Making Halo 4: Infinity Multiplayer

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Making Halo 4: Infinity Multiplayer is a video documentary by 343 Industries, about the Infinity mode in Halo 4 as part of the Making Halo 4 documentary series. It was released on Halo Waypoint and YouTube on 15 October, 2012.

Transcript

• Scott Warner: "How do you get people more deeply connected with your universe?"

• Chrus Haluke: "We're trying to make it innovative; we're trying to make it accessible, and by introducing story, and a narrative thread through the whole Infinity multiplayer experience is something we really wanted to put a lot of attention and detail into."

• Scott Warner: "If it's the universe everybody is really excited about, it's got to grow and evolve, beyond just an incredibly balanced suite of mechanics. It's got to speak to fantasy and what people want and what they expect."

MAKING HALO 4
INFINITY MULTIPLAYER
PART 3

• Josh Holmes: "Something we really wanted to do with Halo 4 was to bring a new perspective to Halo multiplayer."

• Brad Welch: "The high-level philosophy for multiplayer was that we wanted to unify the competitive and co-operative experiences under this one big narrative banner that we call "Infinity".

• Kynan Pearson: "The Infinity is a UNSC ship that is home to the SPARTAN-IV Program."

• Scott Warner: "We're really trying to contextualize multiplayer in such way in which it doesn't feel like an extracted game mode off to the side: it feels very much part of the same universe."

• Kevin Franklin: "We knew we wanted to expand the audience as far as we could, but still satisfy the core as much as possible. We had to break everything down to line by line evaluation of our current scripts and redefine that core loop to not make it like Halo 2 or like Halo 3 or something in the middle, but make it Halo 4."

• Scott Warner: "Halo starts with a philosophy that we've upheld which is that your gameplay mechanics are consistent across every mode, so they don't change."

• Brad Welch: "We want to give players the power to choose which weapons they take in. The people have their own personal favorites."

• Kynan Pearson: "It’s a growth system in that you’re unlocking customizations for your character, you’re unlocking new weapons and abilities; but that’s also helping to train you how to use those over time."

• Brad Welch: "You have Armor Abilities and Armor Mods which are, sort of, under the hood modifications to your armor that will give you abilities, give you passive changes."

• Kevin Franklin: "And then that completely fit in with our new scoring system."

• Brad Welch: "A lot of actions players take in multiplayer that contribute, but don’t necessarily put a score on the board."

• Kevin Franklin: "Because of the objective medals and all the extra ways you can score in a match no players are finishing the game with a zero."

• Brad Welch: "So one of the big things for us was making sure that people felt involved, felt like they could always contribute in some sort of way."

• Unknown: "You’re getting rewarded for teamwork, your style, your kills, your assists, the objectives you complete; and as you do that, you’re going to get medals that fill up your ordnance meter. Once your ordnance meter fills up the UNSC Infinity gives you three rewards you can choose from; those are going to be power weapons, power-ups, or grenades. And you can call them down right to you."

• Unknown: "We’ve added what we’re calling a situational record."

• Brad Welch: "That’s a replay of the person that just killed you and how they killed you. It just adds a bit more information for players."

• Unknown: "The matchmaking system has evolved to let us join in progress; overall, this means players will be getting into games faster and more often."

• Kiki Wolfkill: "So the new CTF really focuses on trying to encourage a little more team play."

• Josh Holmes: "In the past, there was a lot of dropping of the flag and changing of roles."

• Kevin Franklin: "Now, when you pick up the flag-"

• Josh Holmes: "You’re a hundred percent committed, and at that point your role is now to deliver that flag."

• Kevin Franklin: "Your HUD will change to tell you exactly where the deliver point is."

• Josh Holmes: "Everybody can see exactly what it is that they’re supposed to do."

• Kevin Franklin: "If you don’t have the flag, then you’ll still get points for helping your flag-carrier: driving him around, assisting him, saving his life, returning your own flag, defending your flag against the enemies."

• Josh Holmes: "It’s a much more intense experience for all the players."

• Brad Welch: "Probably the biggest focal change is that we’re trying to build more vehicle-friendly maps, and then to go with that we’ve got a new mode called Dominion."

• Kevin Franklin: "Dominion is everything we loved about Big Team Battle, mixed with Objective-based gameplay. You have lots of vehicles, big power weapons, large maps, but now there’s bases."

• Kynan Pearson: "As you reinforce the bases then shields will come up, or you’ll be able to activate turrets to kind of reinforce those locations."

• John Zagorski: "It’s kind of like Territories, but with a little bit more of a twist. One of the biggest challenges was trying to get vehicle and infantry play to work really well on a large map that had a lot of interior space."

• Kevin Franklin: "In Longbow, for example, all of the bases in Dominion are fully thought-out features in the map and that really lets you get that break-in and defend gameplay."

• Brad Jeansonne: "The idea was to try and make sure that the teams started here or here; the paths that they can take in-between involved great pinch points, places where the vehicles would automatically run into each other and jump over each other."

• Kynan Pearson: "Whenever we start a space, we need to concentrate on a few key things. One is that there’s distinct landmarks everywhere you look so that you can orient yourself and you never get lost while you’re playing. Two is that, whenever you’re moving from location to location if you’re jumping across a gap, that none of those jumps feel frustrating. So, for instance, Flood’s our replacement for Infection and players have higher jump height. We needed to make sure that we could make a map that you’re always going to hit your target, you’re always going to be able to move around smoothly."

• Kevin Franklin: "Flood is the spiritual successor to Infection. We knew how popular this mode was, we knew it had a lot to live up to, so we didn’t want it to just be a Slayer variant anymore. From the ground up it’s a new script: it’s its own mode now. And now when you’re flood, you get this new character model: you get a big claw which you can completely slice the survivors in half with."

• Kolby Jukes: "If you look at the model there’s a set of fingers gripping the top of it, the idea being it’s kinda been an explosive growth: as soon as they get infected it just kinda pops out of them; there’s, like, little teeth inside. Oww."

• Brad Welch: "In addition to all of the new elements that we’re adding to Halo 4 multiplayer, we’re bringing back and improving a bunch of old favorites. We’re bringing back King of the Hill, and Oddball."

• Kevin Franklin: "With Oddball, we also wanted to incorporate all the elements of our new scoring system. We’re looking for ways to make it a team-based experience like never before. Instead of just running away and hiding now players get points for passing, catching, intercepting the ball. It completely changed the landscape."

• Brad Welch: "We’re working with Certain Affinity to build content for multiplayer, it’s a pretty huge undertaking."

• Dan Ayoub: "Certain Affinity’s been a great partner to 343 for many years: they worked with us on the Defiant Map Pack and Halo: Anniversary. For Halo 4, they helped us with a bunch of multiplayer and Forge maps."

• Jessica Shea: "And one of those maps will have a Grifball court in it."

• Kynan Pearson: "Forge is our toolset that allows players to customize their own levels. So we give multiple spaces that each have unique components that you can kind of mix and match to make your own layouts."

• Abe Robertson: "We felt like the previous permutation of Forge wasn’t necessarily the most accessible; the biggest thing for us was trying to increase the speed at which you can build things."

• Kynan Pearson: "We have a lot of new components, first is a magnet system which makes it easier to line up pieces to each other."

• Lori Zawada: "You see these little guys over here, these are hand-placed magnet points. Based on these points, you toggle it in the game and you can actually snap pieces together."

• Abe Robertson: "Another thing that we have is the duplicate object tool. So if someone has a crazy idea, you can just place something, ‘Oh, I have a Mongoose. I can make six more of those.’"

• Kynan Pearson: "Whenever you exit your editing mode you’ll end up seeing shadows cast on the pieces that you placed."

Unknown: "I can place blocks sort of anywhere I want and it’ll just sit there, there’ll be no shadow on the ground, it’ll look like it’s floating even though it’s actually quite close to the ground. But then if I turn the lighting on, boom, you instantly get a shadow there."

• Lori Zawada: "There’s going to be things out there where we just end up scratching our heads being like ‘How did someone do that?’"

• Vic Deleon: "In the tradition of remaking maps, we’ve chosen to do Valhalla. And this time, we’re calling it Ragnarok. It is almost identical to the original layout of Valhalla. We fine-tuned things, for jetpack and things like that, but the biggest change to this map is the addition of the Mantis."

• Chris King: "The Mantis is probably the biggest new sandbox toy we have this time around. When you walk up to it you’ll see it sitting on the floor, and so you hop in this hatch on the back. On its right hand it’s got an enormous UNSC chain gun, and on the left side it’s got a five-canister rocket pod. You can use both weapons at the same time, and the rocket pod itself you can charge up and actually fire all five rockets at once. The other thing that’s really sweet with it is it has a melee stomp. This is probably the most powerful vehicle in a Halo game since, like, the Scorpion or Banshee."

• Scott Warner: "You hear from the start that if we’re going to put this in Campaign, we have to bring it to multiplayer; what better toy would I want to use on the battlefield than that?"

• Josh Holmes: "When you look at Halo’s audience you’ve got a group of players that really gravitates towards Campaign, and then another group of players that really gravitates towards multiplayer."

• Kiki Wolfkill: "The idea of knitting together the narrative and this gameplay experience was the genesis of where Spartan Ops came from."

• Chris Haluke: "The narrative thread through Spartan Ops is absolutely huge."

• Kevin Schmitt: "Six months after the events of Campaign are over the crew of the Infinity is going down to investigate Requiem."

• Josh Holmes: "Each week, you have a new episode of the series that’s continuing to tell this evolving story and then you have these five missions that tie directly to that episode."

• David Ellis: "And actually, in some cases, you have a direct impact on what’s happening in the next week’s episode."

• Kiki Wolfkill: "There are both creative challenges and production challenges; one is it, it’s just a huge amount of content."

• David Ellis: "We have, y’know, fifty missions that we’re developing over the ten weeks of the Spartan Ops season."

• Greg Murphey: "We only have this much space, we only have this much RAM, we only have this much bandwidth, so we have to do a lot of technical trickery so that everything that we wanted to accomplish was able to happen."

• Kiki Wolfkill: "We want you to feel invested as part of the story."

• Greg Murphey: "We wanted players to feel like they’re accomplishing something."

• Brad Welch: "You rise up through the ranks and once you get up to fifty we have what are called Specializations. Specializations are kind of the endgame for your Spartan career. Each Specialization has an armor set a bunch of emblems, an armor skin, and probably the biggest thing is you can also unlock an extra Armor Mod. You can actually have a real gameplay item. Uh, you’re a vehicle guy, you’re a sniper, you’re someone who wants to level up faster; we actually have a mod that lets you earn XP a bit faster. It’s more about specializing how you play at that point, rather than the core gameplay mechanics being modified."

• Josh Holmes: "So all of the choices that you’re making carries into the Spartan Ops experience."

• Kiki Wolfkill: "I’m gonna tune in every week, we’ll experience the story together for the first time as friends and then we’ll go play together as friends; and so this sort of new version of the watercooler."

• Phil Spencer: "Spartan Ops will be one of those pinnacle moments for us and the franchise: creating new expectation for gamers and really delighting people with just great, new functionality."

• Kenneth Scott: "We’re seeing just kinda the tip of the spear."

• David Brickhill: "Going where we want to go in the next steps is only made possible by building absolute confidence."

• Christopher Schlerf: "A hero is someone who takes action even though they have something to lose."

• Armando Troisi: "You gotta have the gumption, you gotta have the confidence to go after it."

• Frank O’Connor: "No matter how deeply you explore the universe or how much detail that you find out about aspects of the universe it’s still bigger and more mysterious than any amount of information you could ever give us and I think that’s how the real universe is."

• Greg Murphey: "I’m super excited about where this game has evolved to."

• Scott Warner: "There’s so much variation at all levels of the game that make it infinitely replayable."

• Peter Burzynski: "People play it, they say ‘Man, that’s great, I just want one more game, one more game, and another one,’ and just keep going."

• Kiki Wolfkill: "It has been sort of this household that’s come together person by person."

• David Ellis: "To me that’s the most fun thing, just seeing people play it, enjoy it, and have fun; and you know it just started with that single spark, that single sentence from one designer to another."

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