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in
Halo 5: Guardians
, the two stories are
happening in parallel. We can’t go into too
much detail about what might happen in the
future, but I can definitely say [Atriox is] being
embraced, and any future Halo titles will have
the advantage of this new faction as a part of
their story.”
With CA coming in on a universe that was
already so well established, Jensen notes the
benefits in having a creative collaborator on
such an expansive campaign.
“
Halo Wars 2
’s story developed organically
during the development process. We pretty
much sat down right at the beginning and said
‘Right, what are we gonna do?’ Everyone’s
been waiting for this game forever! We didn’t
really have a predetermined notion of what we
wanted to do, but obviously there was a lot of
talk back and forth about where we wanted
the story to go. A lot of it was influenced by
things we wanted to do gameplay-wise; we’d
come up with a random mode or something
you needed to do in the campaign that we
needed to work backwards from, and we
just went from there. Everything grew out of
necessity.”
Building on the already fertile foundation of
the popular first title, both development teams
were careful not to fix what wasn’t broken.
HW2 takes the best parts of the original and
builds on them.
“There’s a lot more of what we had in the
first one. New units, leader powers, game
modes – everything’s been improved upon.”
Jensen notes that the most significant addition
in
Halo Wars 2
is the amount of extra player
choice. “If you want to focus on story, there’s
the campaign mode, if you want the really epic
multiplayer experience, there’s that, and then
Blitz is this whole other experience.”
We found out about the new Blitz mode
(a card-based endeavour) first-hand in a short
hands-on event in Sydney last month. We
spent a few hours on the prologue and first
two campaign levels and a bit of multiplayer,
coming away with the impression that
Halo Wars 2
really is an RTS for those not
necessarily familiar with the genre. Regardless
of whether you’re a fan of the Halo series,
RTS games, or you’re just here for Creative
Assembly, it’s a hugely accessible title that
takes no time to learn and is genuinely a
Warthog full of fun – especially the multiplayer.
One can only imagine what a fully-fledged
Deathmatch could look like on the esports
level – something 343 have definitely
pondered.
“Esports was considered right from the
start. It’s something that right now we don’t
have specific ideas on where we want to go,
which was a very conscious decision because
ultimately esports has to be organic, and come
from the fans themselves. We definitely hope
people want to play
Halo Wars 2
competitively
– Blitz mode especially was something that
was conceived from an esports perspective.
It’s every bit as fun to watch as it is to play.
We are ready to embrace esports and we have
definitely been thinking about it in terms of
design, but it’s ultimately now in the hands of
the gamers.”
If all that isn’t enough to satisfy you, 343
also have a ton of post-launch content planned,
with Jensen promising “six-plus months” of
content on the way for the game.
“There are new leaders, new units, new
Blitz cards, lots of stuff. It adds a lot more
depth and a lot more variety, especially
when you’re adding things like
leader powers, it just enhances
those dimensions even more.
We can’t wait to see the
players’ responses.”
49
FEATURE
GAMES
We definitely
want people to
play
Halo Wars 2
competitively - Blitz
mode especially
•
Halo Wars 2
is out Feb 17