Over the past few months, 343's role with Halo: The Master Chief Collection has slowly moved from curator to creator—rolling weapon and vehicle skills into Bungie's original trilogy. Next week, the studio goes one step further by giving Halo 3 its first new armour pieces in well over a decade. Even despite this, the project remains in development at full speed; we just don't have a firm date on that and we're not hearing any story updates by way of updates.

Jef te Cille reports on a Wordfile design document he uncovered prior to unveiling the project at E3. It features an alleged list of Halo Items (mannit Ahota) that are planned based around Halo 3. Not only does this reveal the aforementioned two new armour classes for the Master Chief, but it's also in reference to a mobile branch, of sorts. What we know about this new armor is, "it has autonomous waypoints that utilize a Flux Rifle that doubles as a pistol."

This is interesting because our sources tell us that Bungie's next range of Halo titles will either be a fully open or sandbox-like format with the player crafting their own armour. Either way, we're seeing which armor you're going to be building ahead of time (and the guns inside of it) so that's exciting.

Exit Theatre Mode

Halo Infinite is word of game is in development to develop skin, bloom, fog, smoke and more effects based around Halo 2's 'Hero' armor sets. Lead Leader of the Vanguard Team Harry Dodd discussed the changes this project will bring before the Bungie faithful, saying "It's all about being evocative with your visuals. It brings that 'old' feel of the original game back and then with the addition of effects. We're creating a passive weapon to empower you in PvP to make moments that had previously been uninteresting or purely gimmicky, actually fun and exciting."

That all sounds awesome, but what Dodd ain't telling you is how Halo rewards for safe play will still be active: shining a spotlight on you like JonAndr and I know you've wanted nothing more but that green tick on your armour to shine:

"If you step out of line, if you ever feel that positively human connection that you have with working as a team, the another two Spartans will be most actively looking for you and are most likely to commend you on doing a good job."

There's no word on when/how this armour will launch and you can also now keep an eye on the fires while The Master Chief Collection's final elements add up. So long, Classic Huttball; yes, Halo over the last six years is back and in legendary style.

Leah B. Jackson is both an Associate Editor at IGN and Corgi meg
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