Bungie has trotted out even more tantalising details for the Halo: Reach Beta, confirming that Armour Lock definitely wasn’t an April Fool, some lovely visual upgrades will feature and a selection of weapon loadouts will be available at the beginning of each multiplayer round.
For instance, the Air Assault loadout gives you an assault rifle, magnum and jetpack to start off with, whereas Operator will give you a shotgun, Expert Marksman starts you with the deadly scoped DMR and Grenadier puts a grenade launcher in your hands from the off.
In the same list of updates over on Bungie.net, the differences between the Elites and Spartans are also detailed, and the Elites are much more fearsome than they previously have been in past Halo titles: “We’ve already said that the Elites found in Halo: Reach were never meant to conform to the noble notion of equality. For far too long, our Sangheili brothers have been leashed – their very backs burdened by the weight of multiplayer parity. They hunched, bent to the whims of human anatomy,” runs the description on the site, meaning that the Elites will be somewhat tougher than their Spartan counterparts.
They’re bigger, faster and possess superior shield technology to the Spartans, able to move at a similar rate to a Spartan in full sprint, and they’re also able to evade, making them incredibly agile. Their health also recharges fully rather than in sections like the Spartans, and their shields also recharge significantly faster. Surely this will make things severely unbalanced though, won’t it Bungie?
Over to Bungie’s explanation: “So, how are we gonna work them into multiplayer? Well, in a number of ways. In some circumstances, like Arena, you’ll only square off Spartan vs. Spartan or Elite vs. Elite. In others, well…stay tuned.”
Looks like we’ll have to wait to find out more about how Bungie plans to handle Spartan vs. Elite battles.
Halo: Reach’s multiplayer Beta begins on May 3rd, as if you didn’t already know.
