One liner: Singing that familiar song, but space battles might be a scratch on the record.

While we’ve already been treated to a taste of Halo Reach, Microsoft showed off some more details behind closed doors at E3. A demo showed off some of the new features that weren’t included in the beta, a new version of Firefight and something entirely new to the series: space battles.

The demo we were shown kicked off about halfway through the game. The Covenant have already rampaged a majority of the planet and you’re pushing as hard as you can to survive. You play as Noble 6 alongside a handful of other Spartans. Noticed right away is the ability to sprint, as these Spartans are incredibly more agile than what we’ve seen with Master Chief. Not only can you sprint, but you’ll be able to enable assassin-type moves when behind an enemy. Our demo-man ran up behind an Elite, cracked it in the back, then grabbed its body to ensure a clean cut across its neck.

It had that familiar, somewhat fast-paced feel to the game. You are rushed to defend and commandeer a Saber, which you promptly fly into space with. This is where the game starts to feel a little odd. Odd in the sense that the series has always revolved around space, yet you’ve never directly fought in space. But odder yet is the fact that it doesn’t seem to fit in all that appropriately. The pacing of the game slowed down significantly. Perhaps it was just for demo purposes, but the Spartan was left hanging around UNSC frigates for a short time before Covenant came in to attack. The craft moved a little sluggish, as you would expect in a space battle, but without actual hands-on time we can’t tell you if it feels awkward or not. It just doesn’t seem to flow as well as Halo games usually do.

The updated version of Firefight was shown immediately after and by far the biggest addition is full-on matchmaking support. Plenty of ODST players clamored for the feature and Bungie clearly has listened. It will work similar to the standard multiplayer, so you’ll be able to customize your won Firefight maps and upload them to your file share. A new Medic load out has been added since the beta. This gives you a drop shield that works similar to the previously seen bubble shield, but will heal all those inside of it.

A new multiplayer weapon was introduced as well: the target painter. With it, you signal off an area and a UNSC frigate will promptly drop an orbital strike on the location. We were told that it doesn’t know friend from foe, so make sure your teammates book it out of the area before you call it. A couple of smaller features shown were Grunt methane tanks sending them flying around when hit, and the ability to board/commandeer Wraiths. Seen in single player but not in multiplayer was a grenade launcher attachment for your rifle.

Though being a slightly short demo, we saw enough updates to see what should be a solid enough game. Our only concern for now would be how space battles fit in with the whole picture, but we’ll pass complete judgment when the game releases September 14 later this year.

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