Bang. Boom. Bang. Hear that? It's the sound of Halo 4 intel hitting your roof. Microsoft has let slip a mass of new gameplay details via the ExpertZone portal, designed to clue retailers in ahead of release so they can more easily prise banknotes from the grudging fingers of would-be Spartans.
There's one factoid in particular you should dwell on: two new vehicles. Halo's roadsters have always made an important contribution to its high-falutin' sandbox action. Will the fourth game turn in an automotive change-up as drastic as what those new Promethean enemies bode for on-foot firefights? Are the new vehicles Promethean in origin?
Moving on: 10 multiplayer maps at launch! Including the already-known-about Wraparound and Warhouse. Naturally, 343 plans to release additional maps as Halo 4 DLC.
Finally: the episodic Spartan Ops campaign to last 12 "incremental" hours! In either co-op or single player, apparently. "It's like getting two campaigns with one game!" screams the slide in question. Certainly, and that's because you are getting two campaigns with one game. Don't over-egg the pudding, Microsoft.
What sort of vehicles would you like to see in Halo 4? Given the emphasis on co-op, I reckon something that obliges three or more players to work together could be fun. Like one of Lost Planet 2's bigger mechs, say. Thanks to the Little English Halo Blog for the tip-off.
6 comments so far...
Jabbermon on 27 Jun '12 said:
How many new weapons do we already know about? I can think of the Sticky Detonator, the Light Rifle, the Scattershot and the Storm Rifle. If I didn't leave anything out that means 6 unannounced weapons. Awesome sauce
OXM ETboy on 27 Jun '12 said:
I'm really stoked for the vehicles. I'm hoping for something utterly weird.
Bezza89 on 27 Jun '12 said:
Co-op missions sound odd, there's 50 - 12 hours, that's around 15 minutes - I'm guessing they're story lite? Still, it's all good because it's free and I assume over 12 hours an interesting story would develop or no one would play.
King Krakken on 28 Jun '12 said:
Alright, where to begin? So the weapons already announced good sir are as follows; Light Rifle, Scattershot, Sticky Detonator, Storm Rifle, Railgun, and then 3 unofficially announced Promethean weapons that can be seen from screenshots but look to be a new sniper rifle, assault rifle and rocket launcher. So that actually only leaves 2 weapons to still be announced. And 2 new vehicles would more than likely be vehicles to be used in multiplayer and not in campaign. So with that assuming, I'm gonna say that it's possible there the cyclops (mech) and war sphinx (forerunner mech) and mammoth (massive elephant thing or more correctly put - Olifant) are not included in the new vehicle list. And finally spartan ops. Like we've seen with screenshots, Spartan ops will feature 5 missions per week with each mission being roughly 15 minutes long. That comes up to roughly 75 minutes of extra campaign gameplay a week plus about 10 minutes of intro video per week to start off the 5 new missions. 343 has announced that there will be 50 missions in total for season 1 with 5 missions a week so thats a 10 week long extra campaign for free! Franchise Development director Frank O'Connor had stated that spartan ops will not be a meaningless entity like firefight was. It will have some of the biggest, most important and most emotionally impacting events to ever happen in the halo saga and will ultimately drive and push forward the halo universe as a whole. So have fun absorbing all of this
where do I leave my CV to apply to OXM? 
DropTheDime69 on 28 Jun '12 said:
My mind has closed since this years e3 as now the only game of intrest to me this year is halo 4.
Never really doubted 343 for some reason and so far is shaping up nicely
Loved every halo game, love all the spin of books, anime, short films and not to mention red vs blue.
Canni wait to get my hands on this.
King Krakken on 29 Jun '12 said:
My last comment didn't get posted -_- there wasn't anything wrong with it either.... *smh* so much insight. Weapons revealed so far are the Light Rifle, Scatershot, Railgun, Sticky Detonator, Storm Rifle and then there's 3 other Promethean weapons that can be viewed from screen shots but still haven't been officially announced. From the looks of them they are a sniper, rocket launcher and assault rifle. That leaves 2 weapons still to be seen