BTS: Anniversary Multiplayer

BTS: Anniversary Multiplayer is a 343 Industries Behind-the-Scenes documentary video that offers a look at the developmental process of the multiplayer of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. It was first released on YouTube and Halo Waypoint on August 27, 2011. The video features exclusive interviews with 343 Industries employees explaining how and why they have chosen which specific maps should be remade for Halo: Anniversary, as well as the development process for the maps themselves. Integration with Halo: Reach's multiplayer component is also discussed.

Transcript

X BEGINNING OF TRANSMISSION

• Max Hoberman: "There's always been an aspect of Halo 1 multiplayer that was really strong, Halo 1 had this incredibly diverse set of maps. It really was this focused experience. It had this beautiful simplicity."

• David Ellis: "It's not often that a game addicts me like that, were I just have to keep playing."

• Greg Hermann: "It was amazing for me to see our entire art team would just go down for entire evenings at a time, until 4 o'clock until 10 o'clock, to just play Halo multiplayer."

The Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary and BTS's logo appear.

• Dan Ayoub: "It wasn't that easy to just go through and say 'here are the maps that shipped with the original and this is what we're gonna do' because we wanted to do something bigger around the tenth anniversary."

• Frank O'Connor: "We also had to think about the existing Reach player-base. And didn't want to fragment it."

• Bill Fox: "Looking at it from the player's perspective in the current day, with the current abilities; how would I play this level and what do I think is missing?"

• Frank O'Connor: "We look at maps from the Halo series in entire including Halo: CE, Halo: Combat Evolved for PC and even Halo 2; and we thought which of the maps are people's favorites that work well with the Reach engine and gameplay."

Beaver Creek

Main article: Battle Canyon

• Chad Armstrong: "One of the things we came back to was we wanted people to take a look at the map and immediately think 'Oh yeah, I loved that map'!"

• Adam Crist: "Beaver Creek was actually the map that started the discussion of are we going to enhance the map or are we just going to make pure remakes."

• David Pout: "For each of the maps we're doing two modes, we're doing a classic mode which stays as true to the classic map layout as possible and we're doing a tweaked and refined mode."

• Frank O'Connor: "Because you have things like sprint and jet pack, we took the opportunity to put in some new spaces and new routes, tunnels and areas so that you can keep the gameplay moving so that it's not such a dead end once you reach the end of the canyon."

• David Ellis: "It's still a small map, but it feels bigger than it is."

• Dan Ayoub: "You don't feel as isolated, you very much feel like your in a world that is alive and influx."

• Adam Crist: "We want you to feel the pain of nostalgia every time you look at the map."

Timberland

Main article: Ridgeline

• Frank O'Connor: "We chose Timberland because it was kind of an unsung classic."

• Chad Armstrong: "Probably one of the best vehicle maps; we spent a lot of time in custom servers on Halo: Combat Evolved (PC port) playing Team Slayer on it."

• Adam Crist: "The map itself is actually now 20% smaller that what it used to be."

• David Pout: "On the art side, we've added a lot more tree cover; there's a big canopy of trees which makes the player space more interesting."

• Bill Fox: "We'd like to think of this as Central Park, New York city; there's this beautiful landscape but right on the edge is a city off around them."

• Frank O'Connor: "There's so many tight turns that there are lots of places for you to get hung up on and grenaded. Fun stuff happens.

• Max Hoberman: "What other FPS do you get to put colorful flowers and green grass on your map?"

Prisoner

Main article: Solitary

• Chad Armstrong: "Another example of a map that was grey walls all the way through."

• David Ellis: "You feel like you're in a box with ramps."

• Max Hoberman: "We wanted to make it feel like a prison by putting it a place which couldn't be accessed."

• Adam Crist: "There's a lot of walls and windows; we've even added glass to the floor."

• Chad Armstrong: "It's an interesting challenge to add navigation or even add new pathways that aren't dominated by jet packs on a purely vertical map. We've added bridges to change the flow of the map; we don't want to overdo it because if there's too much noise in a confined space then the map just gets frustrating to navigate."

• Dan Ayoub: "The game play is still the same, but it makes you feel like you're in a much more dynamic world."

Damnation

Main article: Penance

• Bill Fox: "Damnation is a really good example of just purple walls, and that's what represented the Covenant theme."

• Chad Armstrong: "We kind of left it to Certain Affinity to think about whether they cam give this map a context. I think they started in the room with the waterfalls."

• Max Hoberman: "We really wanted to give people a sense that they are in this water-processing plant of this facility which had to deal with these natural elements."

• David Ellis: "At the bottom of the waterfall, there used to be a space where you would have to jump through spaces, but now there is just a single walk-way."

• Bill Fox: "You didn't realize it the first time you played it in the original, but now there's all these ledges and different opportunities to get around your opponent and flank them that weren't there before."

• Adam Crist: "I think with our additions including jet packs so you don't fall to your death all of the time, the map has really changed a lot; just the general flow and it's a of fun to play."

Installation 04

• David Ellis: This location we chose is kind of where the genesis of Firefight began.

• Frank O'Connor: It's a place where you stop and you defend.

• Dan Ayoub: Traditionally, Firefight you've never really had the Marines fighting with you, and that's something we were able to do and we thought, well if we could pull this off, this is going to be a nice new take on Firefight.

• Adam Crist: Now it's you, your friends and some buddies, or if you're playing by yourself, now you actually have some help.

• David Ellis: Honestly, there's nothing better than hopping online with a buddy, getting in a Warthog, and just killing some Grunts. That's fun.

• Chad Armstrong: Normally with a title update what happens is you download the title update and your world is changed forever.

• Frank O'Connor: Since we couldn't really give them the existing Halo: CE gameplay with an online component, this was the next best thing.

• Dan Ayoub: A lot of the fun of Halo 1 is being to use the magnum again, and we wanted to allow you to use that in multiplayer.

• David Ellis: We were able to replicate the look and feel of the Halo 1 pistol with the standard pistol from Reach. Three headshots, anywhere on the map you're going to take an enemy down.

• Chad Armstrong: We've made sure that we can implement these changes on a gametype level, which means that we can have a version of Slayer that is exactly as it's always been and a version of Slayer with our title update changes.

• David Ellis: We're going to be releasing Beta Hoppers before the launch of Halo: Anniversary and we're going to utilize all of the feedback we get from the millions of players that participate that will ultimately shape this title update.

• Frank O'Connor: If people take away one thing from the Halo: Anniversary DLC, it's the realization that those old classic maps still feel really modern.

• David Ellis: It's like a brand new map all over again once you get the armor abilities in there.

• Dan Ayoub: The soul of all of all of these maps are still very present, and in fact in many ways they're enhanced now.

• Frank O'Connor: Overall, the campaign and the multiplayer, it just hasn't aged in the way that we expected it to feel, and when I switch to Classic mode in campaign or when I play Beaver Creek in multiplayer it feels new and it still feels nostalgic, and that's a strange mixture of feelings.

HALO ANNIVERSARY 11.15.2011