rockets. That doesn't look too much like an Elite hand, and clearly we're looking through Elite HUD. Early Alpha would explain the misplaced hand, and lack of gametype indicator.

The last thing to note before the next picture is the A and C. Currently, C is highlighted on the HUD, and A is greyed out. C is red, with a small bar, and A is green with a full bar.

Check it now. C is TOTALLY GONE from the HUD, A is now highlighted, and it says "Generator Destroyed". So I'm assuming that the bars down there indicate health of the generators, or targets, or whatever. But MAN! Halo has never had this kind of gameplay before! I am totally pumped if this is a continuation of Invasion.

Also check it out...He apparently splattered them with debris. Awesome.

Interesting pic here that's been under much scrutiny. Some say that the Spartan is boarding the Tank before it blows up. Incorrect. The Spartan is joining his buddy in the turret, as you can see with his foot going in the tank rather than latching on to the side.

As I was writing this article, something occured to me here besides the obvious new laser weapon. This looks like the same map we saw the two Red elites on earlier in the trailer. Lets assume that my theory about Invasion-specific maps is correct. That means that Elites ARE in for normal multiplayer! Right on!

Lots of little things here. Firstly, new little medal! Revenge! Sweet.

Also, check out the red HUD arrow. In Slayer? Huh. Is this some kind of team-mate warning system?

Also, just for informations, check out that the gametype says SLAYER, even though it's obviously Team Slayer. Some have said that they've done away with Team Slayer, or that there some weird thing they're doing with it all, but I'm chocking this one up to Alpha.

Mystery #2. The Arena? No idea. Maybe a game mode or playlist without Armor Abilities and Elites. Keep things totally even for the balance freaks. No evidence to support this though. Not much, anyways.

This picture comes from directly after "The Arena". My theory might get a little speculative support here, considering the radar is gone. Everyone knows that the competitive community frowns upon radar, so maybe The Arena is supposed to be like Bungie's best take at MLG or something...We also see a DMR in the player's hand, but that doesn't really mean anything.

Hey look, a hammer.

Minor note here, just look at the coloration. It's orange instead of blue? Mkay...

This is the last big thing I noticed here. What the HELL is that thing on his chest? New Armor Ability that wasn't shown? Armor permutation? Armor accessory of some kind? I dunno, but I want to find out! This is something that I don't see anyone else has picked up on yet, so we'll have to see what happens with all that...=P

There is actually something here. When the Spartan lands, he kicks up a LOT of dust, and crouches pretty heavily. He comes off a jetpack, so maybe this is a side-effect of using the jetpack. Perhaps when you land, you have to recoil for a second before being able move. I dunno, but it sure looks cool.

Well, that's it ladies and gents! I put a LOT of hours into this analysis, so I hope you all got at least a few "Wow!" or "I didn't notice that." moments out of it. Anyways, as you know, I'm still at work trying to get the review of Bioshock 2 together, and that'll be up when it's up =).

Until next time, keep it real, gamers.