Halo 3 info leaked: new weapons, vehicles, features & Collector's Edition detailed [update 1]

by James Ransom-Wiley { Oct 27th 2006 at 12:40PM }

Xbox Portugal has posted scans from an upcoming Halo 3 feature to be published in Swedish mag Level. Some serious translation work is needed before the full story comes into focus, but we have gathered that the images are from an alpha build of Halo 3, suggesting that many of the details won't reflect the final version. Check out the ~~one-manned mini-Warthog~~ Mongoose!

UPDATE: Xbox 360 Fanboy has a summary of the new details:

Weapons

Spiker - a new Brute weapon
Spartan Laser - a laser that tears vehicles apart
Nail Grenade - sticks into walls, sends nails everywhere

Vehicles

Mongoose - the ATV that was cut from Halo 2; seats two, but no weapons; designed for recon

New Feature

"Man Cannon" - what it sounds like; launches you into the air (think: jump pads from Unreal, Quake Arena)

Controls

Bumpers are used to reload the right and left weapons independently
X-button has a "secret" function

Misc.

Secondary weapon is now visible when not in use (slung over shoulder)

Collector's Edition

"Legendary Edition" - box is a replica of Master Chief's helmet, includes 4-disc set:

Disc one: game
Disc two: documentaries and developer commentary
Disc three: spin-off material (Red vs. Blue, Spark of Life, etc.)
Disc four: all cut scenes from Halo 1-3 in HD
Bonus: sneak peek of Halo movie will be included on one of the discs (maybe)

[Thanks to Galls & everyone else that sent this in!]

Tags: Bungie, Halo 3, Halo3, magazine, scan, Xbox Live, XboxLive

Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)

Tyler @ Oct 27th 2006 3:19PM

Is it just me or didn't Resistance: Fall of Man make a nail grenade type thing for their game, and now it shows up in Halo 3? I love Halo, but it's just kinda curious.

Fenris @ Oct 27th 2006 3:23PM

Alex,

I agree that those shots do not look that good. On the plus side the shots are using "placeholder" objects and many of the textures and lighting are missing. This is pretty common with a game in the Alpha stage.

Wulkar @ Oct 27th 2006 3:24PM

WAIT...the collectors is a giant master cheif head...HOLY CRAP!!!

KilgoreTrout XL @ Oct 27th 2006 3:33PM

X Button [tap]: toggles crouch
X Button [hold]: readies happy fun ball

Fisher @ Oct 27th 2006 3:36PM

Page @ Oct 27th 2006 3:42PM

Those of you saying about egm and they're exclusive - they don't distribute egm in the UK - other than some scans or taking out an annual subscription we have no way of getting those latest pics.

alex @ Oct 27th 2006 4:42PM

ga ga ga ga ga GODLIKE

Big Ed @ Oct 27th 2006 4:46PM

Dear Internet,

I would like to point out the the nailbomb had an excellent, and memorable, apperance in the 1996 hit film "Eraser." That was an amazing ten years before Resistance.

Remember: An optimist believes that everything is an homage. A pessimist belives that everything has been stolen.

Give this man a star! Anyways, event though I'm a Halo fan, I'm still underwhelmed by these graphics. I know they're temporary, but in this day and age, graphics should have been vastly improved. But hey, a nail grenade for Xbox users!

y @ Oct 27th 2006 5:10PM

wow 4 discs for the collectors editition.

If the 360 support hddvd or blu ray on games it'd be one discs.

LOL

doctadjones @ Oct 27th 2006 5:18PM

Dammit Joystiq! You call this "newsworthy"!!
What a waste of bandwidth.
Where's the pencil and paper artwork?

Tristan @ Oct 27th 2006 5:21PM

This is actually pre-alpha. So this game still has a long way to go. So before you say the graphics look just like halo 2 remember this is pre-alpha. So think before you say.

Mark @ Oct 27th 2006 5:23PM

If each DVD is filled to the brim with bonus materials, I won't mind having to swap discs. It's a little underwhelming to pay $60+ for one disc and a big helmet. I'd rather have the bonus materials on four different discs anyhow. It's more orderly that way, imho.

So, who's going to be the first to post some alpha R:FOM screens?

Nick @ Oct 27th 2006 6:11PM

For everybody saying that the nail grenade was "copied" from the PS3 game Fall of Mankind, you are all wrong.

When Halo CE came out in 2004, a map called "Needleosity" was released by a member of the community. One of the weapons in the map was a needler grenade; it used the needles from the Needler as projectiles that shot out in all directions after the grenade was thrown. This type of grenade has been used in a number of maps since then.

If you would like to play the map and give it a try, you can download it from here: http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?pg=3&fid=368. Assuming you have Halo CE (that's Custom Edition, for the PC), you can drop it in the maps folder and start up the game.

If anything, Bungie are copying their customers - not Sony's development studio. However, I would say that it is more of a nod to the legitimate modding community than "stealing".

Nick

shmoe @ Oct 27th 2006 6:48PM

I dont get it...

Why push a bunch of Halo 3 information when the game is a whole damn year away?!?

We have Gears coming our Rainbow Six, and others... and the big news is Halo 3?

Dont get me wrong, Halo kicks ass, but is it not premature for all this. It really wont take the wind out of PS3s sails just talking about it.

although a Halo 3 multiplay demo for live on the 17th would be nice... a pipe dream... but nice

lets hope

Galls @ Oct 27th 2006 7:23PM

Kids the game still fits on one disk, that is all that matters.

Anyway any marketing major, and yes that includes myself so do not try and one up me on this one. A random child on the internet, who thinks he knows everything, does not know more than me.

Selling a multi disk set sells a lot better with the general public (not false idol worshiping fanboys) than a single disk. Even though a BD disk can hold the equivalent amount of data a smart marketeer would rather use a "Collectors Edition, so much content it takes an extra disk to fill"

Doctahh Dooom @ Oct 27th 2006 7:48PM

First off, you guys seen the E3 trailer, and it looked good, and MASSIVE. Secondly you can't base the graphics off of some poor quality scans. and third it still looks great.

boo @ Oct 27th 2006 9:11PM

I don't know if it can be stressed enough that most of the textures in these screenshots are placeholders. Once the real ones are put in, we can expect this to truly look next-gen.

Basically, take these screens, and imagine it ... better!

San @ Oct 27th 2006 9:37PM

wow, that is fucking sweet. i just hope that halo 3 doesn't get hacked as fast as halo 2. they sorta screwed up the trilogy with all the glitches in halo 2.

Mo Nassar @ Oct 28th 2006 12:11AM

Why does my Amazon pre-order show a Halo 3 delivery date of December 28, 2006? Previously, it showed March 2007 but it just got updated in the past couple of days. Is this a mistake or does Amazon know something..?

makesevenupyours @ Oct 28th 2006 1:22AM

sony fanyboys...none of us really care about the discs.

infact, i think its kinda nice and has that COLLECTORS feel to it that way.

each catagory has its own disc, nice and organized.

if it were on one disc i probably wouldnt complain, but really sony fanboys, this is a truly horrible attempt at making the xbox 360 look bad.

and according to YOUR people they have already almost filled up all the space on launch titles, so if resistance, which currently takes up all most off of its blu-ray disc room, were to have this many extra things, it just might require another disc too.

but most of us dont care.
do you know WHY we dont care?
because we would rather switch a disc occasionally(rarely, cuz we will spend MUCH more time actually playing the game) then pay an additional 200 dollars.

and also by your logic, playstation 2 would seem HARDLY next gen compared to the playstation 1.

honestly, cant you just read about the game and post without trying to start something?

anyways, i dont see why people are talking crap on the graphics. as said, this is NOT what the graphics in the game will look like.

but then, they dont look that bad. it looks smooth and nice. i mean, you talk about it like you want more detail on skin. but we are talking about big suits, and vehicles and environments(which i think look pretty good).

but we know what the graphics will look like. they will look like that of the E3 trailer.

DeeMan @ Oct 28th 2006 3:42AM

Haha. The laser dishes out 'massive damage'.

Bill @ Oct 28th 2006 7:47AM

>>37. @23. Am I the only one who thinks these graphics don't really look much better than halo 2 level? I guess I just think they are pretty underwhelming compared to what PS3 will have out by that time, titles like MGS, Killzone, Heavenly Sword, Final Fantasy, etc...>>

Meh, downgraded MGS is ugly.

Killzone, we have no idea what that looks like, as no gameplay has been shown.

Heavenly Sword is pretty impressive, yes, but also lack in some area (anti-aliasing) and has been downgraded a lot from the target renders. Lets wait til final build on that one, but at least it has some ingame credibility that looks good.

FF, bleh. It will be nothing but punch a button and look at this half hour CG movie, and it will probably be on rails with prerendered backgrounds like the other FF games, so who cares if it looks "great" it doesn't contain any real gameplay.. That franchise is just so bad now.

Tristan @ Oct 28th 2006 9:30AM

People stop saying it has bad graphics this is all pre-alpha. Bungie said this two weeks ago. Which means they still have two stages to go through. The graphics are already at halo 2 level even better than halo 2 and they are only in Pre-Alpha!!! This game will blow away many games when we see the final stuff.

sy @ Oct 28th 2006 4:24PM

look at the picture of the sniper rifle! it has two legs so you can lie on the ground! is that what 'x' is for? is that the new feature? MC can get on his belly?

Martyr @ Oct 28th 2006 5:13PM

I believe "X" is going to be an alternate senstivity button. So basically if you play on 3 senstivity you can hold X and it'll switch you to 7 senstivity for example to make you turn faster...

raptor1849 @ Oct 28th 2006 10:52PM

Uh, in case it hasn't been pointed out yet. Bungie's offical comment on this leak is that the screens found here are from an earlier build of halo 3. so the graphics are still being greatly improved upon. the purpose of this article is to show off gameplay more than graphics.

Sulayman @ Oct 29th 2006 1:08AM

Who else is laughing at the fact that ALL those 4 DVDs in the Collectors BoxSet could have fitted onto ONE Blu-ray / HD-DVD? If Microsoft stopped being so COOL and actually tried to make a TRUE Next-Gen Console by adopting an ACTUAL Successor to DVD!

Too busy in trying to "Beat Sony to market"

(Not a huge leap in my opinion)

Guess we will see when it is released!

Silly Monkey @ Oct 29th 2006 1:12AM

@ 33. Spartan Laser... Does it penetrate the suits of other Spartans to ensure closeness and awkward brotherly like love? I cant believe they chose homosexual failures to represent the Halo character. Then again, what can you expect from Canadians.
_______________________________

hahah, funny...too bad Bungie is an American company, but then again your probably American, how can a poor American like you be expected to know anything about your own country. Oh and before you try to pick out that Bungie has Canadian Employees, well yeah they do, but they are Animators, since Canadians tend to be the best Animators in the world, along with having the best sniper squad in the world. The employees who came up with Gun designs are all American, or from other Countries, thankyou, but please try and become educated before spreading your discusting American biased filth all over the internet
_____________________________________
@31. someone calls the waaaahmbulance - quit your crying i don't think any of us had plans to fly to sweden for a magazine, joystiq is doing us a favor and people like 11 and 19 are crying like the nancy-boys they are. someone get these guys an ice-cold whine-eken!
___________________________________
Interesting, so not wanting to violate international copyright laws is being whiny little babies? I guess when you try to do it and get slapped with a 100 million dollar lawsuit, you'll just complain that it is unjust, considering they are not even from your country and they are suing you. But hey, you seem to be American, how can you be expected to keep up with international laws?
_______________________________________

As to my own personal views on these scans, I'm discusted.

Ilmari Ronkainen @ Oct 29th 2006 10:05AM

Jee vittusaatana habborulettaa saatana.

åke poika on tyytyväinen!!!
sweden is poo swedish people are shit sweden is a suck!
dsoimg
perkele saatana
pilluporno vitusaatna

mordecai @ Oct 30th 2006 1:12AM

@ 11: if this magazine company did indeed pay a lot of money for this exclusive info (and if appears they did, per the bungie response) then they're fools. gamers are linked to the internet by their very nature and any news about a game franchise as big as halo is going to be all over the internet. i'm not saying print media is dead but they've got to learn to adapt to the internet culture. shit like that is gonna be all over the internets within minutes

Tadmiral @ Oct 30th 2006 2:36AM

This is a PRE-alpha build so very early and those pics are not the best quality the graphics are pretty good and no final stuff is done yet also the realtime lighting is not in there yet so be pateint it will be good.

Peligro @ Oct 30th 2006 9:36PM

@78
You truely are an ass. I'm not American, but I have enough education to capitalize the right letters, dunce. And just out of curiosity, what does the Canadian sniper squad have to do with Halo 3? I'm disgusted(not discusted) by your unintelligent rant.
---------------------------

I'm not sure what stage in development this game is, because Bungie's lied before, but it still looks pretty good. Can't wait for the final version.

Randomhero @ Oct 31st 2006 12:41AM

Look i work at EBgames as a manager, last week we went to a convention to play with the ps3 and sorry to say for all your sony d-bags.Have fun with your ps3 cause it sucks. All its got is cutscenes, ill give them that.

PS3=steaming pile of hardware that cost you $600 plus an $80 game.

patrick @ Oct 31st 2006 6:28PM

first off, to the people complaining about these scans infringing copyrights and what not -- very true. but, can you blame the gaming public when bungie's been teasing their incredible fanbase for months without so much as a picture? i blame them completely. they could've headed off this debacle with a better response to the people who have supported them all these years instead of having them read frankie's condescending comments on a weekly basis. i'm a bungie fan (been so for way longer than halo), i'll continue to be, but on this i say, "to hell with your threats, save the time and energy for the halo movie and halo 3"

JNT @ Nov 1st 2006 11:16AM

I'm from Sweden and I can confirm that the article is from the Swedish magazine LEVEL (I'm holding the issue above in my hand as I'm writing this). One of the big fonted quotations on one of the picures above translates: "There are many ways of expressing feelings. Graphics is not the most important part" - Brian Jarrard. Man, you guys don't know what you're missing.

Andrew Carter @ Nov 2nd 2006 4:38PM

In my opinion the visuals are a little better than halo 2 but bungie announced that the game is only in alpha stage devolpment.

A Crown of Amaranth @ Nov 3rd 2006 11:42PM

"ATV "mongoose" that was scraped from halo 2. I wonder if these are the final spartan models, in halo 2 they kinda had some battle damage to them, these look so new and un used. Makes me wonder if theres going to be some kinda real time damage system visable on armor (just a thought.)"

Godammit, learn how to spell. It's "scrapped" and "visible". I wish I could give the entire Internet an English lesson. FUCK YOU!

Kazmo @ Nov 3rd 2006 11:47PM

I read a Swedish magazine that talked about the "x button totally changing the game"
We will get to play as Cortana. She will be incharge of the battle on earth. As we go through a level we can cordinate air drops (air resupply) to where and when we want them! Imagine Staw wars battle front. You can choose who you are and where you enter the level and choose which battles you want to fight in one level. The AI will take care of master chief will you are Cortona and we will have military bases to defend that produce Warthogs etc. We get a helicopter and and 3 man boat! and there are reported to be sharks and Aligators! with massive battles over the Ocean! Sweet!
know only if MC could fly.

ado mortumee @ Nov 4th 2006 12:20PM

oh this is to all the sony fans out there,

i admit i buy sony products but i must say the sony stuff saddens me. this even in alfa has shadows! if you look really hard at the sony stuff there are many little details missing such as shadows and bullet pocking. this even though it does only run a modified version of the halo 2 engine it still looks, detail wise, better than that of the ps3 launch titles as of up to the ps3 gamers day in san fran.

Sebasman2 (Xbox LIVE Tag) @ Nov 7th 2006 8:36AM

Okay, I think I just shat my pants. And had a heart attack. And came in my pants.
A lot of stuff.
I LOVE YOU, XBOX360 FANBOY!
jk
THANKS!!

Will P @ Nov 8th 2006 3:51PM

X = Self-Destruct!!!! :) that'd be cool. lol.

spartan151-117 @ Nov 10th 2006 8:08PM

The only problem with the Energy Sword on your back is is that it would burn through your back and kill you, most likely and hopefully they'll have the blade retracted into the handle and the handle would be on the masterchief's belt.

P.S. For all you extreme halo fans that have read the 3 books you would now how hot the energy blades are..

Danny V @ Nov 11th 2006 2:47PM

I bet the x button is like other games, where something happens to the player (ie. seeing through walls slow motion, twice the power)

bynary @ Nov 18th 2006 11:19PM

James -
Sorry, bud. Welcome to the Internet.

chris24 @ Nov 22nd 2006 7:40AM

i think x might be combat knife or maybe super spartan strength.. it would be cool to see a new race of aliens maybe x is to climb over things like in riddick..

chris24 @ Nov 22nd 2006 8:06AM

X MUST BE SOMETHING PRETTY BIG TO CHANGE THE WHOLE GAME THAT CORTANA THING SOUNDS PRETTY GOOD KAZMO. I HOPE WE GET TO SEE THE MASTER CHIEFS FACE AT THE END OF THE GAME AND MAYBE SEE WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE HE WAS TRANSFORMED, I AM DISSAPOINTED TO HEAR STILL NO BOTS...

chris24 @ Nov 22nd 2006 9:23AM

ALL YOU PEOPLE WHO THINK PS3 WILL WIPE OUT XBOX360 YOUR FUCKED! IVE PLAYED IT AND ITS MORE LIKE A FRIGGIN NINTENDO 64.

GOTTA SAY THE NEW ARMOR LOOKS PRETTY SHMIK. MAYBE X IS JUST RUNNING FASTER AND JUMPING HIGHER FOR A SHORT TIME LIKE IN FAR CRY INSTINCTS, WOULD BE GOOD TO RUN A BIT FASTER MASTER CHIEFS A SUPER HUMAN AND HE RUNS LIKE AN OLD LADY CRIPPLED, X COULD BE CHANGING TO A ALLIE LIKE IN BRUTE FORCE,I THINK THE MAN CANON IS LIKE A LAUNCH PAD LIKE IN UNREAL BUT SHOOTS YOU THROUGH THE AIR TO THE OTHER MAN CANNON GIVING YOU HEAPS OF TIME IN THE AIR TO SNIPER DOWN TEN ELITES,DONT THINK THERES A DOUBLE BARELL SHOTIE EVER WAIST OF AMMO BECAUSE YOU ONLY NEED 1 SHOT WITH A SINGLE BARELL TO TAKE DOWN GRUNTS DRONES JACKALS AND HUNTERS, ELITES AND BRUTES TAKES 2,IT WILL BE AWESOM TO RECORD 30 SECONDS OF GMEPLAY JUST IMAGIN ALL THE TIMES YOUVE GONE ON A MAJOR KILLING SPREE AND WISHED YOUR MATES HAD A SEEN IT..ALSO BEING ABLE TO USE THE COVENENT JET PACK THINGS WOULD BE COOL.MAYBE WE MIGHT PLAY AS A BRUTE FOR A PERIOD OF THE GAME LIKE THE ARBITER..OR A HUNTER! ITS ABOUT TIME THERES A SPARTEN LASER, SHITS ALL OVER PARTICLE BEAM RIFLE..IT WOULD BE GOOD IF WHEN YOU KILL COVENENT THEY WERE A BIT MORE INTERACTIVE ONCE DEAD JUST FOR FUN..BLOWING GRENADES UP BY SHOOTING THEM WOULD ALSO BE GOOD.. AND BEING ABLE TO SET LAND MINES..THERE SHOULD BE 2 FUNCTIONS FOR EACH WEOPON LIKE IN UNREAL.....THERE SHOULD BE 1ST PERSON VIEW WHEN IN A VEHICLE, OR ON TURRET..SOMETHING THAT REALLY PISSES ME OFF MASTER CHIEF CANT EVEN BREAK THROUGH A LOCKED DOOR OR SMASH A WALL BUT HE CAN FLIP A 66 TON TANK WITHOUT MOVNG HIS ARMS.............

MIKE @ Nov 22nd 2006 12:28PM

HALO 3 IS GOING TO BE INSANE. PS3 IS GOING TO HAVE THEIR HANDS FULL ONCE AGAIN TRYING TO COPY THIS GAME AND MAKE IT BETTER ALA KILLZONE/ RESISTANCE, AND WILL ONCE AGAIN FAIL. SORRY PS3 LOVERS SONY'S GOT NOTHING ON BUNGIE, AND 360 CONTROLLER IS MUCH MUCH MUCH BETTER THAN SIXAXIS, OH YEAH AND GAMES ON 360 LOOK BETTER THAN THE SAME GAMES ON PS3 WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THAT.