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Among the first games that’ll usher in the PlayStation 5, and thus one of the first to bring on the next console generation, is Counterplay Games’ Godfall. We’ve seen Godfall in action a few times now in trailers and videos, but some of the most intriguing tidbits about the game are things its developers have only mentioned in passing, and which haven’t yet made it into trailers or gameplay videos.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Godfall is its combination of genres. Counterplay says it sees Godfall as expanding on action-RPGs and loot game genres to create something new–what it calls a “looter-slasher.” GameSpot talked with Godfall director Keith Lee to find out exactly what the looter-slasher is all about, more about how Godfall will play, and what’s going on in its strange fantasy world.

“The vision for making this game was how we can merge [looting with] third-person melee combat, getting really juicy, tight combat mechanics, the moment to moment flow, and that experience, because a lot of the people on our team love skill-based action combat titles,” Lee explained. “Yet, also, there are people on our team, given our background having worked on Diablo and working at Blizzard, that we’ve always had a love for loot-driven action-RPGs. We love playing Borderlands. So really, the original premise and the concept was, can we have a game where it’s somewhere in the middle, meaning that it’s one part loot-driven, as well as one part skill-driven. It’s more like an intrinsic mastery of the combats while the loot is more of an extrinsic reward system for you to be motivated to play the game.”

Lee said that mastering Godfall’s broad combat system is going to be a big part of the experience, but that searching for more and better loot will be part of that experience. It comes back to Valorplates, the armor at the core of Godfall’s gameplay. There are 12 Valorplates for you to unlock as you play Godfall, each with its own specific set of stats, a passive buff for your character, and an “Archon ability.” A Valorplate’s Archon ability sounds pretty much like an ultimate ability in a game like Overwatch, or a Super ability in a game like Destiny 2–a unique, powerful thing you can use only once you’ve charged up a bar to unlock it. So because of the different stats and Archon abilities that each Valorplate offers, they sound as though they’ll function much like classes–and you’ll want to choose the right Valorplate for a given mission, or for your role in a group if you’re playing cooperatively.

Apart from your Valorplates, you’ll have other gear that determines how you play as well. There are five different classes of weapons to factor into your loadout, offering different styles of combat, as well as “augments” you can equip into your Valorplates to add different perks and stat changes.

Your character has an overall level that you’ll increase as you play, rather than leveling up your individual Valorplates. Increasing your level unlocks skill points you can allocate on a skill grid that’ll give you new abilities. As in other loot-driven action-RPGs, you’ll find stronger weapons as you play, but you’ll need to keep increasing your level to access them. If you find weapons you like in particular, though, you can use crafting materials to increase their power by upgrading them in the Seventh Sanctum, your character’s home base.

As Lee explained it, chasing loot is Godfall is perhaps a little less about always looking for something with better numbers than what you’re carrying, and more about finding things to customize your loadout to better match how you want to play, and how you’ll deal with different situations.

“From our perspective, we’re less about generating an infinite number of combinations, but more thinking about our loot a little bit more like Monster Hunter: World or maybe like God of War, where the loot is a little bit more specific,” he said. “But then, each loot piece is very meaningful or impactful if you slot it into your Valorplate or if you get a very specific weapon. So that’s been one of the big differences, is focusing on the quote-unquote ‘quality’ of the loot rather than just pure infinite quantity.”

That focus on a meaningful loot system pairs with Godfall’s focus on melee combat, which Lee compared to 2019’s God of War or Devil May Cry 5, as opposed to something like a Soulsborne game. You’ll be looking to control the battlefield, prioritize some enemies over others, and create combos.

Godfall includes more than 90 kinds of enemies, Lee said, so you’ll have a lot of potential combinations coming at you, and learning to skillfully deal with them is a big focus of Godfall’s gameplay.

“The way that we’ve designed our combat pillars from the ground up, when we first started designing in combat, is that offense is greater than defense,” Lee said. “So we really think about making sure that the player can get that feeling of offensive power fantasy. So … most Soulsborne games are much more defensive, meaning that you want to isolate. You want to do only a one-on-one. It’s disadvantageous for you to fight two-on-one. You want to always be very systematic with how you play in general. While for us, we want you to feel that you can dominate and completely eviscerate your enemies if you know how to play, plus have the right gear and loadouts. So for us, we have a much broader spectrum of enemies, more variety, and as a result of that, we also embrace many-to-one.”

The idea in Godfall is that you’re always pushing forward, prioritizing enemies, and leaning into your attack, Lee said. You’ll still face tough one-on-one fights, though. Godfall is divided into missions that you’ll choose from the Seventh Sanctum, along with your loadout. Story missions will have mid- and end-bosses you’ll face as you advance through Godfall’s tale, while “Hunt” missions will send you out to track down, learn about, and face bosses in particular. So expect some big fights that are different from the many-against-one battles with enemies you’ll fight along the way. Lee said going after and taking down bosses is one of the big structural elements of Godfall, and that you can expect a whole lot of them; story missions have their own set of bosses that are different from the ones you’ll seek out and destroy in Hunt missions. All that is part of your overarching mission to climb the Skybreaker Monolith at the center of Godfall and kill the mad god at the top.

Godfall was among the first games confirmed for the PS5, and as such, it’s taking advantage of the new console’s capabilities. Lee said the game takes advantage of the PS5’s solid-state drive for faster transfers and higher graphical performance, but one of the big focuses for Counterplay is in haptic feedback–the sense of “feeling” the game you get through controller rumble.

“What’s exciting about the DualSense controller is the fact that it has stereo vibration in terms of the rumblers, as well as resistance on the triggers, so one of the things that you can do is to create, for the first time, a sensation of your weapon hitting another weapon and how it resonates,” Lee explained. “The fact that if you’re sliding across the ground, depending on the surface of the material–you might slide on gravel or sand or water–the way the vibrations work really feel like the way that those surfaces would feel. So it’s a lot more powerful in terms of creating that experience. For us, a 3D melee combat game, this becomes really exciting, because we have lots of different types of weapons, we can have the clash of weapons, that there could be ways that we can notify the player if an enemy is offscreen about to attack you, because it is always very challenging to get a full awareness of your surroundings in a third-person melee combat game.”

Godfall is slated to release in holiday 2020.

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Hearthstone‘s next expansion, Scholomance Academy, is releasing in August. The new set will introduce 135 new cards including 40 new “Dual-Class” cards, a new Spellburst mechanic, and more. GameSpot spoke with game designers Chadd Nervig and Liv Breeden about the upcoming set, the new normal for how the company is approaching balance adjustments, and how an unused Demon Hunter power from Ashes of Outland helped create the new Spellburst in this set.

The last expansion [Ashes of Outland] was very grim and dark and metal. This one is a lot more lighthearted and kind of cute. When you’re deciding the order of expansions, how much do you consider what came before and what’s coming after to strike a balance?

Chadd Nervig: We definitely do keep that in mind. In general, Hearthstone tends to aim for whimsy and charm. Ashes of Outland was one of our darker sets, and this lightened things up. There’s still, “What is Kel’thuzad doing in the basement?” There’s still some darker undertones here and there.

Liv Breeden: I think the benefit of switching it up is it doesn’t create a new normal. If it’s just dark all the time, it starts to feel really sad and it’s not really Hearthstone anymore. But if we’re doing only the happy, excited sets, then they just feel the same. It’s good to have that balance of up and down between really dark and very light. That way you can play with the differences.

Dual-Class Cards

You mentioned the “dual majors,” dual class cards. From a visual design standpoint, they’ve got a unique look for Hearthstone cards, split down the middle. That’s a different way of signifying the duality of it than how you marked it with Gadgetzan.

Nervig: Yeah, Gadgetzan’s were a little different. Those were these three factions within Gadgetzan that those tri-class cards were themed after, and they had their own specific mechanics. These are explicitly dual-class, themed after the combination of those classes. Each dual-class represents a course that you could take at Scholomance Academy. For example, the Illusions course is taken by both the Mages and Rogues. You see different mechanics and on those cards that form the overlap between those.

Breeden: Gadgetzan is very much a “What faction do you belong to? What is the banner that you hold?” This really is “What makes these two classes special?” I think when you look at it, what’s the best way to do that? What’s the best way to show that this card is not like this other faction, it is really a Rogue card, but it’s also really a Mage card.

Nervig: There’s also a related thing here. We made these new card frames to visually show you the different colors of the cards, to show off the different classes. But we also took a look at the weapon frame. [The existing weapon frame] doesn’t really clearly show what class it belongs to. “What class is this weapon?” has been a really common feedback point. At the same time, doing these new card frames, we also revamped the weapon frames. You can clearly see the class on all weapons now.

“‘What class is this weapon?’ has been a really common feedback point. … We revamped the weapon frames. You can clearly see the class on all weapons now.”

You’ve been a lot more open in recent months talking about class identity. That’s something that needs to be clearly established before you make an expansion like this, where you mash up different classes by what they have in common.

Nervig: Class identity has been a major focus for us for a couple years now. The dual-classes are interesting in that, at first glance, you might think that blurs class identity. Really, the point of class identity is thinking about what the class’ capabilities are. How they do the thing is often flavorful. It doesn’t make what you expect a Mage to be able to do, it doesn’t violate that by letting them have a combo card. We get to use the mechanics from both sides. You’re not going to see Priest get a bunch of card draw through the dual class cards.

Breeden: It really made it a lot easier because we had just recently done the class identity stuff. We’ve got this sheet that says, “What are these classes good at? What are they bad at?” And then we were able to reference that, and be like, “Okay, so what works in this circle?” It is a complete circle of every class bleeds into two other classes. But it also means that we can do really interesting things, too. Druid and Hunter both do beasts, so in the crossover of the classes, it’s about beasts. But how they do beasts is very different. You can just look at Hunter beasts in general, they’re very swarmy, but Druid beasts are huge.

Was it any different finding matches for Demon Hunter, since it’s so new and it’s not quite as established?

Breeden: Demon Hunter is quite new, but a lot of these matches are flavor and mechanical focused. The Demon Hunter and Hunter matchup, I mean, come on.

Nervig: It could have gone to Demon Hunter/Rogue, for example. There’s an overlap there as well that we could have pulled from. We ended up going Demon Hunter to Warlock.

One dual-class card, Devolving Missiles, is a mashup of two popular cards. Was that often the spark of design?

Nervig: Absolutely. That sort of thing happened, at least at the starting point, a lot of the time. Lightning Bloom is basically Innervate, back when it was extremely overpowered. Now, can we do that, but offset that with the overload mechanic. That’s kind of neat. It’s like stealing two Mana from next turn in order to do a crazy thing this turn.

Breeden: We also leaned into the Demon Hunter/Warlock as one of the new mechanics. They’ve got a mechanic for their soul magic which is exclusive to just them, just this set. It’s super cool, because we can explore new spaces.

The Transfer Student has different effects based on the board. Is there a plan to continue adding new effects as you add more boards?

Breeden: Our plan is that we’ll update it while it’s still in Standard, and when it rotates out, it’ll be a “Discover card from this card set.”

How Demon Hunter Influenced Spellburst

What was the origin of the Spellburst mechanic?

Nervig: We wanted to have a mechanic that really fits the fantasy here of, you’re at Scholomance Academy, this is a place all about learning magic. We experimented with things like when you cast a spell, this happens. By making it a one-time effect, something not repeatable, lets us expand out to do a whole lot of different designs with it, not just things that can scale infinitely. We get some really interesting stuff, too, like the Goody Two-Shields. You probably don’t want to cast a spell right after playing her. You want to let your Divine Shield get used up, then cast a spell, probably the next turn.

“We tried Bloodthirst in the previous set with Demon Hunter. While we didn’t keep that, we did really like the one-time trigger.”

Breeden: We tried Bloodthirst in the previous set with Demon Hunter. We wanted to do something really aggressive. We had a one-time trigger when your opponent takes damage. You play these cards, then you hit him in the face, then your Bloodthirst trigger would go off. We played around with that for the Demon Hunter before we settled on Outcast. It pushed him into this extremely narrow space, where this was all they did was go face.

While we didn’t keep that, we did really like the one-time trigger part. It creates this really interesting game dynamic where it’s not just Battlecry, it’s sometime later. There’s more gameplay to it than just playing my cards. I have to play other cards, or I have to make decisions. It’s really skill-testing in when I do it, what spell do I use, how do I construct my deck to make use of this. I think iterating on Bloodthirst to come up with Spellburst really shows that one-time triggers are really exciting, and we might do even more in the future.

Rapid-Response Balance Adjustments

When unveiling Ashes of Outland, in interviews, Blizzard said it consciously made Demon Hunter cards a little higher on the power scale than usual, because it was so new. In the months since have been nerfs, nerfs, nerfs. Is the team still making Demon Hunter cards a tinge stronger?

Nervig: Our goal for Demon Hunter was always to be that they are competitive with the other classes. We also knew that this is a brand-new class, and a whole lot of what we know about balancing classes or balancing cards relies on this existing knowledge about how a class plays, what their expectations are, how they interact with the other classes, that sort of thing. We didn’t have that strong base of knowledge yet with Demon Hunter, because it’s brand new, and internal testing can only show us so much.

We knew going into it that, realistically speaking, the chances were high that we would need to make balance adjustments. So we prepared for that, and we took a different, more ready to quickly react and make changes approach to balance, starting with Ashes of Outland. I think the results there speak for themselves.

Are you going to be as prepared and agile to make quick changes, not necessarily only to Demon Hunter? Is that the philosophy going forward?

Nervig: I think this new philosophy has been working really well for us. Keeping things lively, keeping things new and fresh is really important for us. I wouldn’t expect quite the same level, but we’re ready. We’re able to make changes quickly.

“Keeping things lively, keeping things new and fresh is really important for us. I wouldn’t expect quite the same level, but we’re ready. We’re able to make changes quickly.”

Breeden: We like to experiment with different release schedules. We tried something really different with our patching schedule as well, for balances. Feedback’s been really positive. I think that’s the best way the community can show us that they like something, is to provide positive feedback. I think this expansion shows that every single time we talk to people or have interviews, people are mentioning how positive the rate at which we are fixing and adjusting things is being received.

The only criticism I’ve even heard of the patches recently was just how close this next set of nerfs is coming to the Masters Tour tournament. Was that a consideration when planning out this next one?

Nervig: We try to keep esports in mind. It is really important to us. In this case, this patch is coming out coinciding with the announcement, so there’s not a whole lot of flexibility there. Because of the proximity to the Masters Tour, we could early announce what the changes are going to be, so that players can start adjusting their decks based on that, or making predictions, or at least just thinking about it, giving them more time to think about it. The fact that Masters Tour is still close was definitely a contributing factor to why we announced the changes before actually making them.

You gotta respect a game that tells you exactly what it is upfront. Within minutes of starting Superhot: Mind Control Delete, you’re told, in those now infamous subliminal text cards that pop up from time to time in the previous games, that yes, this game will give you more. No story. No closure. No long-winded explanation of what happened in the last two games. Just more senseless shooting, and then it’ll be over. And to Superhot Team’s credit, they deliver on their promises. This is, definitely, a lot more Superhot. But it’s also a few other things that aren’t nearly as welcome.

Mind Control Delete is still fundamentally following the same mantra as the other two games: Time Moves When You Do. It’s still a first-person shooter that places you in sparse, stark white, and self-contained little killzones, against a small group of keen-to-kill goons made out of, seemingly, fragile red glass. Your job is to John Wick your way out of whatever wild scenario you’ve been placed in, using objects in your environment to your advantage. There are guns, but with very limited ammo. So, when you don’t have a gun, grab a sword. If you don’t have a sword, grab a knife. If you don’t have a knife, grab a book, a pen, or a teacup. Even with a relatively limited moveset, the time mechanics at play turn what would be a breathless massacre at full speed into a sort of kinetic chess game, allowing you the ability to plot every maneuver down to the millisecond. While gunplay is certainly your bread and butter in Superhot, there’s a maniacal glee that comes with taking out a guy wielding a katana by throwing a typewriter at him in Superhot that makes it truly special. That winning formula is still very much in full effect here in Mind Control Delete, but a few new ingredients have been added to the concoction: rogue-lite elements. And while the formula hasn’t been ruined in the least, the effectiveness has been lessened a tiny bit.

For starters, the game’s levels, which were once all unique, impeccably staged setpieces, are now relegated to around a dozen or so themed rooms–such as lab, disco, prison, or casino–with enemy/item placement and your own start point randomized each time. There’s more variety to be had than one might think in that randomization. The environments are elaborate and full of tiny, devilish design elements for you to mount for a better vantage, mail slot-sized holes to shoot through, or daredevil jumps to make out of windows to stomp an enemy from above. Even despite the minimalist aesthetic, these are still impeccably designed, functional places that still evoke the tense feeling of getting into a shootout in a place clearly meant for public use. The environments follow real world placements for everyday objects, which means using them to your advantage–using an open car door to evade a bullet, grabbing the handle off a slot machine to use as a weapon, or getting behind a DJ booth to take cover behind a speaker. Suspension of disbelief in the sparseness of it all tends to vanish in the moment. There are vast, glorious opportunities for you to surprise your enemies, or vice versa, and it takes hours to get to a point where things start to wear thin.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what ends up happening as the game goes on. Each stage–represented as cursor nodes on an MS-DOS prompt screen–is typically between five and 10 of these levels, strung together. The fewer there are to tackle at once, the less likely it is for a particular node to wear out its welcome, but by the time you reach the final grouping of nodes, you’re doing runs of up to 15 stages at once, with no way to save progress if you fail or need to duck out. Superhot’s always been a game best enjoyed in small doses, and having to plow through such long stretches of gameplay in the same grouping of stages every time feels like forced gluttony.

That’s a problem exacerbated by the game’s permadeath. As opposed to the other Superhot games, where you’re just as fragile as your enemies, you can take two hits during the course of a node. That’s a good change; it encourages taking risks you might not have when taking one bullet was game over. But there’s a catch: You’re also sent all the way back to the beginning of a node if you lose the second of your two hearts–again, not a huge deal when you’ve only got five stages to work through, but utterly demoralizing when it’s 15.

The good news is that the game provides ample opportunity to temper some of those problems with hacks, game-breaking “cheats” unlocked during the course of gameplay. Once unlocked, every two or three nodes or so, you can choose one from a random pair of your hacks to apply for the rest of that node. Running low on hearts? You could choose to heal up, or even raise the number of hearts to a maximum of five. Tired of having to disarm an enemy for a weapon? There’s a hack to start with a random gun. That’s before you get to the wild, Matrix-y hacks, like deflecting every bullet currently in the air back at enemies with one sword swipe, headshots that ricochet towards the next nearest enemy if they land, and having your own body explode with shurikens whenever you take a hit. Despite breaking the game, using the hacks effectively still takes timing, strategy, and smarts. That’s especially the case once the game decides to start cheating back, introducing spiked enemies and proximity mines to the mix. The fact that the game still feels mostly balanced and fair despite all that is impressive.

The hacks aren’t a fix-all solution to the game’s rogue-lite issues, however. The hacks are there, but getting the exact combination of benefits that work within your particular playstyle is a matter of luck rather than skill. Slowing down bullets before they get too close to you can be great, but if you don’t see the bullets coming to begin with–a bigger problem in Mind Control Delete due to the sheer number of enemies that spawn in later stages–you’re still taking a hit, and taking the wrong hit at the wrong time can still send you rocketing back to the start of a node.

The problem with the game isn’t whether it’s fun; it’s maintaining that fun in the later, vicious hours, when Superhot is less about being a wild user-friendly powertrip and more about surgical precision at all costs. There are surprises up the game’s sleeve from time to time. The most effective of them are some new, terrifying enemies with their own hacked powers who cannot be harmed, only avoided. What little the game has for a story pertains to them as well, and despite being sparse, what’s there is subtly creepy. The meta commentary is much less subtle, but there’s also not really enough of it to get annoying.

The best things about Mind Control Delete are the ones that enhance what made Superhot stand out as a cunning deconstruction of action games and those who play them. There’s quite a ton of that here, and, as mentioned, in small doses, it’s a pulse-pounding, worthy companion to both Superhot and Superhot VR. But if there was any common element to both those titles, it’s in examining why other games do things the way that they do. The fundamental flaw of Mind Control Delete is that it’s adding complication to a game premise that works largely because of its simplicity. That complexity hasn’t ruined Mind Control Delete. There’s still a ton of enjoyment to be had, and there’s still nothing else quite like it out there. But without a doubt, it’s fun that expires a lot faster than the original.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Filming on Lana Wachowski’s fourth Matrix film–her first without her sibling and longtime collaborator Lilly Wachowski–has resumed in Berlin. But the film’s release date was needfully pushed pack to April 1, 2022, effectively ruining the long prophesied Keanu Reeves double feature with John Wick 4, still scheduled for May 21, 2021. While we wait, however, there’s plenty of Matrix gossip to tide us over. For instance, on a recent episode of Roger Deakins’ filmmaking podcast, Team Deakins, the cinematographer for the first three Matrix films, Bill Pope, discussed the stark differences between shooting the first Matrix film and the subsequent two, Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions.

“Everything that was good about the first experience was not good about the last two,” Pope said. “You weren’t free anymore. People were looking at you. There was a lot of pressure. In my heart, I just didn’t like them. I felt we should be going in another direction. There was a lot of friction and a lot of personal problems, which showed up on screen, to be honest with you. It was not my most elevated moment, nor was it anyone else’s. The Wachowskis had read this damn book by Stanley Kubrick that said, ‘Actors don’t do natural performances until you wear them out.’ So let’s go to take 90! I want to dig Stanley Kubrick up and kill him.”

“There is something about making a shoot that long, 276 shoot days, that is mind numbing and soul numbing and it numbs the movie,” Pope said of shooting the second and third Matrix films, which were filmed concurrently.

Pope had far more than just criticisms to air. Deakins’ relatively new podcast is an exciting discovery because it gets into nitty gritty cinema details that many fans crave. Pope speaks casually of the long process the Wachowskis went through to make the first Matrix film, why he thinks it made that film better, the Wachowskis’ indomitable bargaining partnership, and how the birth of the bullet time visual effect led the team to hire John Gaeta, who Pope describes as “a visual effect supervisor who’d never made a movie before.” The whole episode is a fascinating listen. Pope will not return for the upcoming Matrix sequel, with Sense8 and Cloud Atlas cinematographer John Toll attached.

While you wait for 2022 and The Matrix 4, here are the 34 dumbest moments from the Matrix sequels.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Halo 3 is remembered fondly by many Halo fans. Originally released in 2007, the game remains a fan-favorite to this day, in part for what is considered by many to be Halo’s best multiplayer offering to date.

Everyone who enjoys Halo probably has their own story about what Halo 3 meant to them. And this includes developers from 343 Industries, the new stewards of Halo after taking over the franchise from Bungie in 2007. Twenty-two developers from 343 Industries shared with us their memories of Halo 3 and why it was so special to them.

Halo 3 represents a bygone era for Halo and FPS games overall. There was no sprinting. No loadouts. No perks. No XP grind. Whereas newer entries in the Halo series–and across the wider industry–have focused on engagement through things like battle passes, microtransactions, and live events, Halo 3 kept you playing because it was damn fun and all your friends were playing it. Plain and simple. No gimmicks.

It feels surreal that a game from 2007 still performs and looks so good in 2020, and remains all kinds of fun thanks to Halo: The Master Chief Collection. But Halo 3 isn’t done growing yet. The game is finally out now on PC through The Master Chief Collection, and it’s a big deal because–unlike Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2–Halo 3 was never released on PC. Coming to PC opens up a new audience for the beloved game, and it offers another opportunity for existing fans to revisit the game on a new platform with crisper and more fluid gameplay.

The developers tell tales of late nights playing Grifball and Duck Hunt; of cultivating family and personal relationships through the game. They are stories of putting in the work and earning your first 50. One developer, Sean Cooper from the Master Chief Collection publishing team, tells a story of playing the Halo 3 public beta while he was serving overseas in the military to pass the time when he wasn’t on duty.

Halo Infinite multiplayer designer Fernando Reyes Medina says he didn’t have enough money to buy an Xbox when he was living back at home in Mexico City. So Medina went to an internet cafe and rented an console for $1 per hour to play Halo 2. The story only got more interesting when Halo 3 came out in 2007

“The owner of the cafe that was surprisingly not very tech savvy asked my group of friends and I to set up Xbox Live so people could play Halo 3 there online. We set the whole thing up and my first online match was just magical,” Medina said. “Playing with people from all over the world made me realize how impactful games can be in terms of bringing people together, because no matter who you are or what part of the world you were in, when you were in game you were just another Spartan. That moment was the eureka moment for me where I decided to become a game developer because I wanted to bring people together that way through my own games, and here I am now, 10 years later, as a multoplayer designer on Halo Infinite.”

You can check out all of their testimonials down below.

We also have some brand-new screenshots of Halo 3 on PC for you to feast your eyes on. The first is immediately below, while the other two follow further down the page.

For more on Halo 3 and the new Season 2 update for MCC, check out the full patch notes here.

The next Halo game is Halo Infinite, and it’s due for release later this year as a launch title for the Xbox Series X. Microsoft will showcase the game during the Xbox 20/20 event on July 23.

Lisa Barber | Environment/World Building Artist, Halo Infinite

“Halo captured my imagination more than any other game I’ve played, and Halo 3 really opened my eyes to exploring creativity and community in games. Being able to utilize Theater mode and Forge mode let me express myself in a really innovative new way. It also was the first ever title I got to play on Xbox Live, and I still have long-time friends I made during that time. Not to mention, countless nights staying up playing custom maps like Duck Hunt and Grifball with my best friend! My love for Halo has never stopped, and I’m really proud to be a part of 343 and help bring Halo Infinite to life. ”

Tyler Ensrude | Multiplayer Designer, Halo Infinite

“This game changed my life forever. Besides the incredible Campaign and multiplayer suite, there was an additional way to play the game through a new mode called Forge. This allowed players to go behind the multiplayer curtain and create their own experiences within the game. While I didn’t know it at the time, this was the very beginning of my journey into game development. In fact, 10 years later, on the anniversary of Halo 3, I was offered a position on the multiplayer team to develop ‘Halo Infinite.’ I’ve spent thousands of hours playing Halo 3 over the years, and it has given me so much in return. I owe my greatest friends, my relationship with my brother, and my entire career to this game. I’m honored to have the privilege of working on this franchise, and I hope that Halo continues to inspire a whole new generation of people, the way it inspired me.”

“This game changed my life forever.” — Tyler Ensrude, Multiplayer Designer, Halo Infinite

Ben Madlena | Sandbox Quality Analyst, Halo Infinite

“Halo 3 holds a lot of special memories for me because I played it as a kid and before I had Xbox Live, so it was usually just my brother and I playing split screen together. Halo 3 was a big deal for us because it introduced Forge mode – we used to spend countless hours making 1v1 maps and different custom game modes. The Sandbox being opened up in Forge really made the game seem endless, and it’s one of the reasons I grew to love Halo so much and wanted to work on the Halo team someday. It’s really fun to see how Forge has continued to evolve over the years – my brother and I mainly keep in touch via Xbox Live these days and we love playing all the unique maps/modes made by the community on Halo 5: Guardians!'”

Nick Bird | Forge Quality Assurance, Halo Infinite

“Halo 2 is where I started, but Halo 3 Forge is where I flourished. Every day I would get online with my friends and either mess around in Forge or play some crazy custom game we constructed. There are countless memories and stories to share of the fun we had, ranging from driving a warthog through an obstacle course to games of random weapons with superspeed and low gravity. I spent hundreds, probably thousands of hours in Forge, so much so that I had to create a second profile just to keep additional maps I created. Even then I would get friends to come into the session to save a map so I could figure out what to delete to clear some space. My time in Forge and the Forge community eventually led me to pursue a career in the industry, and ultimately landed me a position to work on what I love in a franchise I love.”

Hunter Young | 3D Environment Artist, Halo Infinite

“From 2007 to 2012, I played Halo 3 nearly every single day. 291 campaign missions, 2521 ranked matches, 5374 social matches, and a whopping 10197 custom games. Halo 3 was not just a game to me – calling it a game would be a disservice to what it meant to me. It was a way to talk and hang out with some of my best friends. It was also a sport – and one that showed me that I could actually be good at something. It was a story that I could re-live as much as I wanted, and it was a creative tool letting me forge bases with friends and share them with the community. Halo 3 was not a game – it was my entire life.

While I played and loved both Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, Halo 3 was the perfect storm of an experience. Looking back, it let me escape everything that was going on in my life at the time, but most of all ‘Halo 3’ introduced me to real friends. Even then, I knew game design was exactly what I wanted to do in my life. My only goal was to make games one day, so that I just had to put my head down and get through the difficult times

After a short time went by I started my own Halo 3 clan – FSC: Fire Stealth Courage. I made a ranking system, hierarchy of power roles, multiple squad-based tier systems that revolved around different areas of the game and more. We grew to 210 members with a competitive team, forge team, screenshot team, and my 7 officers that served below me to help administrate the entire clan – all headed by me, some 8th grade kid from Tennessee. I had a legitimate double-life. Despite having a hard time in school, I could go home and be a leader and someone that 210 people looked up to. Starting that clan was the best thing that I could have done. While we were incredibly active with a litany of activity and contents, most of all FSC and ‘Halo 3’ paved the road for many life-long friendships with some of the best friends that I’ve ever had. We made real friendships that went beyond the screen.

Although I spent my entire time from 2007 to 2012 playing Halo 3 every single day, it didn’t take me away from life, Halo 3 GAVE me a life. It gave me something to look forward to every day, paving the road to where I am now. I look back on those days as being some of the best years of my life, and it was all because of Halo 3.”

Richard Meier | Associate Producer, Halo Infinite

“Between Halo 2 and Halo 3, I’ve played over 14,000 matchmaking matches and custom games. Halo 3 released the year that I graduated high school, so it was an awesome way for my high school friends and I to stay in touch and continue to game together. I remember finishing college classes or work, hopping on Halo 3 and gaming well into the following day. Some of my best friends today are people who I’ve never actually met – but are people who I played Halo 2 and Halo 3 with. Between different Forge Maps and Modes and ranked MLG and TS, Halo 3 was the perfect combo of social and competitive gaming. The Halo franchise is what inspired me to work in games. I vividly remember the LAN parties, late night custom games, and earning my first 50. Halo gave me an opportunity to hang out with my friends, even when life pulled us in different directions, and it connected us to so many more awesome people. I’m truly blessed to be able to work on the franchise that provided me with countless memories and I’m excited to be able to try and deliver the same experiences to both the old and new generations of Halo players.”

Patrick Wren | Multiplayer Modes and Systems Designer, Halo Infinite

“I had played a lot of Halo 2 and couldn’t be more excited for Halo on the next generation console at the time. Halo 3 brought so many memories with it and in ways I couldn’t even imagine. I played everything from Campaign, to competitive tournaments, to wacky minigames. At this point in time I knew I wanted to get into game development, but Forge pushed that desire to a whole new level. I tried to create in Halo 3 as much as I played, hounding my friends to test my creations. Years later I am now working on ‘Halo Infinite’ and can’t wait for people to get their hands on it. Halo 3 created many late nights of laughing with friends, that I can’t wait to play again on PC.”

Sean Cooper | Software Engineer on the 343 Publishing Team, The Master Chief Collection

“2007 marked many firsts for me. First time living overseas. Hit my first full year in the military. First time playing the beta version of a Halo. Any time that I wasn’t on duty, I was trying to log some time in the Halo 3 public beta. It was a great way to checkout, forget about things for a while, and just have fun with my friends, many of which were thousands of miles away. Many years later, I’ve been fortunate enough to land a job not just working on Halo, but working on the original Halos. I’m on a team that’s keeping them alive and bringing them to PC. So now I’m the developer. I’m helping fans of Halo, both new and old, have an outlet that lets them play with their friends, whom they might not have seen for many months now.”

Turner Sinopoli | Technical Environment Artist on the Campaign team, Halo Infinite

“Back when Halo 3 came out I was in middle school and my dad took me to the midnight release. It was a big deal because A) it was a school night so I got to be up WAY past my bedtime and 2) my dad did not care about video games at all so it meant a lot he would take me. We sat out for hours with chairs in line and then finally checked out with Halo 3 and a case of that sweet Mountain Dew game fuel in tow. When we got home, we played split screen Campaign for hours and it was the first time I really played video games with my dad. It’s one of my favorite memories I have with him and the thought of creating moments and stories like that for others drives me to help ‘Halo Infinite’ be the best it can be and hopefully make a lot more warm and happy Halo memories. ”

Eric Richter |UI Artist, Halo Infinite

“The online friends that I play with today all found each other over 10 years ago, when Halo 3 launched in 2007. Our earliest memories together include territory battles on Valhalla, custom games in Sandbox, and playing (and replaying!) such an amazing story together. Once our community had gained enough members, we organized forums to stay in touch, and created a ‘Risk’-like gameboard comprised of all the multiplayer maps, splitting into red and blue armies to vie for control of the galaxy. This structure provided the basis for years and years of scheduled play sessions and kept us together through our toughest times. The re-playability of ‘Halo 3’ was the perfect catalyst and proving ground for our friendship, giving us endless ways to interact, unwind or get competitive, and have fun together above all else.”

Tahir “Tashi” Hasandjekic | Lead Esports Producer

“College wasn’t a great time for me, but it’s the memories of playing Halo 3 with my closest friends at the time that I still look back fondly on.” – Tahir “Tashi” Hasandjekic | Lead Esports Producer

“At the end of 2006 I moved away from home for the first time ever as a freshman in college. I didn’t know anyone except for my friends on Xbox Live and kept to myself most of the time. In the Spring of 2007 I was lucky enough to be invited into the Halo 3 Friends and Family Beta a week before any Crackdown players got in, and I’m pretty confident that I was probably the only one in the whole school who was playing Halo 3 early. So, I decided to leave my dorm room open in hopes of luring in potential friends. Sure enough, some folks came in to check it out, some of which would later become my best friends in college. We played Halo 3 quite often as a group and even ran through 4-player co-op together the night Halo 3 launched later that fall. College wasn’t a great time for me, but it’s the memories of playing Halo 3 with my closest friends at the time that I still look back fondly on. I even had the chance to reconnect with one of them at the 2018 Halo World Championship in Seattle for the first time in almost a decade where Halo once again brought us together.”

Fernando Reyes Medina | Multiplayer Designer, Halo Infinite

“Back home in Mexico City, my friends and I didn’t have money to have a proper console at home, so we would go to an internet/gaming café where we would rent a console for a dollar per hour and we would play Halo 2 in LAN for hours. But when Halo 3 came out, the owner of the café that was surprisingly not very tech savvy asked my group of friends and I to setup Xbox Live so people could play Halo 3 there online. We set the whole thing up and my first online match was just magical. Playing with people from all over the world made me realize how impactful games can be in terms of bringing people together, because no matter who you are or what part of the world you were in, when you were in game you were just another Spartan. That moment was the Eureka moment for me where I decided to become a game developer because I wanted to bring people together that way through my own games, and here I am now, 10 years later, as a Multiplayer Designer of ‘Halo Infinite’ ”

Alex Bean | Multiplayer Designer, Halo Infinite

“I had been a Halo fan since playing Halo: Combat Evolved co-op for the first time at a friend’s house, but Halo 3 was a turning point in my relationship with games. Leading up to its September 2007 launch, I was fascinated by Bungie’s willingness to give insight into the game’s development through the release of mini documentaries (‘ViDocs’), the multiplayer beta, and Bungie.net community interaction. When the game released and delivered on my immense expectations, the limited-edition bonus disc contained behind the scenes content that further detailed the making of the game. The depiction of immensely passionate creators working together to craft the game that I loved had a profound impact on me. By the end of that year, at age 14, I was determined to become one of them.”

Ben Frazier| Character Artist, Halo Infinite

“Halo 3 truly shaped my love for online gaming. Whether it was climbing to max level in ranked modes, or just playing custom games like Infection, the replay-ability seemed endless. The gameplay was tight, the graphics were great, and the social interaction had me consistently itching to join my friends for ‘one more game.’ Forge and the replay system were also super innovative. They brought me tons of fun, and this gem of a screenshot. Calculated.”

Kaleb Nekumanesh | Campaign Level Designer, Halo Infinite

“Halo 3 was the first Halo game I played and I was instantly hooked. The experience of playing with all my friends was an amazing experience. With the innovation of the new Forge and Theatre modes, we were able to continue inventing new ways to have fun such as making levels, game modes, and short films. Playing Halo 3 with my friends for days at a time was one of the most fun memories I have from that period of my life. I’m super excited to be able to relive those memories and share them with a whole new group of players.”

Paul Bronowski | Game Editor Developer, Halo Infinite

“A long time ago, in conference rooms far, far away, we used to play a ton of Halo 3. Those were some very late nights. We had to hunt for conference rooms to play on that were on the same sub-net when sys-link play packets were restricted, and we were often reminded to return the room wiring to the state we found it. We had suitcases and backpacks with our hardware and Can-Am pizza on speed dial. There may have been adult bevs involved. In 2007, DevDiv held a Halo 3 tournament for the giving campaign and we decided to form a team. I wasn’t the strongest player on the team, but we somehow took first place.”

Allen Wilson | Campaign Level Designer, Halo Infinite

“When Halo 3 released I was fourteen years old and it was the only game I cared about at the time. My entire network of friends pretty much revolved around Halo 3, and it was a daily routine to hop online the second I got home from school. Halo 3 connected me to a community, not just within my group of friends, but also to people overseas! Which now-a-days doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but when you’re growing up in a small town like I was, it was a life changing experience. Going from a community member to actually working on and contributing to the next big Halo title in the series is an actual dream come true. Huge thanks to the MCC team for bringing a masterpiece to PC, can’t wait to get into some custom games!”

Daedra Christopher | Campaign Level Designer, Halo Infinite

“I have always had a special place in my heart for Halo, especially when my youngest son told me his new name was Green Armor. The Halo franchise for me has always been a part of my family whether it was my eldest annihilating me in almost every match or my husband laughing at me when I called the Elites, whoop whoops. My boys and I would play Halo 3 together and have a blast. When I left my native Texas to join 343i, it was difficult leaving my kids behind, even if they are no longer mom’s little boys. I know working on their favorite franchise of all time makes them proud every day. I am proud not only to be a part of Halo, but to be part of such an amazing, talented team of people who believe in what we stand for: hope, heroism, wonder, and community. We make Halo.”

John Louis Wilson | Environment Artist, Halo Infinite

“Halo 3 was the first Halo game I owned on an Xbox console. I always had to play Halo 2 at friends’ houses and I annoyed my mom with how much I’d play the ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’ trial on PC during the school day. It was the game that taught me that the best memories don’t come from what you do but the feelings you have while doing it. When I was playing Fat kid, duck hunt or Jenga in a lobby full of people I’ve never met before, we’d be laughing and creating moments that I want others to have and share with the games I work on! It’s always so satisfying when you can say ‘I did this and that’ and it would instantly click in the mind of the person you’re talking to and they get it and can share that feeling!”

Kolbe Payne | Campaign Level Designer Halo Infinite

“When Halo 3 launched, I was in middle school. I will never forget the excitement of getting home after a long day at school and playing Halo 3 all night with my friends. Most of the time I would ‘forget’ that I had homework that was due the next day and would rush to get it finished in the morning before classes. ‘Halo 3’ was the start of my late-night gaming sessions that I still have every night. To think back then that I would be a Campaign Level Designer on ‘Halo Infinite,’ my younger self would absolutely lose his mind.”

Noah Benesch | Product Marketing Manager – Halo on PC

“I think everyone remembers the first video game they really engaged with. The first experience you simply couldn’t put down, the thing that made you realize the promise of gaming. For me, that game was Halo 3 because of the virtually limitless experiences it had to offer. From the astounding story, to nail-biting SWAT games, to the chaos of a Mongoose racetrack, Halo never could manage to leave me bored. In fact, Halo 3 was the first title I attempted to achieve 100% completion on –- though beating the game on legendary proved an insurmountable challenge at the time. Now, some 13 years later, I’m looking forward to completing that challenge on PC.”

“The first experience you simply couldn’t put down, the thing that made you realize the promise of gaming.” — Noah Benesch | Product Marketing Manager – Halo on PC

Amity Mathews | Senior Data & Applied Scientist, Halo Infinite

Back during Halo 3, there was an internal beta available to Microsoft employees. Being a long-time fan, I jumped at the chance and filed a number of issues. Unbeknownst to me, the top 16 bug filers across Microsoft would be invited to put Halo 3 through its paces in a weekly on-site playtest… and I made the cut! For several months, we would play Campaign, Customs, and have dialog with the engineers about why we felt a certain way or work with someone to repro an oddity that had just happened. This occurred in the cryptically unmarked (and no longer standing) building at 434 Kirkland Way.

My favorite story from that time: It happened on Isolation; a multiplayer map covered in vibrant vegetation. It would take the community a few months to discover that vegetation slowly withers over the course of a match as it becomes infected by the Flood. Our evenly matched teams were tied 49-49, as I faced off against someone with Rockets with my Shotgun. We both fired at the same time, and both our shields were knocked out. I was too far away with the shotgun, and he… was livid. ‘Point blank rocket didn’t kill him! WTF?!’ Tension mounted. He fired again, right as I meleed… and neither of us were damaged. ‘WHAT THE *%!*’ Because I’d meleed, I had a faster cycle time and clutched the win with my second melee, laughing. I had no clue how I’d survived. A Bungie employee promised they’d look into it as they saved off the film with the new playback feature.

Later, we both received screenshots… and an explanation that it was technically ‘by design?’ ‘Halo 2’ rockets used a ray (a line, shooting right from the tip of the rocket forward) to determine collision. At the precise moment it passed me, it managed to fit right through the few-pixel gap of my Spartan’s thighs. That made some sense, but what about the second, point-blank rocket?! It truly didn’t seem to fire. There was certainly no explosion. But, zooming out there was. Against a far wall of the map and behind the guy with rockets. As it was explained to me, early in development rockets had a habit of exploding in the rocket tubes. The rocket was originally armed immediately upon firing, and if you spun too fast the rocket tube would clip the ray and it would explode. Thus, the rockets were changed to be launched kinetically, then arm as they left the tube. There was a one or two frame window of time, in which I could swat the rocket onto a new trajectory. Which is precisely what happened! I immediately recalled the moment in The Fall of Reach where Master Chief deflected a Scorpion missile with Cortana’s help. The moment still brings a smile, not to mention wonder at the depth and nuance of the franchise. I’m honored to be a part of this legacy.