Gameplay - Campaign

Campaign

Halo 3’s campaign contains nine levels, which complete the storyline of the Halo trilogy. Players can play through by themselves, or play cooperatively with other players via Xbox Live or System Link. For plot reasons, instead of having each player be an identical Spartan as in previous Halo games, the first player plays as Master Chief, the second player the Arbiter and the other two players newly created Elites; N’tho ‘Sraom and Usze ‘Taham, each with their own backstories. Each player has identical abilities, although the Arbiter and his Elites have different starting weapons. A.I. behavior was improved over Halo 3’s predecessors, occasionally drastically changing gameplay; for example, the behavior of enemy Brutes the player faces has been modified, giving them a “pack mentality” when attacking. There are also various Forerunner computer terminals hidden throughout the campaign which can be accessed for additional storyline information. After accessing one of these yellow hubs, the player can read translated text for a short time before the terminal redirects them, shutting off the translation and turning the screen red. While they don’t serve to propel the story, they fill in background on the forerunner’s struggle to contain the flood prior to the first activation of the rings.

Halo 3 features a “campaign scoring mode”, called the “meta-game”, which introduces a competitive aspect to cooperative play. Players are awarded points for defeating enemies while completing a level in the campaign. Extra points are awarded for stylish moves such as performing headshots or defeating multiple enemies in rapid succession. Players lose points if they die or kill a cooperative team-mate. The player can find hidden gold or silver skulls (based on the easter egg skulls in Halo 2) on each level which, when activated, cause changes in game-play, such as giving the enemies extra health, changing in-game dialogue, or improving enemy behavior. The Gold skulls provide a multiplier to the score on top of multipliers that are applied for playing on higher difficulties or completing the level quickly and achievements, but the Silver skulls go towards unlocking Hayabusa Armor. Players are awarded gamerscore points for successfully reaching a certain score in each level (15,000 or 50,000), and medals are awarded for specific accomplishments.