Ever since the first time I laid eyes on those big, lumbering beasts in Halo: Combat Evolved… every time the music changed and a bonded pair of them would show up and never fail to trigger an “oh sh**” moment… from when the bigger, tougher versions broke down that gate at the beginning of Outskirts on Halo 2… all that way until now…
I’ve always wanted to play as a Covenant Hunter. I had my hopes up when Invasion was being teased for Halo Reach… but sadly that was not to be.
I would love for there to be a mode where you can play as all the different species of the Covenant. This is all just wishful daydreaming at this point, so just bear with me while I ramble… but wouldn’t it be cool to be able to play differently like that? Like… I don’t know… you choose to play as a Grunt and you could respawn really fast, and your death doesn’t mean as much as if, say, a Zealot Elite died. Or maybe a different approach would be to have a Grunt player spawn with a small squad of AI Grunts that follow you around?
Or playing as a Jackal! You get a shield and a one hander, or put those away and whip out your beam rifle or carbine, but be defenseless. You could have enhanced vision when playing as one, since in lore jackals are described as having exceptional vision, which is why they’re such good snipers. So in game that could translate to being able to highlight enemies or mark them somehow.
And then there’s the Hunter… the one I’ve always wanted to play as. You’re big. You’re badass. You’re durable. You’re a valuable piece of equipment to your team. They need you to bust a door (and a few skulls, while you’re at it) open to get to an objective.
Sigh… maybe this is all unrealistic and will never happen, but… a man can dream, can’t he? A man…can dream.
Gears 3 beast mode, anyone?