Halo 4 hands-on: head to head with Promethean Knights in Spartan Ops

The whole point of slipping back into Master Chief's iconic, battle-scarred lid is that it's the pleasing warmth of the familiar, right? After excursions into the realm of the more stealthy ODST flavour of UNSC troop and the ill-fated Reach gang, 343 Industries was keen to jump-start another trilogy starring the series' original hero, Spartan John-117, and hopefully rekindle the sense of wonder we had when we first set foot on the Halo.

It's surprising, then, that what Microsoft chose to show at its E3 conference was so far removed from the classic Halo experience we're used to. Blue skies are quickly blotted out by a gloomy jungle canopy. Wide open spaces have been swapped for a confined path, lined with imposing foliage. Even an isolated Covenant Elite trooper is unceremoniously vaporised by an unseen foe. Combine all that with rustling in the undergrowth, unidentifiable metallic-sounding creature noises and the panicked radio chatter from fellow UNSC ground forces, and the vibe is more survival horror than sci-fi sandbox.

When the new threat finally presents itself, in the shape of knee-high, orange-trimmed 'Crawler' enemies, it's not charging head-on towards you, but instead scuttling across every available surface, whatever the angle. Once the Chief has punched every one of their tickets using both the business and blunt ends of his battle rifle, Cortana chimes in, identifying the hostiles as 'some kind of defence AIs, definitely not Covenant'.

Turns out the Crawlers are just the forward party for a pair of altogether more nasty mechanised enemies - the symbiotic combination of the Knight and the Watcher. It seems the Forerunners had something worth aggressively protecting on the beautiful planet of Requiem, and the fact that the Promethean Knight's faceplate opens to reveal a human skull offers up more questions than it does answers.

What does provide some answers is gripping the pad and diving into Spartan Ops mode, 343's new episodic take on co-op multiplayer, and firing up a mission called Cauldron, set in the lava-drenched shadow of an active volcano. It's only when, as Majestic Squad, you and your mates lock horns with the Forerunner's AIs yourselves that you realise quite how entrenched the Halo series' enemy ecosystem had become in your mind and just how useless those time-honoured tactics have now become.

Chuck a plasma grenade towards a Watcher and it'll catch it using an invisible force, then spin it to build up momentum and sling it back towards you with considerably less time on the fuse. Similarly, relying on your ability to line up a precision headshot on a Knight isn't much use if he's protected by an impervious shield generated by a local Watcher or if, in doing so, you leave him enough time to dematerialise and teleport across the battlefield.

Halo again

Before you question everything you held to be true in this world, though, remember that it's juxtaposition between the old and new. Barring a few tweaks, such as the now always-accessible sprinting and Reach's mildly controversial 'blooming' reticule, the Spartans handle just as we remember from Master Chief in the first Halo. It's a comfortingly familiar toolset, and it's only what you do with that toolset that has to change.

You'll grasp quickly that it's not about catching the Knights before they warp across the combat area, but predicting where they're most likely to appear and peppering them with bullets in the moment of vulnerability when they're reconstituting themselves. Or about shooting your plasma grenade before the Watcher has a chance to return it, removing the protective shield altogether and leaving the accompanying Knight deliciously vulnerable.