Halo 4 was released earlier this week and the game's developer 343 Industries has done quite the job revitalizing the game's multiplayer modes by including lots of new content to ensure that gamers keep playing. The Spartan Ops mode offers gamer new content on a weekly basis and can be player as a single player game or taken online for multiplayer action.
In a recent interview with Time Magazine, creative director Josh Holmes discussed how 343 Industries has approached online play as if it was season long television series.
"We actually looked at episodic TV as one of the major influences on the design of Spartan Ops just thinking what are the things about episodic TV that cause you to come back each week and want to engage and experience that next chapter, and how does that play into the social element of sharing stories," Holmes told Time. Like 'Oh man, did you see the latest episode of Breaking Bad?' and 'You've gotta see it, this happened.' It gives you that shared experience people can then relate to. It's kind of the water cooler moment that we all have."
According to Holmes, 343 Industries theorized how television's episodic format could be applied to video games. The developer wanted to combine Halo's strong narrative and expansive universe to create a new social and cooperative experience for the gamer. But 343 Industries also wanted to provide content for the two groups of players that make up its audience.
"We recognize that we have roughly half our players who are really focused on campaign and story, and maybe they're intimidated to go online and play competitively, or at least some number of players are," Holmes told Time. "On the flip side, you have players who absolutely love the competitive aspect of multiplayer, but maybe aren't as exposed to the surrounding fiction of the universe and the story of Halo."
Holmes said that 343 Industries wanted to create an online experience that would "cross-pollinate between the two audiences" and bring the two groups together. Also Holmes said that gamers, who traditionally play the campaign mode, would be able to use Spartan Ops as a way to jump into other online modes. He said for competitive gamers, who focuses more on multiplayer war games it's a chance to experience the story with their friends.
"Those were the two things we thought about," Holmes said. "But it was very experimental from our standpoint, and one of the big things I think I've spoken about before - if not, this'll be the first time - for us it was a big risk in that a lot of different components of the experience took a lot of development time to get them to a point where we could stand them up, put them all together and see how that experience would feel."
Halo 4 is now available worldwide as of Nov. 6 for the Xbox 360. You can read Holmes' full interview at Time Magazine.
If you want to more about how 343 Industries has attempted to make Halo 4 feel familiar and brand new at the same time, read more here. No more Master Chief in future Halo games? Maybe read about it here. Learn how you can earn free Microsoft points by playing Halo 4's multiplayer mode here.
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