Halo: Reach
Encyclopedia
Halo: Reach is a first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...

 video game developed by Bungie
Bungie
Bungie, Inc is an American video game developer currently located in Bellevue, Washington, USA. The company was established in May 1991 by University of Chicago undergraduate student Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones after publishing Jones' game Minotaur: The Labyrinths of...

 and published by Microsoft Game Studios
Microsoft Game Studios
Microsoft Studios is the video game production wing for Microsoft, responsible for the development and publishing of games for the Xbox, Xbox 360, Games for Windows and Windows Phone platforms. They were established in 2002 as Microsoft Game Studios to coincide with the release of the Xbox, before...

 for the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...

 console. Reach was released in North America, Australia, and Europe on September 14, 2010. The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with the alien Covenant
Covenant (Halo)
The Covenant are a fictional theocratic military alliance of alien races who serve as the main antagonists in the Halo video game series. They are composed of a variety of diverse species, united under the religious worship of the enigmatic Forerunners and their belief that Forerunner ringworlds...

. Players control Noble Six, a member of an elite supersoldier squad, during the battle for the human world of Reach.

Reach was originally announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009
Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009
The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009, commonly known as the E3 2009, was the 15th Electronic Entertainment Expo held. The event took place on June 2, 3, and 4 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. E3 is an annual trade show for the computer and video games industry presented by the Entertainment...

 in Los Angeles, California, with the first in-engine trailer shown at the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards. Players who purchased Halo 3: ODST were eligible to participate in a Reach multiplayer beta in May 2010; the beta allowed Bungie to gain player feedback for fixing bugs and making gameplay tweaks before shipping the final version. The developers focused on creating a compelling world, more difficult enemies, and updated graphics and audio.

Halo: Reach grossed US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

200 million on its launch day, setting a new record for the franchise. The game sold well in most territories, moving more than three million units its first month in North America. Critical reception was positive; reviewers from publications such as IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...

, GamePro
GamePro
GamePro Media was a United States gaming media company publishing online and print content on the video game industry, video game hardware, and video game software developed for a video game console , a computer, and/or a mobile device . GamePro Media properties include GamePro magazine and...

, and Official Xbox Magazine
Official Xbox Magazine
Official Xbox Magazine is a monthly video game magazine which started in November 2001 around the launch of the original Xbox. A preview issue was released for E3 2001, with another preview issue for November 2001. The magazine is bundled with a disc that includes game demos, preview videos and...

called it the best Halo title yet. Reach was Bungie's final Halo game, with future games overseen by the Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 subsidiary 343 Industries
343 Industries
343 Industries, usually shortened to 343i, is an American video game developer located in Kirkland, Washington. It was established in 2007 by Microsoft Game Studios to oversee development of the Halo science fiction media franchise, which includes video games, novels, comics, and other multimedia...

.

Gameplay

Halo: Reach is a shooter game
Shooter game
Shooter games are a sub-genre of action game, which often test the player's speed and reaction time. It includes many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing "on the actions of the avatar using some sort of weapon. Usually this weapon is a gun, or some other long-range weapon". A common...

 in which players experience gameplay predominantly from a first-person perspective. Players assume the role of Noble Six, a supersoldier
Supersoldier
Supersoldier is a term often used to describe a soldier that operates beyond normal human limits or abilities. Supersoldiers are common in science fiction literature, films, TV programs, computer, conspiracy theories, and video games, but have also made appearances in other related genres, such as...

 engaged in combat with an alien collective known as the Covenant
Covenant (Halo)
The Covenant are a fictional theocratic military alliance of alien races who serve as the main antagonists in the Halo video game series. They are composed of a variety of diverse species, united under the religious worship of the enigmatic Forerunners and their belief that Forerunner ringworlds...

. Gameplay is more similar to Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved, frequently referred to as Halo: CE, or Halo 1, is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The first game of the Halo franchise, it was released on November 15, 2001 as a launch title for the Xbox gaming system, and is...

than later games in the series. The player character is equipped with a recharging energy shield that absorbs damage from weapons fire and impacts. When the energy shield is depleted, the player character loses health; when the character's health reaches zero, the game reloads from a saved checkpoint. Health is replenished using health packs scattered throughout Reachs levels.

In Halo 3, player characters could carry single-use equipment power-ups that offer temporary offensive or defensive advantages. This system of single-use equipment is replaced in Reach by reusable and persistent "armor abilities" that remain with a character until they are replaced. Among the abilities are a jetpack, active camouflage
Active camouflage
Active camouflage or adaptive camouflage, is a group of camouflage technologies which allow an object to blend into its surroundings by use of panels or coatings capable of altering their appearance, color, luminance and reflective properties...

, sprint, and "armor lock", which immobilizes the player but grants invincibility for a brief period of time. Reach features updated versions of old weapons, plus new weapons fulfilling various combat roles.

Multiplayer

Reach supports player-versus-player multiplayer through splitscreen on a single Xbox 360, local networks (System Link), and the Xbox Live
Xbox Live
Xbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It is currently the only online gaming service on consoles that charges users a fee to play multiplayer gaming. It was first made available to the Xbox system in 2002...

 service. Reach includes standard multiplayer modes such as Slayer
Deathmatch (gaming)
Deathmatch or Player vs All is a widely-used gameplay mode integrated into many shooter and real-time strategy computer games...

 and Capture the Flag, as well as gametypes new to the franchise. In "Headhunter", player characters drop skulls upon death, which other players can pick up and deposit at special zones for points. When a player dies, all their accumulated skulls are dropped. "Stockpile" has teams race to collect neutral flags, holding them at capture points every minute for points. "Generator Defense" pits three human supersoldiers, or Spartans, against three Covenant soldiers called Elites. The Elites' objective is to destroy three generators, while Spartans defend the installation. After every round the players switch roles. "Invasion" is a six versus six mode with three squads of two on each team. The gametype pits Spartans against Elites; Elites vie for control of territories to disable a shield guarding a navigation core. Once the shield is disabled, they must transfer the core to a dropship; the Spartans must prevent this. As the game progresses, new vehicles and areas of the map become open.

Alongside other multiplayer options is "Firefight", where players take on increasingly difficult waves of foes in a game of survival. Players can customize Firefight options, including the number and types of enemies. Firefight versus allows a player-controlled Elite team to try to stop the Spartan team from scoring points. Game modes like Generator Defense are also playable in Firefight.

Also included with Reach is Forge, a level editor. Players can edit the default multiplayer maps and a large empty map known as Forge World, adding or modifying spawn points, weapons and items. Objects may be phased into other objects, and can also be snapped
Snap (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, snapping allows an object to be easily positioned in alignment with grid lines, guide lines or another object, by causing it to automatically jump to an exact position when the user drags it to the proximity of the desired location....

 to specific orientations.

Setting and characters

Reach takes place in a futuristic science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 setting; the year is 2552
26th century
The 26th century of the anno Domini era will span from January 1, 2501–December 31, 2600 of the Gregorian calendar.-List of the long total solar eclipses:* June 14, 2504 : Solar eclipse,, , of saros 145....

, shortly before the events of the video game Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved, frequently referred to as Halo: CE, or Halo 1, is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The first game of the Halo franchise, it was released on November 15, 2001 as a launch title for the Xbox gaming system, and is...

, and during the events of the novel Halo: The Fall of Reach
Halo: The Fall of Reach
Halo: The Fall of Reach is a 2001 science fiction novel by Eric Nylund based on the Halo series of video games and acts as a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, the first game in the series. It is set in the fictional Halo universe, taking place in the 26th century across several planets and locations...

. Humans, under the auspices of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), have been waging a long war against a collective of alien races known as the Covenant
Covenant (Halo)
The Covenant are a fictional theocratic military alliance of alien races who serve as the main antagonists in the Halo video game series. They are composed of a variety of diverse species, united under the religious worship of the enigmatic Forerunners and their belief that Forerunner ringworlds...

. By the events of Reach, almost all of humanity's interstellar colonies have fallen. Reach itself is an Earthlike colony that serves as the UNSC's main military hub. The colony is home to over 700 million civilians in addition to the military presence.

The game follows the actions of "Noble Team", a UNSC special operations unit composed of elite supersoldiers known as Spartans. Players assume the role of an unnamed new addition to the team, and are identified by the call sign Noble Six. Noble Team's leader is Carter-A259, a no-nonsense soldier. His second-in-command, Kat-B320, has a bionic arm; together, Carter and Kat are the only remaining original members of Noble Team. The other current members include heavy weapons specialist Jorge-052, assault specialist Emile-A239, and marksman Jun-A266.

Story

Noble Team, dispatched to discover why a communications relay has gone offline, discovers Covenant forces on Reach. Soon after, the team defends "Sword Base", an Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) installation, from a Covenant vessel. The team meets Catherine Halsey, a scientist and the mastermind behind the Spartan program and their MJOLNIR powered armor. Halsey informs Noble Team that the Covenant forces at the relay were searching for important information.

Jun and Six are dispatched on a covert mission to assess the Covenant's strength and discover an invasion force. The following morning, Noble Team leads UNSC forces in assaulting a Covenant ground base. When a massive Covenant super-carrier joins the fight, Jorge and Six take part in a plan to destroy the carrier using a makeshift bomb. The Spartans use starfighters to infiltrate a smaller Covenant ship, prepare the bomb and set the ship on a docking course with the carrier. The bomb's timer malfunctions, so Jorge stays behind and sacrifices himself to destroy the carrier. Moments later, huge numbers of Covenant ships arrive at Reach and begin a full-scale invasion.

Six returns to the surface and travels to the city of New Alexandria. The Spartan aids the local military in fighting the Covenant and evacuating the city, reuniting with Noble Team along the way. They retreat to an underground bunker, but Kat is killed by a Covenant sniper before they reach it. Recalled to Sword Base, Noble Team is guided underground to an ancient artifact that Halsey believes is key to winning the war against the Covenant. Six, Carter and Emile are entrusted with transporting the artificial intelligence Cortana
Cortana
Cortana is a fictional artificially intelligent character in Bungie's Halo video game series. Voiced by Jen Taylor, she appears in Halo: Combat Evolved and its sequels, Halo 2 and Halo 3, in the prequel and epilogue of Halo: Reach, as well the novels Halo: The Flood, Halo: The Fall of Reach, ...

, and the information she carries concerning the artifact, to the UNSC ship Pillar of Autumn. Jun leaves the team to escort Halsey to another base.

En route to the Autumns dry dock, Carter is critically wounded. He rams his ship into a Covenant mobile assault platform, allowing Six and Emile to safely reach the shipyard. Emile uses a railgun
Coilgun
A coilgun is a type of projectile accelerator that consists of one or more coils used as electromagnets in the configuration of a synchronous linear motor which accelerate a magnetic projectile to high velocity...

 emplacement to defend the Autumn while Six fights through Covenant ground forces to get Cortana to Captain Jacob Keyes. When Emile is slain by Elites, Six remains behind to control the gun, ensuring the Autumns escape. The Autumn flees from Reach and discovers a Halo
Halo (megastructure)
Halos are fictional megastructures and superweapons in the Halo video game series. They are referred to as "Installations" by their AI monitors, and are collectively referred to as "the Array" by the installations' creators, the Forerunners...

 ringworld, sparking the events of Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved, frequently referred to as Halo: CE, or Halo 1, is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The first game of the Halo franchise, it was released on November 15, 2001 as a launch title for the Xbox gaming system, and is...

.

The post-credits scene
Post-credits scene
A post-credits scene is a short clip that appears after some or all of the closing credits of a film have run...

 puts the player in control of Six's last stand
Last stand
Last stand is a loose military term used to describe a body of troops holding a defensive position in the face of overwhelming odds. The defensive force usually takes very heavy casualties or is completely destroyed, as happened in "Custer's Last Stand" at the Battle of Little Big HornBryan Perrett...

 against overwhelming Covenant forces. After sustaining heavy damage, Six drops his or her shattered helmet and is overwhelmed. Years later, Six's helmet remains on the grassy plains of a now-restored Reach. A narration by Halsey eulogizes Noble Team, who ultimately enabled humanity's victory over the Covenant.

Design

After Halo 3
Halo 3
Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the Halo franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in Halo 2...

, development studio Bungie
Bungie
Bungie, Inc is an American video game developer currently located in Bellevue, Washington, USA. The company was established in May 1991 by University of Chicago undergraduate student Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones after publishing Jones' game Minotaur: The Labyrinths of...

 created an internal team to work on Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...

's planned Halo game, Halo Chronicles. Chronicles fell apart and the team began working on a standalone expansion project—Halo 3: ODST—while another team, led by Creative Director Marcus Lehto and Design Lead Christian Allen, worked on Reach. The team considered many different concepts and approaches to the game; among the rejected ideas was a sequel to Halo 3. The team eventually settled on a prequel to the first Halo game in brainstorming sessions. It would take place on the planet Reach, during a pivotal time in the war. "...Reach, as a fictional planet, was just a great candidate [to] play around with. It's such a rich world, with such a great fiction surrounding it," said Lehto. "We were like: 'Okay, that's it. We've just got a lot of things we can do there so we can build an immense story with it.'" No longer burdened with continuing the story threads of the Halo trilogy, Bungie used Reach to introduce new characters and settings. As Reach ends with the destruction of the titular planet, Bungie wanted to be sure players still felt a sense of accomplishment and success. "It is a challenge overall to ensure the player feels they’re doing the right thing all the way to the end," said Lehto.

The Halo games consistently featured protagonists that were silent during gameplay sequences. Community manager Brian Jarrard pushed for allowing players to choose a female Noble Six and have the cinematics and dialogue change accordingly. The prequel concept also gave the art team an opportunity to redesign key enemies, weapons, and elements of the series. Artists found inspiration in the original concept art for Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved, frequently referred to as Halo: CE, or Halo 1, is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The first game of the Halo franchise, it was released on November 15, 2001 as a launch title for the Xbox gaming system, and is...

; the shape for the redesigned Covenant Grunts came from a sketch by Shi Kai Wang done ten years earlier. The post-credit game sequence was the subject of intense discussion; some at Bungie wanted to remove it. Executive producer Joe Tung noted, "the 'survive' component ... felt great to us. We definitely talked about different versions of how that was happening and different versions of ending [the game] cinematically, but I think the way that it ultimately ended up is just a really well-paced, significant and emotionally impactful ending."

The developers originally intended to port existing Halo 3 assets to Reach and update them. For Halo 3, Bungie had been forced to shrink parts of the game to fit the game engine's constraints, but wanted to make Reach look better than its predecessors. "The more we started looking into this, the more we found that realistically we could rebuild each asset from scratch with a huge increase in quality without significantly investing more time," said Shepard Texture resolution and polygon counts for models were increased; the Reach assault rifle is constructed of more polygons than an entire Marine character from Halo 3
Halo 3
Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the Halo franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in Halo 2...

.

The developers redesigned the game engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...

, the software that handles rendering and much of gameplay. They sought to increase replay value by focusing on improving artificial intelligence. Rather than scripting enemy encounters, the developers focused on a more open world
Open world
An open world is a type of video game level design where a player can roam freely through a virtual world and is given considerable freedom in choosing how to approach objectives...

 or sandbox approach to battles. Bungie completed Reach near the end of July/beginning of August 2010.

Audio

Composing team Martin O'Donnell
Martin O'Donnell
Martin "Marty" O'Donnell is an American composer known for his work on video game developer Bungie's series, such as Myth, Oni, and Halo...

 and Michael Salvatori
Michael Salvatori
Michael Salvatori is an American composer, best known for his collaboration with colleague Martin O'Donnell for the soundtracks to the Halo video game series. Salvatori became friends with O'Donnell in college; when O'Donnell was given a job offer to score a colleague's film, Salvatori and...

 scored Reach. O'Donnell wrote "somber, more visceral" music since the plot is character-driven and focuses on a planet that is already known in the universe to have fallen. The first music he wrote for Reach was played for the game's world premiere, and he used it as a starting piece to develop further themes. O'Donnell began work on Reach while ODST, for which he also wrote the music, was still in production, but did not begin composing until August 2009. Past Halo collaborators Salvatori, C. Paul Johnson, and Stan LePard assisted O'Donnell. With Reach, he did not give them strictly divided responsibilities. "I decided this time to come up with some themes, tempos, keys, and other basic starting points for musical ideas," explained O'Donnell. "I shared these with all the other composers and just asked them to take off if they felt inspired by any of that material." The works-in-progress they came up with were either touched up by O'Donnell, or sent back to be finished by their composer.

In previous Halo games, sections of music overlap and change depending on player action. Reachs system of interactive audio was much more complex, featuring the ability to combine up to seven layers of instrumentation compared to Combat Evolveds two. Developers also expanded the sound effect system. Every interacting object in Reach produces two sounds for respective objects; for example, a Warthog vehicle that hits an armored Covenant soldier produces a crunching metal noise based on the two colliding elements. The interaction between objects and terrain was demonstrated in an in-game environment that O'Donnell called "the stripey room" due to the bands of different/alternating colors on the objects and environment.

Announcements

Halo: Reach was announced on June 1, 2009, accompanied by a trailer at the Microsoft Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) press conference. An accompanying press release announced that an invitation to the open multiplayer beta of the game would appear in 2010. Reach is Bungie's last game development for the Halo series. Responsibility for developing future Halo games fell to Microsoft subsidiary 343 Industries
343 Industries
343 Industries, usually shortened to 343i, is an American video game developer located in Kirkland, Washington. It was established in 2007 by Microsoft Game Studios to oversee development of the Halo science fiction media franchise, which includes video games, novels, comics, and other multimedia...

.
At E3 2010, Bungie revealed parts of the game's campaign, as well as the Firefight mode. Bungie reached the "Zero Bug Release" milestone on June 23, signifying a shift from content creation to solely bug-fixing. Buggy artificial intelligence would be removed rather than fixed at this point due to time constraints. Bungie released the complete list of achievements for Halo: Reach on July 30, including their titles, symbols, and requirements.

Multiplayer beta

Reachs multiplayer beta was open to owners of Halo 3: ODST. Bungie's previous multiplayer beta for Halo 3
Halo 3
Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the Halo franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in Halo 2...

had drawn 800,000 players. More than three million copies of ODST were sold by November 2009, and Bungie estimated between two and three million players for the upcoming Reach. Development schedules forced Bungie to release a six week-old beta, fraught with bugs and issues already addressed in newer builds. Though concerned that these issues might tarnish the game's image, Jarrard noted that they had little choice but to ship it as-is and communicate with players concerning the fixes.

More than 2.7 million players participated in the beta, which lasted from May 3 to May 20. The game was rolled out from an internal group of Bungie or Microsoft employees, with the total number of players in the thousands. When the beta went public, more than a million played the first day, causing back-end servers to struggle to handle the traffic. While the engineering team had overestimated server load, bugs in server clusters caused game uploads to become backed up, slowing matchmaking to a crawl until the underlying issues could be fixed. Jarrard noted that the 16 million total hours of play time and large-scale rollout of the beta was vital to seeing how Reach would perform.

Bungie used the beta to fix mistakes, glitches, and balance issues within gameplay elements. "We needed our fans to provide feedback," said Lehto, adding that having a large audience to "hammer" on the game allowed them to gather useful feedback to mold the finished product. The game automatically collected statistics such as upload and matchmaking speeds, as well as game preferences; sorting out what Jarrard called "the more subjective anecdotal feedback" from emails, notes, and forums proved more difficult. The Reach beta generated over 360,000 forum posts on Bungie's community forums. Bungie created official threads for groups of issues to manage the high volume of feedback; "We tried to give people a little bit more of a direct avenue to give that feedback and to make our lives easier. It was definitely a lot to assess and digest," said Jarrard. Certain feedback from the players did not correlate with the statistical data obtained from the matches during the beta. Chris Carney, lead designer for the multiplayer mode, recalled vocal dissatisfaction with the pistol early in the beta; by the end of the beta, the weapon was responsible for most of the kills coming from newly included weapons in the game. Bungie deployed special test matches to eliminate lurking variable
Lurking variable
In statistics, a confounding variable is an extraneous variable in a statistical model that correlates with both the dependent variable and the independent variable...

s, balance gameplay, and make other informed changes.

Release

Reach was released in three editions on September 14, 2010. The standard edition consisted of the game and its manual. The limited edition featured an artifact bag with story information, different packaging, and an exclusive set of in-game Elite armor. The Legendary Edition contained all the materials from the limited edition, a different packaging, two hours of developer commentary on the game's cutscenes, an in-game Spartan armor effect, and a 10 pounds (4.5 kg) statue created by McFarlane Toys
McFarlane Toys
McFarlane Toys, a subsidiary of Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc., is a company started by Todd McFarlane that makes highly detailed models of characters from movies, comics, musicians, video games, and sport figures...

. North American players who purchased a first run copy of the game (in-store near launch day or pre-ordered) received an in-game Spartan "Recon" helmet customization; players in other regions could earn it only by pre-ordering. Reach also came bundled with a limited edition Xbox 360 Slim that sports Halo-themed sounds and finish and two controllers.

Bungie previously released a demo
Game demo
A game demo is a freely distributed demonstration or preview of an upcoming or recently released video game. Demos are typically released by the game's publisher to help consumers get a feel of the game before deciding whether to buy the full version....

 on May 24, 2010, featuring a single player level from the game's story mode, a multiplayer competitive map, and a cooperative Firefight mission. Microsoft later listed Reach as an Xbox Live Marketplace
Xbox Live Marketplace
The Xbox Live Marketplace is a virtual market designed for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console that allows Xbox Live members to download purchased or promotional content...

 download on August 12, 2010, at a price of 99999 Microsoft Points
Microsoft Points
Microsoft Points are the currency of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Games for Windows - Live Marketplace, Windows Live Gallery, and Zune online stores. The points allow users to purchase content without a credit card and to reduce the number of small credit card transaction fees, which Microsoft would...

 (~US$1250). A spokesperson confirmed the download was for media review purposes, and that there were no plans to distribute the game to the public through Games on Demand. Four days later, hackers managed to access, download, and distribute the game online; Microsoft claimed to be actively investigating the matter. Halo 2, Halo 3, and ODST were similarly leaked ahead of release.

Marketing

According to Brian Jarrard, the team decided to have a much more "grandoise" marketing for Reach than that for ODST. Microsoft gave Reach its largest game marketing budget at the time, surpassing the scale and $6.5 million cost of Halo 3s award-winning marketing. Marketers focused their efforts on connecting with consumers via universal themes, rather than outdoing Halo 3s push. Interpublic Group of Companies
Interpublic Group of Companies
The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. is one of the "big four" global advertising holding companies . Headquartered in New York City, it has 41,000 employees and reported full−year revenues of US$6.5 billion for 2010...

' AgencyTwoFifteen handled strategy and video development for the marketing push, while AKQA
AKQA
AKQA is a creative agency specializing in interactive marketing. The privately held company has offices in London, San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C, Amsterdam, Berlin, Shanghai and San Salvador, totally roughly 1,000 full-time employees.-Philosophy:...

 developed interactive components. The agencies were previously involved with Halo 3s marketing. The advertisers' brief was simple: "Remember Reach. Focus on the heroes, not the victims. Expand our audience beyond Halo fanboys."

Bungie began the advertising campaign in April 2010 with the live-action short "Birth of a Spartan". Several lines of merchandise were launched. McFarlane, who had produced toys for Halo 3, created a line of 5-inch action figures, while Square Enix's Play Arts toy label created additional figures.

Reach was released Tuesday, September 14 in 25 countries. Tens of thousands of stores signed up for midnight launch events; sponsored events took place in London, Oslo, Stockholm, and New York.

Reachs marketing won several industry distinctions, among them thirteen medals from the MI6 Game Marketing Conference Awards.

Sales

Reach made $200 million in first-day sales, a record for the franchise. Its strong sales suggested to analysts that core titles in the holiday season could reverse sluggish video game sales in 2010. In its first sixteen days the game sold $350 million worth of merchandise. Reach premiered at the top of Xbox 360 and multi-platform charts in most territories. NPD Group
NPD Group
The NPD Group, Inc. is a leading North American market research company. The NPD Group consistently ranks among the top 25 market research companies in the independent Honomichl Top 50 report, which the media and the research industry acknowledge as a credible source of information on the market...

 figures estimated that Reach sold 3.3 million units in North America, making it the third game for its console generation (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii) to sell more than three million units during the first month since release (alongside Halo 3 and Modern Warfare 2). Halo Reach became the third bestselling game of 2010 in North America, behind Call of Duty: Black Ops
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Call of Duty: Black Ops is a first-person shooter video game developed by Treyarch, published by Activision and released worldwide on November 9, for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii consoles, with a separate version for Nintendo DS developed by n-Space. Announced on April 30, 2010,...

and Madden NFL 11
Madden NFL 11
Madden NFL 11 is an American football video game based on the National Football League published by EA Sports and developed by EA Tiburon. It is the 22nd annual installment in the bestselling Madden NFL video game franchise. It was released on August 10, 2010 in North America, and on August 13 in...

.

In the United Kingdom, Reachs opening week was the fifth-best launch in the territory, beating Halo 3s debut by 20,000 units and ODSTs by 200,000 units. In its second week on the UK charts Reach was the second bestselling title, displaced by racing game F1 2010. Reach continued to hold the top place in North America. Reach debuted in Japan at first place with 44,413 units, but fared poorly in the long-term (as have other Halo games). This showing was above ODSTs sales of 29,734 in the comparable timeframe, but below Halo 3s 61,143. Reach dropped out of the top 20 best selling titles entirely its second week.

Downloadable content

Reach supports additional downloadable content
Downloadable content
Downloadable content is official additional content for a video game distributed through the Internet. Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from a single in-game outfit to an entirely new, extensive storyline, similarly to an expansion pack. As such, DLC may add new game modes,...

 (DLC). Bungie released their first DLC (dubbed the Noble Map Pack) on November 30, 2010. The Noble Map Pack contains three maps, unique in that they are not based on Reach campaign levels. Microsoft partnered with Certain Affinity
Certain Affinity
Certain Affinity is an American video game development studio based in Austin, Texas, in the USA. It was founded in 2006 by Max Hoberman and a small number of other ex-Bungie employees and other industry veterans.-History:...

, who had worked on Halo 2 maps, to produce the second "Defiant Map Pack", made available for download on March 15, 2011.

343 Industries released a "Title update" for Reach that modified game mechanics such as reticle bloom and melee damage. The update also allows playlists for multiplayer through Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. Purchasers of Anniversary will receive a voucher to download the game's seven multiplayer maps directly into Reach.

Reception

Halo: Reach received critical acclaim upon its release. It holds an average of 91.71% and 91/100 on aggregate web sites GameRankings and Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

. Critics such as 1UP.com
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....

's Thierry Nguyen, the staff of Edge
Edge (magazine)
Edge is a multi-format computer and video game magazine published by Future Publishing in the United Kingdom. It is known for its industry contacts, editorial stance, distinctive anonymous third-person writing style, yearly awards and longevity....

, and GamePro
GamePro
GamePro Media was a United States gaming media company publishing online and print content on the video game industry, video game hardware, and video game software developed for a video game console , a computer, and/or a mobile device . GamePro Media properties include GamePro magazine and...

Matt Cabral considered Reach the best Halo title yet. Many noted that there were few major changes to the Halo formula; IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...

's Erik Brudvig wrote that Reach was not "another rehash", though franchise veterans would feel immediately at home with the game. Tom Hoggins of The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

commented that the game was unlikely to convert non-Halo fans, as developers took the best elements from previous games and created Reach as "a blistering, breathless crescendo to a decade's worth of work".

Brudvig praised the Campaign for avoiding the "repetitive landscapes and circuitous, difficult to follow plots" of past Halo titles. Game Revolution
Game Revolution
Game Revolution or GR is a gaming website created in 1996. Based in Berkeley, California, the site includes reviews, previews, a gaming download area, cheats, and a merchandise store, as well as webcomics, screenshots, and videos...

's Blake Morse wrote that the campaign "succeeded triumphantly" as Bungie's last title, owed to the omission of religious subtext and detracting features like a "telepathic plant that looks like something out of the Little Shop of Horrors
Gravemind
The Gravemind is a parasitic intelligence in the Halo universe. While only one Gravemind is ever seen in the games, the title is given to the final stage of Flood evolution. The Flood is a highly-infectious parasite which is released several times during Halos story...

". GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...

's Chris Watters and others felt the friendly non-player character artificial intelligence was less advanced than that of enemies, especially while driving. Steve Boxer wrote for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

that Reachs story made previous entries feel "amateurish"; Nguyen felt it was more accessible, but suffered from overly-generic archetypal characters and occasional lapses in exposition. In contrast, Games Radar's Charlie Baratt opined that Reachs campaign was better than ODST's, but lacked the "franchise-changing potential" it promised.

Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica
Ars Technica
Ars Technica is a technology news and information website created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games. Ars Technica is known for its features, long articles that go...

 enjoyed the multiplayer component of Reach for its scope—"no matter how you play, you will find something to like." Morse, Baratt, and others lauded the many new and old customization and game options available to players. Watters and Kuchera praised the concept of psych profiles to hone more agreeable teammate selections, but questioned its effectiveness. G4 considered Reachs Forge World more expansive and impressive than Halo 3s.

Critics considered the audio-visual components a marked advance over Halo 3 and ODSTs. New Zealand Heralds Troy Rawhiti-Forbes wrote that with the improved graphics, animation, and voice acting from such stars as Zachary Levi
Zachary Levi
Zachary Levi Pugh , better known by his stage name Zachary Levi , is an American television actor, director, and singer known for the roles of Kipp Steadman in Less than Perfect, Chuck Bartowski in Chuck, and Flynn Rider in Tangled.- Early life :Zachary Levi Pugh was born in Lake Charles,...

 (Chuck
Chuck
-Engineering:* Chuck , a clamp that is part of a machine tool or power tool and securely holds a removable part, either a workpiece or a tool -People:* Charles, a masculine given name...

/The Nerd Machine
The Nerd Machine
The Nerd Machine, commonly referred to as TNM, is an American based company and website founded by Zachary Levi in November 2010. Levi along with Chuck prop master David Coleman and Courtney Coleman launched the online community website to spread the ‘nerd’ culture. It is possible to from the site...

), Alona Tal
Alona Tal
-Career:Tal started her career fresh out of the Israel Defense Forces, with a children's musical video tape, in which she played an evil witch. Following that, she appeared in a commercial for a laundry detergent...

 (Supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...

) and Jamie Hector
Jamie Hector
Jamie Hector is an Haitian-American actor who is known for his portrayal of Marlo Stanfield on the critically acclaimed HBO series The Wire.- Biography :...

 (Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...

), "Reach looks just like a big-budget Hollywood project." Official Xbox Magazine
Official Xbox Magazine
Official Xbox Magazine is a monthly video game magazine which started in November 2001 around the launch of the original Xbox. A preview issue was released for E3 2001, with another preview issue for November 2001. The magazine is bundled with a disc that includes game demos, preview videos and...

acknowledged better graphics in other games, but praised Reach for "eye-catching beauty and breathless scope", noting that the inclusion of wildlife and civilians heightened the impression of a planet under siege. Nguyen noted that large amounts of on-screen action occasionally resulted in frame rate
Frame rate
Frame rate is the frequency at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. The term applies equally well to computer graphics, video cameras, film cameras, and motion capture systems...

 slowdowns. Martin Robinson of IGN UK appreciated O'Donnell's moody score and the redone sound effects, and wrote that the new weapons "feel like they're about to tear your hands off".

Awards

Honor Awards Presented by Date
Best Sound GG Awards 2010 Good Game
Good Game
Good Game is an Australian video gaming talk show television programme created by Janet Carr and Jeremy Ray currently on ABC2. It premiered on ABC on 19 September 2006...

Best Xbox 360 Game 2010 GR Awards Game Revolution
Game Revolution
Game Revolution or GR is a gaming website created in 1996. Based in Berkeley, California, the site includes reviews, previews, a gaming download area, cheats, and a merchandise store, as well as webcomics, screenshots, and videos...

Best Shooter
Shooter Game of the Year Game of the Year 2010 GameSpy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...

Game of the Year Drunk Tank Awards 2010 Drunk Tank Podcast
Best Multiplayer Spike Video Game Awards Spike TV
Spike TV
Spike is an American cable television channel. It launched on March 7, 1983 as The Nashville Network , a joint venture of WSM, Inc...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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