About the game
Halo 4 is a 2012 first-person shooter developed by 343 Industries and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox 360. You play Master Chief, a genetically enhanced supersoldier, with his artificial intelligence Cortana, exploring an ancient civilisation's planet. You fight a splinter faction of the old Covenant alliance and a new enemy, the Prometheans, mechanical warriors of the Forerunner empire.
Play is mostly first-person, switching to third person for some weapons, abilities and vehicles. The game brings back the armour abilities from Halo: Reach and adds new ones, and it adds new weapons for humans, the Covenant and the Prometheans. Sprinting is back and can be used on its own. The campaign can be played alone, in split screen with a second player, or with up to three others over Xbox Live.
Multiplayer is called Infinity. You build a customisable Spartan-IV and rank up to unlock gear, with Specializations after rank SR-50. War Games is the competitive matchmaking side, for up to sixteen players online and four in split screen. Spartan Ops is a story-driven, episodic co-op mode that replaced Firefight, with ten episodes released between launch and early 2013. Forge, Theater and file sharing return.
Development began in 2009 and ran to September 2012. It is the first Halo game made by 343 Industries instead of Bungie, and the team grew from about a dozen people to nearly 200, with over 350 people involved in total. The team chose to explore the Forerunner side of the Halo story and built a new setting, enemies and main villain. Neil Davidge wrote the score and Sotaro Tojima was the audio director.
Steve Downes returned as Master Chief and Jen Taylor as Cortana and Dr Halsey. Mark Rolston, Jennifer Hale, Adrienne Barbeau and Keith Szarabajka joined the cast. The game was announced at E3 on June 6, 2011 and released on November 6, 2012 everywhere except Japan, where it came out on November 8. It earned 220 million US dollars on launch day and 300 million in its first week, a record for the series.
Reviews were mostly positive, with a Metacritic score of 87 from 87 reviews. Critics praised the campaign and the bond between Chief and Cortana, and the competitive multiplayer. Spartan Ops drew mixed responses because it replaced Firefight and its missions were short.
Halo 4 was re-released in Halo: The Master Chief Collection for Xbox One on November 11, 2014 and for Windows on November 17, 2020. A sequel, Halo 5: Guardians, followed in 2015.
The text above is adapted from Wikipedia and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
What critics said
Metacritic 87 out of 100 from 87 reviews (Xbox 360). Individual reviews: 1UP 0/0, Computer and Video Games 8/10, Edge 8/10, G4 4.5/5, Game Informer 9.3/10, GameSpot 9/10, GamesRadar 4.5/5, IGN 9.8/10.
Extra content
Three War Games map packs of three maps each, a free Forge map, and the Champions Bundle came out between December 2012 and August 2013. Spartan Ops episodes were free.
- Crimson Map Pack: Three War Games maps.
- Majestic Map Pack: Three War Games maps.
- Forge Island: A map made for Forge creations.
- Castle Map Pack: Three War Games maps.
- Champions Bundle (Bullseye Pack, Steel Skin Pack, Infinity Armor Pack): Two multiplayer maps and early access to the Ricochet game type, steampunk weapon skins, and new armour.
Good to know
- New Zealand censors labelled many copies R13 after the first copies had gone on sale unrestricted.
- At launch only owners of the Limited Edition had all eight Specializations. Others were unlocked gradually in the months after.
- Many of the achievements need matchmaking, so with the 360 services ended in January 2022 they are out of reach on this version.
- The list has 86 achievements and 2,000 gamerscore once the DLC achievements are counted.
- A Game of the Year Edition came out on October 8, 2013 with the season pass content.
- The Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn live-action series was made to promote the game.
Made by
Director Josh Holmes, Producer Chris Lee, Designer Scott Warner, Programmer David Berger, Artist Kenneth Scott, Writer Christopher Schlerf, Writer Josh Holmes, Composer Neil Davidge, Composer Kazuma Jinnouchi, Audio director Sotaro Tojima.
