343 has confirmed that Halo's beloved Skull multiplayer modifiers have gone the way of the Dodo, for the sake of the new weapon and gear levelling system. Speaking to OXM at E3, lead multiplayer designer Kevin Franklin also shed a little more light on the game's multiplayer scoring system. In brief, this is the first Halo game where you'll score points for making a bloody spectacle of yourself.
Well, that's what I'm calling the new "distract assist", of which you'll read more in a mo. But what's all this talk of Skulls? "No, we've moved away from that," Franklin stated. "We're looking at the Infinity experience very specifically as a new one."
"The only way to make things work across all the nodes to your progression, like if you're playing with or without your friends you're still earning the same armour and experience points and levelling up the same character - to get that shared progression we really needed to unite the different experiences. So we went in a different direction which we're really happy with."
The game's competitive modes take place on the deck of the aforesaid Infinity, a hyper-advanced UNSC starship. Its co-op component sees Infinity crewmates venturing out on planetside missions. The idea in both cases, we're told, is to give multiplayer a sense of permanence and narrative logic.
And what of these new Assists? Well, 343 wants to foster the sort of mutual gain mentality that governs Battlefield 3, with its roster of rewards for supporting actions. Thus, "if you're running and an enemy starts stars shooting at you, but gets killed by a teammate because he was distracted by you, you're rewarded for distracting the enemy.
"This came straight from players in our feedback sessions who felt they should have been rewarded for that. There are all sorts of assists. For instance, the King assist in Regicide is the first ever assist in a free-for-all game, so even though you're all playing against each other, we'll still give you an assist for helping kill the score-leader, even if you kill the other player a few seconds later.
"All of these things wrap up into our assist spree so you can get a Wingman spree. We found lots of ways to reward players for doing things other than kills. We're really stoked to show off our objective games because that'll come through even more."
We'll add all this to our list of ways Halo 4 multiplayer isn't the Halo you remember.
12 comments so far...
TinnoUnited on 20 Jun '12 said:
Really wish it would go back to the direction of Halo 3, but that's unlikely. Still, Reach's multiplayer was pretty good, and I would be surprised if Halo 4's wasn't better than Reach's so bring on November!
Bezza89 on 20 Jun '12 said:
Skulls were campaign modifiers, weren't they? They're in there right? Otherwise that is a kick in the nuts. Made campaign very replayable. And is the campaign co-op or is it just the infinity spartan ops? A rape to the gonads if that's true.
OXM ETboy on 20 Jun '12 said:
I've updated the piece to clarify that it's the multiplayer Skulls I'm referring to - still no word on the SP versions.
StalkerUKCG on 20 Jun '12 said:
I still don't understand what you talking about, Skulls have never been part of Halo Competitive Multiplayer only the Co-op modes and as a extension of that Single Player, Its not like Assists are replacing Skulls since the skulls were never in Multiplayer to be replaced and Assist's have been in the last few halo titles anyway.
Bezza89 on 20 Jun '12 said:
Yeah I'm not sure either, are we missing something Ed? Only skulls I can think of are in headhunter and oddball.
OXM ETboy on 20 Jun '12 said:
There are Skull modifiers in Halo: Reach and ODST Firefight modes - http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Firefight
Bezza89 on 20 Jun '12 said:
But there is no firefight anymore? I must be coming across like a retard because I just don't understand lol.
OXM ETboy on 20 Jun '12 said:
Not at all, I just haven't worded this very well. I'll update the piece!
Rivers Ultra on 20 Jun '12 said:
"Skulls are out, Battlefield-Style Assists are in"
Hello this is Rivers Ultra. I would like to share my thoughts on this topic
First of all im a Halo Veteran. Played Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, ODST & Reach. I was just a young kid that happend to think that Halo looked cool and then found out it was a godly game, im 19 now and getting stoked for Halo 4. Anyways about this OXM report... i personly dont remeber skulls on Halo but... in Halo 2 i found skulls in the campaign made it fun for me to find em. Halo 3 i found skulls in the campaign also. ODST dont remember skulls in campaign, i played campaign to get my recon armour for halo 3. But in Firefight mode on ODST yes there were skulls but you couldnt pick them up. Now if there was skulls in Campaign of ODST im sorry i dont know sense ODST sucked my left nut. Reach i dont think there was skulls in the campain, you could actaully activate them from the game menu before you start up Reach campaign. With that said they better put in hidden skulls in HALO 4 campaign mode. @OXM Skulls have never been in Multiplayer Ever. Skulls just have been in Halo 2 Campaign / Halo 3 Forge & Campaign / ODST Firefight / Reach Firefight & Campaign. Correct me if i missed something.
And for the Assist like Battlefield... Thats great and all, but sense i play MLG and have pure skill and go for kills and just Rivers Ultra i only get Assists if someone takes my kill when the other guy is 1 shot... So sounds like Halo 4 Multiplayer will let people that have negative Kill Death Ratio for example my lil bro that sucks at Halo but can get the highest rank in Halo WTF!!! I played halo because it was all about skill back in the day. For Example Reach there was a guy the Highest Rank in Reach and he was Negative 20,000 kills... WTF!!! Halo 2 & 3 are the best at Multiplayer if you had skill you could get your 50. now in Halo 2 i got my 20 in snipers
then bungie thought it wouldd be hahahaa funny to resest everyones ranks so yeah then halo 3 i got my 40 in snipers and then 45 in SWAT 
Legit too. It takes skill to play halo and people that suck should have a low rank and people with a god sniper and BR should be high ranks with postive kill death ratio thankyou and i say good day 
OXM ETboy on 20 Jun '12 said:
Sounds about right, Rivers, and I share the concerns about assists. Even though I'll probably benefit from them hugely, as a sub-average Halo player
zacho 666 on 20 Jun '12 said:
I'm not gonna lie, It was funny in Reach to see inheritor level players who had boosted off fire-fight get pwnd in multiplayer by a Sargent so I'm gonna miss that but I like the way this is going its adding a 343 spice to halo I want to see how this turns out
krisskross on 21 Jun '12 said:
I'm sad that Firefight has gone and annoyed that on the surface the new features they're implementing seem to be very much in the same vein as CODs features but Bungie have never let me down and 343 simply can't afford too. Plus the footage of Halo 4 looks incredible so fingers crossed they don't cock up the multiplayer!