My Thoughts (Includes Very In-Depth ViDoc Analysis!)

OK, so just before you get bored already and move on, this is also a very in-depth analysis of the Making of Halo 4 ViDoc, so look for some details you may have missed! On top of that, I’ll be posting my thoughts of what we already know and what we will hopefully know soon! Please join the discussion!!! I’m hoping to make this a general discussion of all the information we know, so on top of an analysis (pics included!), I will also bullet-point some other tidbits of information people may have missed while they’ve been going nuts trying to find all the info they can grab.

Halo 4 ViDoc Analysis:

0:33 mark

We can see some concept art here, mostly faces. Perhaps some of the characters we’re going to meet? I have a feeling some of these might even be unseen characters from the novels. :smiley:

0:35 mark
This isn’t exactly a juicy tidbit, but I wanted to expand on this. At this point in the video, we can see an artist designing what looks like to be a simple crate. Even though we can almost all guarantee Halo 4 will most definitely not see a lack of Forge, how perfect would it be if this actually turned out to be an ammo crate? Think Halo: Reach firefight. The UNSC ammo dispensers were perfect for when I was low on ammo, but why couldn’t we find any in multiplayer? I’d say this would be a really simple yet cool addition to multiplayer. Matchmaking would only supply basic weapons (pistol, battle rifle, assault rifle, you get the idea, no WMDs) and in Custom Games you can choose what it refills. Even cooler would be if it dispensed weapons. Maybe you have a rocket launcher on empty and need an assault rifle, just head back to your base, hit a button, and bam. Assault Rifle. I also feel players should be able to set a limit on how many times it reloads weapons, how many times it gives out new ones, and how much ammo it will dispense each time. Grenades should be dispensed too. Sorry, long rant for something relatively simple.

0:54 mark
Here we can clearly see a Cyclops from Halo Wars. Could we possibly be able to pilot mechs in the game? I have a feeling it would be Campaign only, but who knows! And hey, if it is in multiplayer, it’s a good hint that the maximum of 16 players could be bumped up. I mean… that thing is way too big to be a in 16-player-only match.

HallowSoul5 says that it is implied the mech is only aesthetic by one of the level designers. Makes sense, but we can still dream. :’(

1:00 mark
At exactly a minute in, we see a quick blip of what appears to be a vehicle not purposefully featured in the gameplay. By the looks of the wording, it’s a troop transport. Maybe this time they’ll actually be in multiplayer instead of Campaign only! That would be awesome. Especially if the game supports more than 16 players, driving your fellow Spartan IV’s to battle would be the epitome of cool. We could just be getting an eeny-teeny hint at larger scale battles.

1:04 mark
UPDATE! Thanks DukeLehto7 for pointing something that many of us have noticed, but have realized it was relevant enough to add to this. If you all take a look closely behind the guy talking, you can see a dark action figure in the background. Some debate it is an Elite from Halo Wars, as it doesn’t really look like a Halo 3, 2, or 1 Elite. But some also speculate it could be the new enemy. Who knows.

DEBUNKED! Thanks very much to JDQuakers for finding this! Very, very nice find that completely debunks this speculation!

1:33 mark
If you look carefully in the six photos on the screen, the one in the right uppermost corner shows a mo-cap actor stumbling. This definitely means we’ll be seeing some new fluid animations we haven’t seen in Halo before!

1:33 mark (Part 2)
We can clearly see a mo-cap actor pushing a stack of some sort of flat object. It might just be for a cutscene, but honestly think about it. How awesome would it be to push things? It sounds so freaking trivial, but it would add a whole new layer of of gameplay. Infection would totally be revamped if you can push heavy objects into doorways. Matchmaking would be crazy. You could push a crate off onto an unsuspecting victim or push a large crate while your teammates back you up and shoot from behind it. I think it sounds pretty effing sweet.

1:39 mark
Look who’s back from the E3 2011 announcement trailer! The weird…um…pistol…bomb launching…thing… yeah, but since we’ve seen it twice already, we can definitely tell this thing hasn’t hit the cutting board yet and it’s making its way into Halo 4. Now we all know Halo is nothing in comparison to Battlefield in terms of destruction, but perhaps we’ll be seeing some new destructibility capabilities, although I’m relatively doubtful of much more use of this thing other than blasting a door down.

1:41 mark
Again, this could just be a mo-cap actor acting out a cutscene, but it looks like we might get the ability to vault over objects. I feel it’s pretty pointless when you can already jump like…20 feet in the air in Halo, but who knows, maybe it has other important uses.

1:54 mark
Well sprint was just confirmed. But what about other armor abilities? How will these incorporate with the new progressive upgrade system and perks? I’m very intrigued by how these 3 systems will work together.

xMcCarthee speculates the spring could just be a default for everyone, a la basically every other FPS out there.

1:54 mark (Part 2)
Update! The Biblinator made a rather nice discovery. If you look at this picture and look at the yellow circle (courtesy of The Biblinator himself), you can see there are 3 small boxes or shapes or whatever. Some people say it’s just a cosmetic thing to give the HUD a more sci-fi look, but it could very well be a new HUD element. Nice find!

Wazooty stopped in to add that this could possibly be squad status lights, as they are heavily referenced in all of the Halo novels (remember? “Their acknowledgement lights winked blue in the Chief’s HUD.”? Hahaha, I bet you do!) This could mean some squad based combat, and if so, this could mean larger scale battles as well! If you figure there are four people to a squad and a max or 16-players, squads would be absolutely pointless. There would be four total, but then again, two squads on each team could make sense when I think about it a bit more lol. I don’t, we’re just letting our imaginations run wild here.

1:55 mark
Nothing really notable other than allies now show up in green and have arrows showing their elevation above or below you.

1:55 mark (Part 2)
I honestly cannot tell if their will be bloom or not. It kind of looks like sometimes the reticule expands, but then I just think it’s the change between blue and red playing tricks on my eyes, so this is still completely up to speculation.

It seems that upon further inspection, KiiDD DOuGHboY says there is no bloom.

1:55 mark (Part 3)
Seems like we can say bye-bye to the health system from Halo 1, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo Reach. I honestly loved the health system. It added a sense of reality to the game. But hey, whatever, I’m sure it won’t be missed by many. I’m sure many really had no preference on it to be honest.

1:55 mark (Part 4)
Credit to GreenSkull on finding this. We can see 3 zeroes up in the right-hand corner, but we see no other indications of grenades on the HUD, so I think it’s very safe to assume we will have 3 grenade types in Halo 4. Probably a Forerunner-styled grenade. Interesting to think about. :slight_smile:

1:55 mark (Part 5)
It seems like matchmaking scoring is going to be different. No longer will you win by kills, but you’ll win by points (more on that a bit later in this analysis). That, or the people playing that round really played to 300 kills…

Credit to AngryFacing for picking up on the team emblems in this picture! Seems like Red vs. Blue is actually going to take fictional root in Halo 4! Hahahah.

1:59 mark
1:59 mark (Part 2)
1:59 mark (Part 3)
UPDATE! Three new speculations! The first picture has made second guess myself about there being three possible grenade types. As you can see, the player has 3 grenades of a certain type, but there is only 1 zero left over instead of 3. I don’t know, this totally confused me. In the second picture, we can see “Grenadier” shown. A glimpse at what loadouts are going to be like? And finally, in the last picture, it seems like a jet pack icon is shown with a use bar that runs out as you use it, however, I also see what looks like a frag grenade under it. Any ideas?

2:10 mark
This is actually a picture I want to ask you all about. It seems like it’s Halo: Reach gameplay, but I can’t really tell. Any thoughts?

kudos :]

just a couple of thoughts:

at the 1 min mark: it appears to be an updated mongoose
at the 1:55 mark part 2: if you watch the gameplay trailer you will see that there is no bloom!! :smiley:
and finally at the 2:12-2:14 mark: maybe the warthog is a stickshift now?

just some thoughts

2:12 mark
2:14 mark
I put these two pictures together because this find was very interesting. If you can see in the first picture (the one of the base model of the Warthog), you can see in the center console, there’s a sort of lever. In the next picture, you can CLEARLY see Master Chief holding onto this lever while his left hand is on the wheel. In case you’ve forgotten, Master Chief has kept both of his hands on the wheel in every Halo game. Are we seeing a secondary function come to the warthog? This very well could just be a hand break too hahaha.

3:07 mark
This is a character bust used to show the new facial animations in Halo 4. We are very likely seeing a character in the game. I don’t think they’d create such a high quality facial skin just for the sake of displaying it in the ViDoc. Maybe the first female Spartan we ever see in game? Who knows, but we could be looking at her right now!

3:14 mark
This goes back to my 1:55 mark (Part 5) picture. We can clearly see medals are coming back (der). One is very obviously an assist medal, but the other one is one we’ve never seen before. Each has a point value, which adds to my speculation that matchmaking will now be point based. I still don’t know how this will work. Sure, let’s say a kill equals 10 points. Bam. Ten points go on the scoreboard after you get a kill. But do you get 10 points for an assist PLUS the other player who you got the assist for gets 10 points? Totaling 20? But then again, we could see something out of the Mass Effect 3 demo where if you pump a bad guy full of lead, and your teammate gets that last bullet in, you’ll still be awarded more points. He’ll be credited the kill, but you get more points then him. So since an assist is 5 points in this preview, one can assume you’ll only get 5 points for a kill your teammates helped you with and 10 points for a kill you got completely on your own. I don’t know, I’m just speculating here, feel free to critique.

3:15 mark
I just thought this was interesting. We see a player here getting assassinated, but the gameplay cuts away before we can see if assassinations are back. I really hope they make a comeback. They didn’t do much, but I still loved them, and one can only imagine the crazy assassinations 343 can come up with. :smiley:

3:28 mark
Pistol confirmed.

3:42 mark
This picture is somewhat blurry to make out, but those Warthogs don’t look like normal Warthogs. The one on the left looks like a Gauss 'Hog and the other, if you look carefully while the camera is panning away from it in the trailer, it looks like a Rocket 'Hog. That or they seriously beefed up the way the chain gun looks.

3:43 mark
Looks like an armor ability on Master Chief’s back there. Armor abilities still haven’t been confirmed or denied, but thanks to the Sprint you can see in my earlier picture, they’re almost guaranteed to be making a comeback.

3:43 mark (Part 2)
I can’t tell what this gun is. It doesn’t really look like a pistol, but maybe I’m just blind.

Well that’s all for my analysis. If you guys see anything else, know if anything I speculate about is confirmed, know if anything I confirmed is actually still speculation, or if you have any other useful info, lemme know and I’ll be sure to update it! Next post will be about all the info we currently know.

DERP

Holy long oh my Lord.

What we know:

  • There will be no public beta.
  • The multiplayer will tie-in with the singleplayer in a game developing move I’ve never seen before.
  • Players will play as Spartan IV’s in matchmaking.
  • The Battle Rifle’s back.
  • Multiplayer maps are inspired but not taken directly from the Campaign.
  • The story told in Halo 4 is darker, more emotional, and delves deeper into both Cortana’s and the Chief’s humanity.
  • The game takes place 5 years after the events of Halo 3. (GameTrailers interview with Kiki Wolfkill)
  • Armor customization is no longer cosmetic.
  • Rumors of a perk system are actually WRONG.
  • Sprint and thrusters are confirmed.
    There is a new find-a-weapon system a la Gears of War 3.
  • Halo 4 has a higher resolution than Halo: Reach (still 720p).
  • Halo 4 will be 30 fps.
  • Customizable loadouts.
  • The Covenant will be making a return (third to last paragraph), but they will NOT be the opposing force!

And that’s about it. I’ll keep this list updated as much as possible.

Nice breakdown.

> kudos :]
>
> just a couple of thoughts:
>
> at the 1 min mark: it appears to be an updated mongoose
> at the 1:55 mark part 2: if you watch the gameplay trailer you will see that there is no bloom!! :smiley:
> and finally at the 2:12-2:14 mark: maybe the warthog is a stickshift now?
>
> just some thoughts

Well all I know is that it does say troop transport next to it. Take a look at it again. And I will definitely update the bloom speculation. And stickshift? Hahaha 343 would troll so many newbies with a stickshift Warthog.

> Nice breakdown.

It only took 3 hours -___- hahah thanks.

Thanks for this OP.

I think Sprint could just be a default thing for everyone and not an AA.

Just saying but that’s not an armor ability it’s been there forever. For more proof the there is no armor abilities go to 2:26 and look at the Spartans back.

Just one thing friend, at the last picture where you point out the mystery weapon on chiefs right thie, you can also see the same “armor ability” energy dispenser that sits on the lower back on the spartans. What might that be? Noone knows. Maybe AAs are back? Maybe it’s for future design…

DERP, just realized you already mentioned it. It might be because it’s 2am. GN!

Great breakdown! You didn’t mention the “team emblems” on the scoreboard on the bottom right.

Just pointing that out.

Other than that, great break down and didn’t notice the derp Frankie face. NICE FIND!

Oh yeah and please notice if I thanked you, I added your information to the OPs. :slight_smile:

Good post.

Disappointed to see that this new style Warthog has made it this far. It’s just way overdesigned, covered in pointless junk… and its suspension system is just like something you would see today in 2012. The original Warthog has that interesting and unique suspension system with the 4 independent wheel arms, and its been replaced with dull linkage and spring shocks… What a shame.

I submitted this to HBO, so hopefully we’ll have some more people who are willing to share speculations and info.

> What we know:
> - There will be no public beta.
> - <mark>The multiplayer will tie-in with the singleplayer in a game developing move I’ve never seen before.</mark>
> - Players will play as Spartan IV’s in matchmaking.
> - The Battle Rifle’s back.
> - Multiplayer maps are inspired but not taken directly from the Campaign.
> - The story told in Halo 4 is darker, more emotional, and delves deeper into both Cortana’s and the Chief’s humanity.
> - The game takes place 5 years after the events of Halo 3. (GameTrailers interview with Kiki Wolfkill)
> - Armor customization is no longer cosmetic.
> - A perk system has been confirmed.
> - Sprint and thrusters are confirmed.
> - There is a new find-a-weapon system a la Gears of War 3.
> - Halo 4 has a higher resolution than Halo: Reach (still 720p).
> - Halo 4 will be 30 fps.
> - Customizable loadouts.
>
> And that’s about it. I’ll keep this list updated as much as possible.

I started thinking about how they said that the campaign would reveal a reason as to why red always versus blue. Well, not saying for sure, just speculation, but what if the mocap character was Dr.Halsey and that we will at one point in the game encounter blue team from the novels and perhaps there may be some sort of flash back memory that the Chief has in the form of his training,personality development and competitive games that was talked about in the novels?

> Good post.
>
> Disappointed to see that this new style Warthog has made it this far. It’s just way overdesigned, covered in pointless junk… and its suspension system is just like something you would see today in 2012. The original Warthog has that interesting and unique suspension system with the 4 independent wheel arms, and its been replaced with dull linkage and spring shocks… What a shame.

I thought the same thing. The new warthog is alot of flash, no substance.

> > What we know:
> > - There will be no public beta.
> > - <mark>The multiplayer will tie-in with the singleplayer in a game developing move I’ve never seen before.</mark>
> > - Players will play as Spartan IV’s in matchmaking.
> > - The Battle Rifle’s back.
> > - Multiplayer maps are inspired but not taken directly from the Campaign.
> > - The story told in Halo 4 is darker, more emotional, and delves deeper into both Cortana’s and the Chief’s humanity.
> > - The game takes place 5 years after the events of Halo 3. (GameTrailers interview with Kiki Wolfkill)
> > - Armor customization is no longer cosmetic.
> > - A perk system has been confirmed.
> > - Sprint and thrusters are confirmed.
> > - There is a new find-a-weapon system a la Gears of War 3.
> > - Halo 4 has a higher resolution than Halo: Reach (still 720p).
> > - Halo 4 will be 30 fps.
> > - Customizable loadouts.
> >
> > And that’s about it. I’ll keep this list updated as much as possible.
>
> I started thinking about how they said that the campaign would reveal a reason as to why red always versus blue. Well, not saying for sure, just speculation, but what if the mocap character was Dr.Halsey and that we will at one point in the game encounter blue team from the novels and perhaps there may be some sort of flash back memory that the Chief has in the form of his training,personality development and competitive games that was talked about in the novels?

That is actually a surprisingly good idea. Flashback training sessions. Not bad, kudos.

Oh wait. Hur dur. We’re talking about flashback sessions between Spartan IIs, not IVs hahaha but still, you’re idea could be incorporated in the game. We just gotta wait and see.

> > > What we know:
> > > - There will be no public beta.
> > > - <mark>The multiplayer will tie-in with the singleplayer in a game developing move I’ve never seen before.</mark>
> > > - Players will play as Spartan IV’s in matchmaking.
> > > - The Battle Rifle’s back.
> > > - Multiplayer maps are inspired but not taken directly from the Campaign.
> > > - The story told in Halo 4 is darker, more emotional, and delves deeper into both Cortana’s and the Chief’s humanity.
> > > - The game takes place 5 years after the events of Halo 3. (GameTrailers interview with Kiki Wolfkill)
> > > - Armor customization is no longer cosmetic.
> > > - A perk system has been confirmed.
> > > - Sprint and thrusters are confirmed.
> > > - There is a new find-a-weapon system a la Gears of War 3.
> > > - Halo 4 has a higher resolution than Halo: Reach (still 720p).
> > > - Halo 4 will be 30 fps.
> > > - Customizable loadouts.
> > >
> > > And that’s about it. I’ll keep this list updated as much as possible.
> >
> > I started thinking about how they said that the campaign would reveal a reason as to why red always versus blue. Well, not saying for sure, just speculation, but what if the mocap character was Dr.Halsey and that we will at one point in the game encounter blue team from the novels and perhaps there may be some sort of flash back memory that the Chief has in the form of his training,personality development and competitive games that was talked about in the novels?
>
> That is actually a surprisingly good idea. Flashback training sessions. Not bad, kudos.

I’m going to open a new thread for this speculation. I want to see everyone’s opinion about it because it really isn’t that bad of a idea considering the cortana flashes in H3

But they never said why red spartan IV’s versus blue spartan IV’s. They said as to why red versus blue.