The problem with Halo is that it just hasn’t evolved enough in two console generations. In fact, it’s pretty clear when Halo stopped innovating – as soon as the telling ‘Combat Evolved’ subtitle was dropped. The first game is still the very best it’s ever got for the series, offering players an epic science fiction universe with which to forge their own rousing set pieces across epic locations. While undeniably good games, the sequels lost all sense of that understanding. ODST, despite strong sales and actually being the most innovative sequel in the canon, marked the point at which sounds of dissent were finally starting to be heard from the Halo community. But from everything we’ve heard about Reach so far, Bungie appears to have listened and is adamant it’s not going to disappoint Halo fans again.

Space-knights!

Reach is the final Halo game from the developer before the franchise reins are handed over to Microsoft’s 343 Industries. The very fact that Reach is Bungie’s final Halo game means that the developer understandably wants to leave another indelible Halo: CE-sized footprint on the series. To ensure this, it’s returning to where the series began (well, a bit further back than that actually), recounting the events that led to the Master Chief escaping Reach aboard the Pillar of Autumn and discovering the first Halo ring – meaning of course that it’s quite likely the Chief will be gracing us with his presence in the game.

Set on the home planet of the UNSC and the Spartans, Reach’s story will follow the courageous Noble Team, a Delta-style group made up of three Spartan IIIs (the cheaper, more expendable version of the Spartan soldiers) and one Spartan II (the same Spartan type as the Master Chief). The player will assume the role of Noble-6, a quiet Spartan III replacement who is sent in to assist Noble Team after one of its team is killed in action. However, when the team receives a distress signal from a communications outpost and head out to investigate, they learn that the Human-Covenant war has taken a disastrous turn. The conflict has touched down on home soil, and we know how this story ends for its heroes: very, very badly.

That Bungie has been looking to films such as The Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai for inspiration, as well as giving a complete overhaul to the Halo engine that will allow up to 40 AI units and vehicles to battle it out in any one area at once (double that of Halo 3), means the developer is trying to recapture the core of what made Combat Evolved so mindblowing back in 2001 – epic battles and an epic story all set inside epic surroundings. And Reach is upping the ante in other areas too – adding more Spartans (including two types of Spartan and all with differing MJOLNIR armour), a new Covenant enemy in the form of the Skirmishers (a bird-like species said to be a close cousin to the Jackals) and an engaging and emotionally character-driven narrative that has the potential to lead into one of the most spectacular and emotionally charged finales ever seen in a videogame.

We're sure we've seen this gun somewhere before.

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