The Forerunners may be returning.
Microsoft kicked off its E3 2012 conference with the name that is synonymous with its Xbox console: Halo 4. Set a half-decade or so after the end of the Human-Covenant war, the UNSC sends a warship, now repurposed for peaceful purposes, to explore new worlds with humanity’s best and brightest. Something goes terribly wrong, as something is wont to do.
Here’s the trailer shown at Microsoft’s press conference today at E3 2012:
After being pulled through a vortex of sorts, the UNSC Infinity crash lands on a planet where – surprise, surprise – everyone’s favorite Master Chief has apparently been chilling since the end of Halo 3. Once there, he finds Covenant patrols investigating the crash of the Infinity, but more significantly encounters a mysterious non-organic race.
Said non-organic race just may turn out to be the Forerunners that built the Halo rings in the first place. They have some nifty tricks that we haven’t seen in the Halo series before, including tossing grenades back at the Chief and teleportation. Master Chief will also be able to use what seems like Forerunner weaponry, including a light-shotgun that vaporizes its targets.
However, it also seems as though the Chief’s faithful AI companion Cortana is having a bad time of it. She’s been in operation for 8 years, after all, and as she says herself, AIs begin to degrade after 7. The trailer ends with Cortana going berserk.
Halo 4 will hit shelves November 6th.
Check out the gameplay footage from the Microsoft press conference earlier today:
