00:03This is Max Schlager, Senior Game Designer for 343 Industries.
00:08And Joseph Staten, Senior Creative Director on the Xbox Publishing Team,
00:12and I was the Writer and Creative Director of ODST.
00:17All right, so first of all I want to just talk quickly about how ODST slots seamlessly into the unified
00:25UI here.
00:25So in all of the areas that you were able to play campaign for any of the other titles, you
00:30can do the same for ODST.
00:32So much like Halo 2 Anniversary Multiplayer, it slots in under Halo 3, so you can quickly get to there
00:37for your campaign.
00:39Same with playlists, you can go under Halo 3 and click through and go through ODST.
00:46Briefly talk about some of the playlists that we've added here.
00:48So one of the interesting things about the way ODST is structured is that you've got a hub and a
00:53level kind of structure to it.
00:55which is a bit different from some of the other Halo titles.
00:58One of the things that we were able to do with the playlists is actually construct some, for example, that
01:02don't go through the hub.
01:03So you can play through the game from one level to the next.
01:06On the flip side, you also have the ability to play one of the playlists that is every iteration of
01:13Mombasa Streets from back to back.
01:14So you can see every city state and play through each clue in order in that particular playlist.
01:22There's also a bit of variety in some of the other ones that highlight features, you know, specific levels with
01:27vehicles or some of the more like arena focused battles and things like that.
01:33That's cool. You see, I haven't seen any of this, so I can't wait to play that. That seems pretty
01:37awesome.
01:37Now let's go ahead and take a look at some of the missions here.
01:46So we'll start here with Kazingo Boulevard, a fun vehicle based mission here.
01:55And much like the other titles, you can go through and turn on some of the meta scoring and time
02:00features here, which, you know, filter into the leaderboards of the game and give you kind of a social way
02:08to compete with your friends.
02:13One of the things that you'll notice quickly once you're in the game is how much smoother things look when
02:20they're running at 1080p and 60 frames a second.
02:24You know, in particular, even just starting with the cut scenes, you'll notice a nice bump in the quality and
02:30the smoothness of it.
02:33Oh, I remember placing every one of those bullet holes on the wall and all those little spikes.
02:42Hey, where's the fight at? Take a guess, genius!
02:47The first version of that line was, take a guess, dumbass, by the way.
02:56That's CJ Cowan with the manhole bouncing off his head. Or Pat, one of the two, animated that chestnut.
03:07All right, so let's go take a look through level. And just like all the other games, the universal control
03:12schemes are supported for ODST.
03:15We've added several ODST specific ones that you can use.
03:30So clearly the design for this mission was, you know what would be fun is to take a scorpion and
03:35roll it through a town and blow dudes up.
03:40And ODST really was, to a large extent, a hit parade in the various missions of the most fun things
03:47to do in the Halo sandbox.
03:50But there was something really fun about the tight environment here and really being forced to use a scorpion more
03:57as a precision weapon that was really enjoyable.
04:03I want you to shoot every lamppost because it's the one thing that's gonna... Oh, those blow up too? I
04:08forgot! See, two things to blow up!
04:10Okay, lampposts here, yeah. Let's take those out.
04:11Oh, yes!
04:14Yes! Oh, yes!
04:15There we go!
04:16So ODST was a pretty small team compared to the Halo 3 team, and one of my jobs on the
04:24game was to place garbage all around the city.
04:28And I don't know if I placed the garbage in this area. This might have been Vic, actually, who placed
04:32the garbage here. I can't remember.
04:34But needless to say, needless to say, going around and placing all the little trash and cans. I'm so glad
04:40that I can see it all now up-rezzed.
04:43Every last newspaper. High-res garbage.
04:46That's good. It's a monument to all my sins.
04:51ODST was actually pretty fun. It was the only Halo game that we got to make back in the day
04:57where we were building off of an established engine.
05:00So, rather than reinventing the wheel, we could take the Halo 3 engine and begin to layer features on top
05:06of it to make it a better experience.
05:08So, the compass, the waypoints, all the work we did with the visor mode, we were able to do that
05:13because we had some stable code under our feet.
05:21Take a look at NMPD HQ. A bit of a different level than Zingo.
05:28Yep, and absolutely, this is probably, well, at least one of my top three cinematics from the whole game.
05:34Because Romeo is such a complete jerk.
05:38A lovable jerk.
05:40The spawn, that's an order.
05:42Give it up, Gunny. Even if he ain't dead, he's lost in that super.
05:46Yeah, we had one animator do all the cinematics for ODST for the most part. Pat, and he just rocked
05:53it.
05:54This was his, his first big, first big job.
05:57He just, he did it all, all keyframed. It's pretty incredible.
06:04He's on your six! Infraject!
06:09We're losing her!
06:12Watch out!
06:14Aaaaaaah!
06:16Mickey, duck!
06:17Status!
06:22Alright, let's do this.
06:26One of the really fun things about ODST was exploring a city at all levels.
06:32And one of the design goals and art goals we had early on was to take players from the highest
06:37point of the city to the lowest point in the city.
06:41And this, of course, is the high point.
06:43But just being able to be up in the clouds and see the Halo world from a different point of
06:48view.
06:50Oftentimes in Halo games you're traveling from one spectacular destination to the next.
06:53You don't really have time to linger in one spot for too long, but that was really the hope with
06:58ODST.
06:59By the time you were done with it, you really would feel like you had spent quality time in a
07:03city.
07:04Learned about it.
07:06Got into a place where it felt familiar and a little bit like home by the time you were done.
07:14Home filled with thousands of mean, ugly aliens that you had to shoot.
07:31Oh, I remember this room very well.
07:33You see that guy with his head up against the desk there on the left?
07:35Yeah, you. I'm looking at you, that guy.
07:38Placing bodies was such a giant pain in the butt in ODST, I can't even tell you.
07:44You had to just drop and hope that the physics landed them in the right spot.
07:49And to get that guy with his head perfectly placed against there?
07:53That was like two hours on a Thursday at 3 in the morning for me.
07:57Oh my gosh.
07:59It looks good, right?
08:00Yeah, that's a high quality...
08:03Quality corpse placement?
08:04Corpse placement.
08:05Good. This room had a lot of corpse placement love.
08:14Oh yeah, this spot's good.
08:15There's lots of cool weapons here too.
08:17I think ODST pound for pound had more great Alamo encounters than any of the other original Halo games.
08:25Again, with limited geometry you gotta get creative with reuse, but I think this spot in particular is a really
08:33good example of just how much fun you can have in a well designed, tight space with fun toys and
08:39lots of bad guys to keep dropping in.
08:43It's great too, because it really feels like you've got a team up here.
08:45Yep.
08:46Taking everything out.
08:47Well, this is the time in the story when the gang finally gets together, where everybody's unified, except for the
08:53rookie, but everybody's back together again for the first time.
08:59There we go!
09:01Yeah!
09:03Exploding Phantoms are so good.
09:05That was great! That was a fun walk down memory lane.
09:08It honestly looks incredible.
09:11It's a real pleasure to have work that you did a long time ago made even better and prettied up.
09:19You don't get that a lot in this industry.
09:21You make games and the hardware goes away and the software gets stale and you don't get to enjoy them
09:27full stop, let alone get to see more beautiful versions of them.
09:30So, it's great. It's a real treat. It looks awesome. You guys did a great job.
09:35You guys look bald, look down.
09:41I thought you would be doing a lot in it.
09:47Make sure to buy your phone in full stop!
09:49Just call it, maybe a little유� 촉.
09:52Don't…
09:53Only on Xbox One!
09:55Grazie a tutti.
