Everything you need to know about Halo 3: ODST's features and additional content including the new campaign experience, the frenetic four-player cooperative Firefight mode, the complete Halo 3 multiplayer experience, and the invitation to the Halo: Reach Xbox LIVE multiplayer beta.
For a complete breakdown of these highlights, and details on how you can gain access to an award-winning, freshly-expanded suite of stats, leaderboards, and community support only available on Bungie.net, check out the information below.
Much more than an expansion, Halo 3: ODST allows players to explore dangerous new ground, search the dark, abandoned streets of New Mombasa for clues, and fight back against the Covenant invasion from multiple perspectives. Dropping in as "the rookie," a new member of an elite squad of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers sent into New Mombasa on a classified recon mission, you'll be armed with specialized weaponry and upgraded technology, including silenced weapons and a VISR enhanced vision mode.
Separated from your squad, you'll have to scour the city for clues in order to learn what happened to Buck, Dare, Dutch, Mickey, and Romeo. As you collect new clues, you’ll experience the story from their perspectives, fighting through the occupied city hours earlier.
Drop feet first into a new way to play Halo with the cooperative campaign mode, Firefight. Form a squad of your friends over System Link or Xbox LIVE and put your skills to the ultimate test against the invading Covenant war machine for glory, high scores, and achievements. Do battle in multiple environments, on foot or in vehicles, and against increasingly difficult waves of Covenant attackers while Halo 3's skull modifiers progressively activate to up the ante.
After the Firefight, relive and review every last kill you earned and see how your high scores and stats stack up against your friends' and the community overall using Bungie.net's persistent online stats and Firefight leaderboards.
Three all-new maps make their debut for Halo 3's traditional, chart-topping multiplayer. Heretic, Longshore, and Citadel drop in alongside the original Halo 3 Multiplayer Maps, all packed in and playable from one standalone disc. Twenty-four maps in all, including the Heroic, Legendary, Cold Storage, and Mythic Map Packs, provide a peerless multiplayer experience, near limitless content creation and customization via the Forge and Sandbox, and a slew of new multiplayer achievements for Halo 3.
Buy Halo 3: ODST and receive an invitation to participate in the Halo: Reach Xbox LIVE multiplayer beta. If you want in, hold onto your copy of Halo 3: ODST and stay tuned to Bungie.net and Xbox.com for more details.
Looking for more information about Halo: Reach? Explore the Halo: Reach product page and discuss the upcoming title in our online forums.
For the first time, Recon Armor for use in Halo 3 multiplayer will be made available to players who complete the "Road to Recon" challenge. Earn all seven of the Vidmasters, a series of Xbox LIVE achievements that span Halo 3's Campaign and Multiplayer and Halo 3: ODST, and then visit your Bungie.net Service Record with a linked gamertag to enable your sweet new set of digital duds.
If you already own Halo 3, you can get started now by collecting the "Annual" campaign achievement and the "7 on the 7th" and "Lightswitch" multiplayer achievements in matchmaking. And, if you've already downloaded the Mythic Map Pack, you can collect the hidden skulls on Assembly, Orbital, and Sandbox today.
4-Player co-op experience over Xbox LIVE or System Link, Screenshots, Saved Films, custom Halo 3 Multiplayer Map and Game Variants via the Forge…all of the award-winning features included in Halo 3 are packed into Halo 3: ODST with an extra 1750 available achievement points piled on for good measure. And Halo 3: ODST introduces an all-new single player experience with new characters, new weapons and technology, and the frenetic cooperative experience, Firefight, an entirely unique way to play Halo.
What good is winning if you can't brag about it to your friends? Extend your gaming experience beyond the console with Bungie.net's expansive integration. All of your lifetime stats are aggregated into your online Service Record - every last kill, every single medal, and your entire collection of career post game carnage reports, plus robust charts, graphs, and leaderboards allow you to instantly see how you stack up against the rest of your squad and the Halo 3: ODST community at large.
Sergeant Avery Junior Johnson is a tough as nails career Marine that has been in more life or death battles than you've had hot meals. He has survived more infectious Flood outbreaks, greased more Covenant bad guys, and kicked more ass than any other twenty soldiers. And now you get to walk a mile in his shoes.
Pre-order your copy of Halo 3: ODST from select participating retailers listed below and you’ll receive a token to unlock Sgt. Johnson for use in the all new cooperative mode, Firefight. If your regional retailer is not on the list, please contact them directly to determine whether or not they are participating in the per-order bonus offer.
Participating Retailers:
- U.S.: Amazon, Best Buy, Gamestop, Wal-Mart, Target, GameCrazy, Toys R Us, Buy.com, and NewEgg.com
- Canada: EB Games, Wal-Mart, Future Shop, Best Buy, Amazon.ca, Blockbuster, Toys R Us, and HMV
- France: GAME, FNAC, JV&Co, Virgin, Amazon, Pixmania, Cdiscount, Rue du Commerce
- Germany: Amazon and Gamestop
- Italy: Gamestop
- UK: Game, Gamestation, Amazon, Play
- Australia: EB Games
- New Zealand: EB Games