Halo 4 E3 Builds
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Build Date: (Refer to table) |
In 2012, 343 was poised to release their latest and most ambitious project yet, Halo 4. Drumming up anticipation, 343 took their project to the show-floor at the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo. During this time, 343 showed off Halo 4's 3 main game-modes; campaign, wargames, and spartan ops. In order to show off each of the 3 aforementioned game-modes, 343 built 3 different versions of the same game. One that booted to an incredibly limited campaign menu, one that booted to a limited wargames custom games menu, and one that booted to a limited spartan ops menu. These 3 builds would come to be known as the Halo 4 E3 builds. Contrary to what one might initially believe, each build is unique from one another considering each aims to show off different parts of Halo 4.
| Build Name | Build Version | Build Date |
|---|---|---|
| Keynote | 15119.12.05.31.0400.e3m60 | Thu May 31 07:22:17 2012 |
| WarGames | 15116.12.05.31.0300.e3 | Thu May 31 06:19:41 2012 |
| Spartan Ops | 15117.12.05.31.0300.e3 | Thu May 31 06:23:28 2012 |
Contents
Keynote
The keynote presentation build is perhaps this collections' most interesting build, at first glance. To clarify, this build is the one that 343 played live on stage during the their presentation. Additionally, the build contains an early and highly scripted version of the mission 'Infinity' which is the 4th mission Halo 4's campaign. With the mission being heavily scripted, it is very easy to miss triggers and even entire pieces of dialogue given the player moves in a sporadic manner. Before moving into the brief demo sequence, it is important to first take a look at the introductory menu and its subsequent sub-menus. Pictured below is what a player would be introduced to after selecting the build's given xex. Pictured next to that is the menu that will be loaded upon pressing start.
Initial Menus for the Keynote Build:
As is evident by the pictures above, the menu provided in this build is nothing like the retail game. The retail build would bring players to a complete menu accompanied by options for campaign, infinity, and waypoint; this menu brings players to a locked screen containing only one option, campaign. Additionally, players are unable to back out or progress into the other game modes that the retail build would allow by normal means. Pressing start button will take players to the settings menu where the player is free to set their control preferences, network status, audio/video options, loadout, spartan armor, and emblem. The pictures below showcase the settings menu in its entirety. To quickly preface the next set of information, this article will not be re-posting the settings menus in each of the 3 builds seeing as each of them are identical; instead, this article will aim to only point out the differences given there are any in the next version's settings menu.
Settings Menu of the Keynote/E3 Builds:
The Keynote Presentation Mission
With the preliminary information out of the way, it's time to delve in to the real meat and bones of this build, the mission itself. As was mentioned, the E3 demo aims to showcase an early and highly scripted version of the mission Infinity; this is the 4th mission in the final game. Upon pressing the only button available, players will be instantly begin loading into the mission. However, before players are able to gain control of Master Chief, they must first endure a cut-scene that shows the UNSC Infinity ship crash landing onto Requiem; this is the planet that Master Chief has also found himself stranded on. Following the UNSC Infinity's crash onto Requiem, the Master Chief finds himself tracking down the now crashed ship. Following a brief stint with the Diadact's Cryptum ship, Chief makes his way into a jungle like area where the player finally gains control of the Chief.
Upon taking control of the chief, the player is greeted to quite the scene; in the opening shot the Diadact's ship, a slew of banshees, and the UNSC Infinity can all be immediately observed. Upon stepping forward, the player will be met with a brief interruption that has Cortana giving the Chief coordinates to the crashed Infinity ship. Additionally, a phantom along with numerous banshees proceed to make their way over the Chief's head. After this, the player should then begin to move toward the destination marked on their map; during the player's journey to said mark, the squid can be viewed floating above. To quickly address something of note, this squid is nowhere to be seen in the final game. Also, note how the squid appears as an ally on the players map.
Continuing on, the player will quickly find themselves amidst a group of enemies. Consisting of an elite, two grunts, and one jackal, this fairly small group of enemies do not initially spot the player. After some convenient dialogue alerting the Chief that his location has been compromise, the group of enemies will quickly began to attack the player. To quickly side track a bit, this group of enemies will not spot nor attack the player until Cortana alerts the Chief of his location status. To clarify, say the player were to prematurely approach the group before the game had taken the time to play out its mini cutscene, the group of enemies would ignore the player until said mini cutscene concludes thus thrusting the enemies into a combative state. Upon the death of the grunts and jackal, the elite will pull out an energy sword and charge the player. Sadly, firing at the elite seems to do little to deter his efforts to slice the Chief up, but thankfully, a mysterious beam intervenes and saves the Chief seconds away from being attacked by the elite. The source of the mysterious beam can then be viewed lying atop the tree to the right of the player. Additionally, once the player looks at the source, it will quickly vanish thus leaving Chief to ponder as to what exactly that was. Furthermore, the source will vanish regardless of whether or not it has actually killed the elite.
Following the first group of enemies, the player finds themselves surrounded by a group of promethean crawlers. After pushing forward, the player will get ambushed by a promethean knight. After a brief cutscene showing the Chief getting pushed around, the player regains control of the Chief. Following the death of the attacker, a lightrifle will drop on the ground along with an icon pointing to its location. Picking up the lightrifle ques the Chief to stare down the weapon as it morphs in his hands. Following the brief lightrifle show off, the player is tasked with chasing down the now fleeing promethean watcher. Once the Chief has caught up to said watcher, three crawlers will emerge underneath the watcher. If one were to only view this scenario from an observer's perspective, it would seem as though the presenter's grenade had taken out the crew of watchers. Interestingly enough, this couldn't be further from the truth seeing as grenades do not work. So, in order to trigger that 'explosion' shown off in the presentation, all the player has to do is take out the promethan watcher hovering above the three crawlers.
Once the watcher has been taken down, the next area begins with another knight spawning whilst two crawlers make their way towards the Chief. Once shot down, the knight will drop a scattershot just in time for the player to take out the recently spawned knight to the left of first the knight's resting place. Thankfully, the scattershot will decimate the knight in only one shot thus taking out the final mortal enemy in the fairly brief E3 2012 mission. To wrap up the mission, the player must make their jump off of little cliff. Following this, the player must turn on their promethean vision in order to trigger the final mini cutscene that shows multiple promethean crawlers making their way across a large tree branch whilst a ton of knights began to appear. Finally, one final knight will appear directly in front of the Chief and swing at his face thus ending the mission and queuing the Halo 4 logo.
To wrap up this section, it'd only be fitting to link the Halo 4 E3 2012 presentation play through itself. So, linked below are two videos. The first is a video that showcases the build being played live on the E3 2012 stage posted by Top10Series and the other being a raw run of the mission along with an exploration of the map using theater mode posted by Cashmint.
Mission Transcription
- Cortana: "Chief, there!"
- The Master Chief quickly turns to see the UNSC Infinity crash landing onto the Forerunner planet, Requiem.
- Andrew Del Rio (From the Crashing UNSC Infinity): "Mayday! Mayday! This is the captain of the UNSC Infinity. Unknown Enemy has seized control of our ship; we're without power! We are on a collision course with an unidentified Forerunner planet."
- Master Chief: "Track its decent."
- Cortana: "Marking. Impact predicted 77.8 kilometers due north."
- The UNSC Infinity has now completed its crash landing onto the unknown Forerunner planet. The Chief, after having turned in order to get a view of the UNSC Infinity, is then caught off guard by the Diadact's Cryptum after its sudden appearance following the Infinity's crash. Following the Cryptums's brief stint and scan of the Chief, the Cryptum flies by the Chief toward to wreckage of the UNSC Infinity.
- Cortana: "Know where he's heading."
- Master Chief: "Same place we are."
- The Chief then proceeds to walk toward the camera thus queuing a cut. Upon reemerging, players are greeted to an armed Master Chief making his way through the jungle like environments that inhabit Requiem. After another cut to black, the game finally gives players the ability to control the spartan therefore ending the intro cinematic of the Halo 4 E3 2012 keynote build.
- Cortana: "These Covenant aren't messing around. I'm detecting additional forces inbound."
- Master Chief: "Can you get us down to the ship?"
- Cortana: "Affirmative. Setting a waypoint for Infinity; let's go.
- Cortana: "I don't think we're the only ones in here. Keep your eyes open."
- The Chief encounters a small group of enemies shortly after Cortana expresses her concerns regarding the possibility of malicious entities on the planet.
- Cortana: "Scouts, holdup...They spotted us!"
- After clearing out the enemies, the Chief notices a strange light that had seemingly disintegrated the elite that had been charging at him.
- Master Chief: "What was that?"
- Cortana: "Unknown."
- Andrew Del Rio (Radio): "All ground forces are ordered to return to Infinity immediately! Possible insertions on multiple levels!"
- The Master Chief makes his way to a large tree where a second group of enemies swarm the Chief. Unlike the previous encounter, this one is made up exclusively of Promethean crawlers.
- Cortana: "Activity! All around us!"
- Master Chief: "Hostiles!"
- Cortana: "These things are some type of defense AIs; definitely not Covenant. Stay sharp! More of them! [after wrapping up the fight] They're retreating?"
- After the Chief makes his way to a certain area, he is ambushed by a Promethean Knight. Said knight proceeds to jump the Chief before the fight truly ensues between the two.
- Cortana: "Chief! [after the brief scripted sequence involving both the Chief and newly introduced Knight] Whatever it is, it's not organic!"
- Upon killing the Knight, a light rifle is dropped. This prompts both the Chief and Cortana to inspect said weapon which leads them to question its origins given the rifle's unusual design.
- Cortana: "On the ground, it dropped something! [after picking up the rifle] I recongize this design. It's Forerunner. [after the Chief notices the watcher that hadn't been killed yet] Chief, don't let it get away!"
- After disposing of the final enemy and picking up its scattershot, the Chief is ambushed by another Knight.
- Cortana: "[while the Knight shown above leaps toward Master Chief] Look out!"
- Following the attack, Andrew Del Rio appears on the Chief's HUD with a few alarming messages
- Andrew Del Rio: "Mayday! Mayday! Code red, hostile elements attempting to gain entrance to the Infinity Bridge!"
- Master Chief: "We need to move."
- The Chief makes his way toward the end of the level where he is prompted to actiavte visor mode thus revealing a slew of Promethean Crawlers as well as Knights.
- Cortana: "We're not alone. Switching visor mode."
- UNSC Infinity Crewmen 1: "Oh God! What are those things?"
- UNSC Infinity Crewmen 2: "Immediate assistance! All units! Please respond - [the crewmen is attacked thus cutting off his communications and prompting him to scream in distress]
- By this time, the Knights have flooded the screen. To finally end the E3 2012 keynote presentation, the Chief is struck down by a Knight who suddenly appears in front him.
An Overview of The Unlocked Menus
As one should be aware, this build boots to an incredibly locked version of the campaign menu; said menu contains a single option, 'campaign'. Obviously, this loads up the lone campaign mission available in the build. Thankfully, this menu isn't the only one available and the rest can be loaded through some nifty unlocks. By breaking out of the locked menus and loading the regular menus, the player will instantly be greeted with something much more familiar upon boot up. Pictured below is the actual menu found within the E3 2012 keynote build. Before going further, this analysis will aim to show off every single aspect of the menus. So, in the interest of saving time, this section will not be repeated across every build. Instead, only the differences will be noted among the different build's menus. Without spoiling too much, there is a few key differences between the menus of the different builds. Also, these menus will not include any text describing them; instead, each picture will possess a brief description in the thumbnail. However, if a section has something that needs to be said, it will be done within the proper section.
Waypoint Menus:
Campaign Menus:
Infinity Menus:
Before moving on, it is important note that whilst the other two builds showcase an introduction to spartan ops upon clicking the 'spartan ops' option in the menu, the keynote build will actually showcase a much earlier verison of the same exact cut-scene. Listed below are two videos, the video that plays upon clicking the spartan ops tab in the keynote build, and the video that plays upon clicking the same tab but in either the spops or WarGames builds. Thanks to GamesMediaPro for the final infinity trailer and Lord Zedd for the early version of the infinity trailer.
Keynote War Games Custom Games Menus + Settings:
Before moving on, it's important to quickly preface the following documentation with a fair bit of explanation. To start, note the title of this section; it includes keynote in it. This is because the keynote build has a different custom games menu than the other two builds. So, this section will be detailing the custom games menus and settings in found within the keynote build whereas the menus belonging to the wargames/spartan ops build will be detailed later on. As for what changes between the two, the gametypes found within the two builds are each different. Listed below are the available game types along with their subsequent game type variants that can found exclusively within the keynote build; the gametypes within the other two builds will be listed in a similar manner.
- Settings Present Across All Game Types
- Weapons and Vehicles
- Custom Powerup Traits
- Shields and Health
- Weapons and Damage
- Movement
- Sensors
- Appearance
- Custom Powerup Traits
- General Settings
- Base Player Traits
- Look at Custom Powerup Traits above
- Spartan Loadouts
- Elite Loadouts
- Respawn Settings
- Base Player Traits
- Weapons and Vehicles
- Capture the Flag
- CTF2-AnimTest
- Capture The Flag
- Midnight CTF 2 UR
- Flood
- Flood
- King of the Hill
- King of the Hill
- Oddball
- Goal!
- Team Oddball
- Regicide
- E3 Regicide
- Regicide
- Scorched Earth
- Scorched Earth
- Slayer
- BR Slayer
- E3 Big Infinity Slayer
- E3 Infinity Slayer
- E3 Team Slayer
- Infinity Slayer
- M-Slayer UR
- Midnight FFA
- Midnight Team Slayer
- Slow Spawn
- Stronghold
- Stronghold
Keynote Spartan Ops Menus:
Before moving onto the next section, it is important to realize that the keynote build's forge menu is very similar to that of custom games; so, in order to analysis forge in its entirety within the WarGames section, the forge menus will be skipped over in this part of the analysis. If one wishes to view such menus immediately, documentation can be found within the WarGames build section.
Theater Menu:
??? Menu:
Differences From Retail
One of the most interesting things about the keynote build is its inclusion of the infamous squid. The odd creature makes no appearance in the final game yet was seen briefly during 343's 2012 presentation. Thanks to theater mode, it is possible to get an up close look at the thing.
WarGames
The WarGames build was intended for participants of E3 2012. As one might expect, the build was played over LAN at the expo itself. Courtesy of IGN, individuals who attended to the E3 2012 expo can be observed playing the build in its intended environment, the showfloor. Before moving onto the build itself, it is important realize that, whilst on-screen footage of the build from that era exists, the offscreen footage captures the essence of what this build was intended for.
Initial Menus for the WarGames Build:
With the introduction out of the way, it's time to delve into the build itself. To start, upon booting players are instantly loaded into a locked Custom Games lobby much like the campaign build. Sadly, backing out of the lobby in order to explore other options are missing. Additionally, the only 2 game-modes available to select are Regicide and Slayer which each accompanied by an E3 variant. Finally, the maps that available to select are Adrift, Haven, and Longbow. For those aware of the Halo 4 network test that predates this build, both builds share each other's map selection.
Spartan Armor Options:
Present in the wargames and the spartan ops builds, spartan armor makes its return seeing as it was evidently absent from the campaign build. In the interest of keeping this section uncluttered, this overview will aim to only show the armors in their complete set.
Forge Mode:
If one were to launch this build, they'd quickly be met with the harsh fact that forge is no where to be found. This is due to the fact that the game boots to a locked custom games menu; said menu only allows a user to select either regicide or slayer. Thankfully, by unlocking the xex and allowing the correct menus to load, a player can check out the forge mode in all of its early glory.
Comparing it to the network test, it is in a much more complete state; however, the playlist selection still takes after reach's. To quickly note a few other differences, the strings seem to be mostly filled in this iteration of forge, unlike the network test. To clarify the clear presence of uncertainty within the previous sentence, a few strings are still blank within the forge pallet. Shown below is a screenshot of the filled in forge pallet on the map Adrift. Following that is screenshot showing how a few strings are still blank.
To wrap up this section without needing to screenshot every single item, here is a video from Cashmint that goes over the forge mode in the E3 build showing off a lot of what it has to offer. Listed next to that, a video by Zeddikins can be found in which he takes an even deeper look into the build's forge mode and the other interesting things this build has to offer.
Spartan Ops
For the final section of this fairly lengthy analysis, the Spartan Ops build will receive its well deserved dissection. To start, whilst appearing to be the least interesting of the 3 builds, the E3 Halo 4 Spartan Ops build is in fact hiding away the most amount of details. Without spoiling too much, let's begin by evaluating the build at its surface level, the way 343 intended. Now, upon searching up Spartan Ops E3 2012, one might be surprised to see only a trailer of the mode. Well, this was because the build was not put into the hands of event participants nor was its contents allowed to be filmed; instead, the build was only shown to select E3 2012 participants behind closed doors. In fact, it wasn't until Comic-Con San Diego 2012 that game play emerged showing just what this build might've offered. Note the keyword 'might've', the sentence was phrased that way since we can never truly know whether or not this was the exact same build used at E3 2012 given the dates of both events differing so heavily from one another; however, they do show off the exact same mission. For this reason, the embedded video below will showcase a participant of Comic Con playing, what is thought to be, this very build back in July of 2012. Credit goes to AgeTemplar for the footage.
Initial Menus for the Spartan Ops Build:
With the builds fairly simple history out of the way, it's time to delve into the real meat and bones, the build itself. As with the other 2 builds, this one boots into a locked spartan ops lobby with no way to back out. Additionally, the only chapter and map that players are able to select is chapter 5 on the map cauldron.
The Offline Spartan Ops Menu and The Rest of the Missions' Titles + Descriptions:
As mentioned earlier, Halo 4 has an offline Spartan Ops menu that was used for internal testing. Thankfully, by going to this menu in the E3 build, we can find a slew of place holder mission names and even early descriptions. To spare audiences the pain of having to be exposed to an enormous amount of photos, every mission and their subsequent description will be provided via a bulleted list.
- CHAPTER 5 CORE
- Interrupt the Covenant dig; discover their secret
- DEFEND THE COMPLEX
- Forerunners are attacking -- protect the base
- E1:M1-CHOPPERBOWL-VEHICLE
- N/A
- E1:M2-SNIPERALLEY-DESTROY
- Destroy the Covenant Power Core!
- E1:M3-FORTSW-SHUTDOWN
- A pair of Forerunner comm arrays are disrupting communications
- E1:M4-TEMPLE-ESCAPE
- Investigate the Temple, then get out of there!
- E2:M1-CATHEDRAL-ATTACK
- Recon the heavy comm traffic
- E2:M2-SCURVE-RESCUE
- Find the Scientists, rescue them from the Covenant
- E2:M3-FORTS-DEFEND
- E2:M3-Forts-Defend
- E2:M4-SNIPERALLEY-RUN
- Beat the Covenant to the Temple Entrance!
- E2:M5-TEMPLE-RETAKE
- Find out what happened to the Gargarin Science Team.
- E3:M1-CHOPPERBOWL-SWA
- Kill the VIP, then Defend the base!
- E3:M2-COMPLEX-DESTROY
- Sagan Base is under attack, save it!
- E3:M3-VALHALLA-SECURE
- N/A
- E3:M4-VALHALLA-DEFEND
- N/A
- E4:M1-SNIPERALLEY
- Smash and grab. Get revenge on the Covenant.
- E4:M2-VALHALLA-FOLLOW
- N/A
- E4:M3-FORTS-ACTIVATE
- Activate the Portal
- E4:M5-COMPLEX-HOLDOUT
- Survive long enough to hand off the Forerunner Brain to Majestic!
- E5:M2-TEMPLE-SHUTDOWN
- Meet up with Science Team and learn more about Teleporting!
- E5:M4-SCURVE-DEFEND
- Defend the forerunner brain
- TEST-HORSESHOE
- Test Mission on Horseshoe
- WALKIE TALKIE
- Destroy the Communications Array
- CHOPPERBOWL
- chopperbowl test mission
- COMPLEX MAP TEST
- complex map test mission
- FORTS MAP TEST
- forts map test mission
- FULL DESTROY
- A long destroy mission (3 lego pieces)
- MIDNIGHT
- standard wave based firefight
The Spartan Ops Mission and The Two Hidden Early Missions Available:
To wrap up this write up, it's only fitting to leave off with a couple of videos showcasing actual gameplay. The following videos will go through each of the 3 missions that are available in this build. As mentioned earlier, 2 of the missions are hidden and can only be accesed through the offline Spartan Ops menus. Anyways, listed below is the actual mission 343 intended people to see credits Galaxy. Following that, Cashmint has posted videos on both of the hidden missions which are incredibly early considering the place holder dialogue and lack of polish on each.
