Halo 4 gaat dieper in op Master Chiefs verhaal

Ontwikkelaar 343 Industries gebruikt Halo 4 om meer over het levensverhaal van Master Chief te vertellen, maar zal geen superdramatisch plot gebruiken. "We called it a new trilogy, but that’s really just a chronological description. It’s a direct continuation and evolution of the Master Chief’s story."

"We’re going to be pretty front and center about that", zegt director Frank O’Connor. "This is about the Master Chief and we’re going to make him a deeper and richer character than he’s been, but just in the way that I’m sure Bungie would have naturally done anyway."

O'Connor geeft aan dat Chief niet opeens een andere persoonlijkheid krijgt of iets dergelijks. "You’re just going to learn more about him, and that’s the best way to explore anybody’s character. The Chief has had a strange, difficult, and brutal life. And I think people want to know a little bit more about that – that’s one of the attractions of the books and it’s something that we’re able to put into the games very easily, and something we’ve always wanted to do.”

Daarnaast geeft de regisseur bij 343 Industries aan dat ze geen directe kopieën zullen produceren van Bungies titels en dat het team zich er van bewust is dat elke verandering die zij willen doorvoeren een flinke terugslag kan generen.

"We had a lot of people saying, ‘Why does the Chief’s armour look different?’. Well, the Chief’s armour has looked different every single game. It’s a natural evolution of trying to make your graphics better and having different artist approach it. But in the case of the trailer in particular, there’s some fairly radical modifications to his armour. Some of those are definitely an artistic evolution, but some of it is connected to the story. We just can’t talk about it yet. He’s been in space for a long time.”

Natuurlijk kan O'Connor het niet laten om toch nog eventjes iets te teasen over Cortana, Master Chiefs AI gezelschap. Normaliter hebben AI's in het Halo-universum een levenspanne van zeven jaar. "Cortana was getting close to the end of her natural lifespan at the end of Halo 3. The reality is that Cortana has been exposed to far more information and far more technology than any other A.I. in existence."

"So she’s going to develop some weapons and some muscle from that process, but it also directly contributes to her rampancy [AI overload] – that much information and that much thought, that makes things worse."