With the return of the Chief, the Covenant goes hard on the offensive.
Time to return the favor, as the Chief takes a road trip to bring the fight to the Covenant.
The UNSC strikes back, as the Chief clears the path for an attack on Truth’s Dreadnought.
As if we didn’t have enough to deal with, now the Flood have joined the party in the Battle for Earth.
We follow the Covenant through the portal, and what we find isn’t quite what we expected.
The UNSC and the Elites stage a joint operation to bring down the defenses around Truth’s stronghold.
The Master Chief leads the assault on the Citadel to stop Truth from activating the rings.
We’ve put this off for too long. It’s time to rescue Cortana from the Gravemind’s clutches.
Halo 3: ODST, released in September 2009, is the first real “departure” from the main Halo formula. While still developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios, this is the first Halo game that does not have the Master Chief as its protagonist, and also [spoiler alert] doesn’t involve any Halos. We play as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST) known only as The Rookie, separated from his squad during the Covenant invasion of Earth. We must wander the eerily quiet, occupied city of New Mombasa and try to figure out what happened to the rest of the squad, and the top-secret mission they were supposed to be carrying out. A much more grounded and atmospheric experience than previous Halo games, Halo 3: ODST actually channels a film noir detective story vibe which works really, really well.
The other major difference from previous Halo games is the lack of a PvP multiplayer. Halo 3: ODST actually shipped with a separate disk that contained Halo 3’s multiplayer instead, as well as all of the DLC maps up to that date. That being said, it introduced a new co-operative PvE multiplayer called Firefight. Firefight is a wave defense mode where players must fight against increasingly difficult waves of enemies with a limited number of lives shared between the entire team. The goal of this mode is to survive for as long as possible while racking up high scores using kill streaks, special kills, and difficulty modifiers.
As the titling would suggest, Halo 3: ODST (previously titled Halo 3: Recon) was originally planned as sort of an expansion pack. It was intended to be a smaller project to fill the time before the next major Halo release, but they ended up with enough content that Microsoft insisted on selling it as a stand-alone, full-price game.
01 - Prepare to Drop
02 - Tayari Plaza
03 - Uplift Reserve
04 - Kizingo Boulevard
XX - Norvinsk Region (April Fools)
05 - ONI Alpha Site
06 - NMPD HQ
07 - Kikowani Station
08 - Data Hive
XX - Sadie’s Story (Audio Logs)
09 - Coastal Highway
XX - Bonus Content
The Covenant have attacked Earth and occupied the city of New Mombasa. It’s time to drop feet first into hell to stop them!
XX - Norvinsk Region (April Fools)
The Rookie takes a detour through a mostly abandoned military base.
The Covenant really wants this building (and its secrets), but we aren’t going to let them have it.
