343 Industries’ Frank O’Connor took to the stage at the Eurogamer Expo this afternoon to show us the old and the new in Halo 4.

The first of four days worth of developer sessions happening at this year’s Eurogamer Expo, 343 set the standard, delivering an exciting live demonstration of the latest Halo title as well as a brief Q&A before the audience were released back onto the show floor.

“We are really really close to finishing the game now”,

said Frank O’Connor, reaffirming the release date of 6th November, before sitting down to show us the third level of the game.

Covenant fell from the sky into an ambush from the Prometheans, Halo 4′s newest foe. Gunfire and particle effects were in full force as the Chief darted between the warring foes to get to his goal – the power cores for a nearby spire. Meanwhile the UNSC Infinity plummets towards the weird new Forerunner World.

The melee assassinations, the vehicular combat, and the run and gun gameplay look familiar and inviting, with the new Promethean enemies adding a nice variation to the Elite’s patented sideways roll/dodge. A couple of scripted sequences hammer home the cinematic feel of the series, adding a little variation to the combat.

Gone though is the vibrant colours of the original Halo Trilogy. Bright explosions and pulse blasts fly through the mists of Reqiuem, the Forerunner planet on which Halo 4 is set, but the architecture surfaces all looks matte and downplayed. Rather than leaving the game looking dull and unengaging, however, the new aesthetic reinforces the grittier tone established in Reach, presenting a universe which has seen war, and is ready to see even more bloodshed.

The jokes of the Covenant weapons looking like children’s toys won’t be around much longer. Promethean weapons rapidly form around Master Chief, and while the surface textures may look worn and battered, the interfaces, gunfire, and enemy deaths all occur with pleasing splashes of colour. Chief’s HUD has also recieved a redesign, with video communications appearing top left of the display whenever he fancies a chat.

Concerning the reappearance of the Covenant as an enemy following their apparent dismantling at the end of Halo 3 , Frank O’Connor revealed that these Covenant represent a separate faction of the alien alliance with particularly “enthusiastic religious beliefs”. Exploring Requiem may well reveal some of those beliefs to be truer than anyone ever guessed.

Following the demonstration, Frank O’Connor showed off the trailer for Forward Unto Dawn, the new television series premièring on Machinima Prime on 5th October. Following the events of a band of UNSC soldiers 20 years before the events of Halo 4, Forward Unto Dawn will introduce characters critical to both the Halo 4 campaign and the Spartan Ops multiplayer mode. Master Chief might just drop by too.

343 Industries took over from Bungie in the development of the Halo series following Halo Reach, and Frank O’Connor assured the Eurogamer audience that “stepping into those shoes was genuinely scary”. From what was shown of Halo 4 today, Frank and 343 should rest easy that they may not have just stepped up to the challenge, but surpassed the franchise creators in many ways.

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