In the third excerpt from our interviews with Bungie on Halo: Reach, we turn to its campaign design. Mission lead Niles Sankey and and campaign lead Chris Opdahl explain how Reach is diverging from Halo 3's 'high action' to rediscover the tension and choice of Combat Evolved.

For our full account of Bungie's last Halo, pick up the magazine, out on UK news stands now, and soon to hit those in the US. Here's our previous coverage of Reach on Edge Online.

How have you approached designing missions for Reach?
Niles Sankey One of our big pushes has been to introduce players not only to relate to their fellow Spartans but to the planet Reach itself, before we tear it apart. We're putting bigger emphasis on this notion of epic wide-open landscapes that Halo is traditionally remembered for. We're going for that more so than in the last couple of games, and really allow the player, at least early on, to explore this world and understand it so there's some attachment to it for when it's pulled apart.

In addition to these large environments, we made a push into making the battles bigger than you've ever seen in Halo before. We're thinking that with new technology we're able to get twice as many actors on screen than in the other games. In other games you'll see these great battle cutscenes which you can't interact with. Here, we're really trying to stay true to Halo to have these epic battlescapes that the player does affect. On top of that we're also trying to give each mission a specific flavour and purpose, with something memorable for each one.



How much did you look to previous Halo games?
Chris Opdahl We definitely early on looked at the top poles. Halo: Combat Evolved was about mystery and exploration - sure there was the amazing sandbox and vehicles that's the hallmark, but it's slower. And there's Halo 3, which is very much a high action movie - you get into combat through the entire game. I think both are amazing experiences, but we wanted to make a game that leveraged both, more about exploration and tension, finding out about the individuals, the planet, the Spartans - and then you have the missions that are just combat orgy, from beginning to end.

How did you aim to achieve a game that feels more like Combat Evolved?
CO One of the other things we talked about early was adding more tension and drama, and that was to do with the shield mechanic. In Halo: CE, the time between the shield being down and recharging was 14 seconds - seven stunned, and seven to recharge. That time slowly reduced through Halo 2 and 3. I believe it was just under seven seconds in Halo 3. We noticed that the longer it took, the more drama, the more tension you'd create. The player would lose their shields, run for cover, be in that moment of 'Oh shit oh shit' - possibly an enemy runs around the corner and kills you.

As Halo 3 went on it became much faster, the high action - I run out, kill some guys, run back, recharge and then return. As we explored that we thought we probably didn't want to go as far as Halo: CE, but certainly increasing the time has paid off in spades of creating drama and allowing the AI to do the interesting things while the player is in cover, spreading out, of chasing, of hiding so you have to track them down. It also feeds back into the idea of exploration and the mystery of Reach.

Were you influenced by the vulnerability of the ODST?
CO Currently the numbers are all the same as Halo 3, as far as health and so on goes. Expect the same vitality as to number of shots to death.

NS We're still working with those numbers, but you are a Spartan-III - they're not quite the Master Chief. We wanted to create more suspense, especially in situation of one versus just a few enemies. We wanted to make that a challenge to a certain extent to ratchet up the tension. Right now it's feeling pretty good.