Note. Nothing is known about Destiny other than Bungie is making it
SHORT VERSION IN THIRD POST
Bungie began the development of Halo 3: ODST and Reach after their departure from Microsoft. In return, Microsoft contracted Bungie to develop two more Halo games before they could be set free to do their own thing. I think this benefitted both Microsoft and Bungie, allowing both companies the time, money and momentum to get them prepared for the final transition of Halo ownership, which will be complete, come March 31st 2012.
For Bungie, it seems that those extra 3 years of preparation, from 2007 to 2010, gave them the chance to do more than just prepare themselves for a life without Halo; it gave them an opportunity to actively field-test concepts, techniques and gauge public response to what they were planning to do post-Halo.
So, what's important about ODST? Well, it gave us a few things that were ultimately different from Halo 1-3, that I believe were Bungie's important development lessons.
We'll get to that.
SHORT VERSION IN THIRD POST
Practice.
Bungie began the development of Halo 3: ODST and Reach after their departure from Microsoft. In return, Microsoft contracted Bungie to develop two more Halo games before they could be set free to do their own thing. I think this benefitted both Microsoft and Bungie, allowing both companies the time, money and momentum to get them prepared for the final transition of Halo ownership, which will be complete, come March 31st 2012.
For Bungie, it seems that those extra 3 years of preparation, from 2007 to 2010, gave them the chance to do more than just prepare themselves for a life without Halo; it gave them an opportunity to actively field-test concepts, techniques and gauge public response to what they were planning to do post-Halo.
Halo 3: ODST came to be when the Halo Chronicles tie-in with the Halo Movie fell through. It was developed in the space of just 14 months and was released in September 2009; which means the development began in August 2008. This is supported from this update posted by lukems at 8/15/2008 4:09 PM PDT.Halo 3: ODST - Developed 2008-2009
So, what's important about ODST? Well, it gave us a few things that were ultimately different from Halo 1-3, that I believe were Bungie's important development lessons.
And there are probably even more that I'm neglecting to mention.* The VISR mode (night-vision)
* Much more realistic characters and interactions
* Subliminal messaging for the future (through environments)
* The compass (NSEW at the top of the HUD)
* The overview map, which we could set destination-markers on, or see quest-locations
* The hub world; reusable environments, both day and night
* Our first sense of being the character, having no backstory to go by but our own
* Quest items (clues)
* Multiple playable characters
* A huge consistent open environment with naturally spawning AI and events
* A meta-story, Sadie's Story
* Our introduction to a space-to-ground sequence
* Huge scripted sequences in the distance in real-time (glassing, etc)
* Introduction to animals that aren't just birds or rats, although dead (this is actually important)
* A true sense of being vulnerable against enemies that would be pushovers as a Spartan
* Firefight - an understanding of controlled combat situations and environments and how to design for the ultimate experience that could go on for hours, yet still be fun
* Music that breaks away entirely from the heroic, ancient and galaxy-saving superhuman theme; much more relaxed and moody
* Made with a really small team using a pre-existing engine and some pre-existing assets, but being able to construct such a large amount extra in just 14 short months
Halo Reach ties in many of the significant features from ODST and expands upon them a thousandfold.Halo Reach - Developed 2007-2010
But don't just take my word for it:* Armor Abilities (Sprint, Jetpack, Camo, etc)
* MoCap-animated characters and cutscenes
* Vignettes sequences in level (scripted animated action scenes during gameplay)
* An entirely detailed planet and backstory, along with geographies and architecture
* An entirely customizable character, with an in-built economics system
* Integration of multiplayer and Firefight areas into Campaign to truly maximize for tested enjoyment
* Reusing environments to see how changes such as a higher tide, or battle-damaged affect mood
* Our second and properly fleshed out sense of being the character; having no backstory to go by but our own
* Orbital weaponry (this seems significant to me for some reason)
* Fully fleshed out characters with defined personalities, actors and appearances
* Epic space battles.
* Hugely non-linear environments and levels, with sufficient dialogue and action to support, without negatively affecting level appearance in an obvious way
* A meta-story, the datapads
* A true in-engine cutscene transition from ground movement to space battles without any loading screens (this is SUPER important)
* Huge scripted sequences in the distance in real-time (glassing, warfare, etc)
* Introduction to huge and lifelike fantasy animals that you can interact with, and even kill and be killed by (this is more important than ODST's animals)
* A return to being afraid of the aliens you're fighting, in terms of their brutality and alien nature.
* Not many people know this, but Bungie actually wrote an entire Sanghelios language for the voice actors to do their Covenant dialogue in. An entire alien language. Not just warblgarlblarrgh or reversed English.
* Music that breaks away entirely from the heroic, ancient and galaxy-saving superhuman theme; and much more focussed on the death and loss on a dying planet in a lost war.
* Forge was completely revised to incorporate massive amounts of asset-placement with a variety of reusable objects in a map roughly the size of a small campaign level.
If you've ever explored Winter Contingency, you'll know full well the extent that Bungie went to populating this game with detail that the gamer familiar with Halo games from the past would never see. Why wouldn't they focus on simply designing a linear path as they have before? Why the multiple paths, the multiple locations, orders and scenarios in a level largely designed to be linear? Why the decorated history of the population that we only get to talk to for a whole of 5 minutes?
We'll get to that.
That's a lot of variety in geographies, now that you mention it, Marcus. I wonder if you could say that it was practice to get used to, and to have a library of concept art and reference images for such environments. Seems to me like they could all quite easily be interconnected together to build a cohesive world that isn't limited by cutscenes and levels, don't you think?Winter Contingency - Boreal, Temperate, Pioneer
ONI: Sword Base - Boreal, Badlands, Industrial, ONI
Nightfall - Badlands
Tip of the Spear - Badlands
Long Night of Solace - Badlands, Industrial, Space
Exodus - Hyper-Urban
New Alexandria - Hyper-Urban
The Package - Boreal, Badlands, ONI, Industrial
The Pillar of Autumn - Badlands, Industrial
Lone Wolf - Badlands, Industrial
Okay, dude, that is an entire planet. You weren't joking about clearly defining the details. Combine that knowledge with the geographies and architectural styles and you've got yourself a pretty formula for creating an entire playable planet, don't you think? Or at least a continent. Not to mention the sheer level of detail you've gone into the planet's backstory, most of which we aren't "privy" to, which I believe you're going to discuss with us now.
So you've developed all of this information about Reach, its population, its fauna, its geographies, its system, but you've decided to slap some tunnel-vision on us and only show us what we're privy to? Intriguing.