14 DAY TRIAL // You could be forgiven for caring less about Ensemble's last project ever, Halo Wars. After all, Halo 3: Recon, a new campaign for the Xbox 360 blockbuster, has just been announced, and it is produced by the grandfathers of the Halo franchise, the people at Bungie, so it's bound to be a great experience. Meanwhile, Halo Wars is a real time strategy title in a world of first person shooters and also tries to map out a time frame Halo fans are not that interested in.
Well, let's take the excitement up a notch when it comes to the game by saying that the developers plan to introduce the Flood in Halo Wars as an unplayable faction. Why is this big news? Well, because initially the game was planned to be just a United Nations Space Command versus Covenant affair and because, at this moment in the Halo time line, the Flood was supposed to be contained. Making it a part of the campaign will certainly drive potential players more interested in the title.
As the developers demoed their game, Graeme Devine told 1UP that “The Flood are in Halo Wars” but not playable as some people had stated. As the campaign progresses, the main characters and the players, leading the UNSC war effort, will find subtle clues that point to a Flood outbreak. The game will then lead the player on a quest to stop this initial outbreak and to take down the forces of the Covenant.
The real bad news is that only in multiplayer will you be able to play as the bad guys, with your Brutes and Elites taking down Marines and Warthogs. Ensemble would have really managed to do something interesting if it had integrated a few play-as-Covenant missions in the UNSC oriented campaign of Halo Wars.