Halo 4: Game Modes Concepts

Lots of work goes into the design of our multiplayer game modes. Extraction and Dominion were more complex than the standard objective games, from Halo 3 and Reach, but we had great designers and lots of experience, so 343 trusted us with quite a bit of freedom on that front. Of course, that meant hundreds of revisions and testing every day. As we tried ideas and re-worked the games until they felt right, the elements of the visual design had to complement and communicate to the players. These are some of the ideas and finished concepts.

The completed concept for the extraction beacon and crates. These are part of the experience you see as you try to secure resources for your team. The Forerunner-tech adopted by humans was a good fictional basis for the design and let us get a really satisfying light show when you score a goal.

Some early designs for the extraction beacons and devices.

Early designs for the hand-held Extraction device.

The final device concept. Something like Black & Decker meets Forerunner, with a coating of military utilitarian mixed in.

Early concepts for the base antennas in Dominion game type.

Concept for one the antennas that "wakes up" as you upgrade a base in Dominion.

Pop-up generator idea for Dominion.

Internal screens and banners would reinforce the ownership and activity within the bases.

More screens and active elements to show you who owns what.

The Dominion Terminals were initially designed as a three-stage element, for different types of base. The idea was scrapped later, but we held to a similar version.

Previous iterations for the Dominion base terminal.

The nasty auto-turrets that wake up from the tops of bases.

We tried out several designs on these, including ones that were more energy-based, anti-aircraft only, and EMP based that would knock out shields.

Initial ideas for the vehicle pads that would look like the shape of the vehicle produced.

More industrial-looking refined versions of the vehicle pads.

More coming soon!

Halo 4: Longbow Concepts

Decided to add a few concept images I did for the Halo 4 map called  "LongBow." It's been far too long since I updated this blog!

The centerpiece - a mass driver control station. Since reading about it as a kid in Popular Science magazines, I had always been fascinated by the concept of shooting cargo into space using magnetic railguns.. Very little energy use and low waste, compared to the expensive and complicated chemical rockets we still use. I figured that 500 years into the future it would be a regular feature of the Halo universe. Why don't we get Elon Musk interested in building something like this? 

The initial ideas were a lot more cannon-like, with a straight line accelerator firing over the map.

This is a later concept, where we unified the center structure to make it a larger landmark for orientation of the players.

Initially, we played with some more GoldenGate Bridge-like designs for the mass driver arms.

The trees were designed to look alien, but still have a familiarity to pine forest and snowy climate trees. They also had to function as something that could block your sight, but not your bullets.

Some of the early concepts for the mass driver tower were located on the ocean side of the map, with a more refinery-like feel.

Sometimes, we build it 5 or 6 times before we get the right answer for the map and the space.

When we were working from the initial block out, it was called "Gore Valley"

An early top-down map proposal, with the mass driver on the ocean side.

Ideas for the cargo launch pods that would be sent through the mass driver arms.