New Halo 2 trooper revealed

Developer Bungie.net further stoked Halo 2's hype-firestorm by releasing a render of new soldiers featured in the game. The render shows a trio of heavily armored Orbital Drop Shock Troopers clutching assault rifles, ready for action.

Mentioned previously only in the Halo novels, the ODSTs are the United Nations Space Command's (UNSC) second-most-elite soldiers, after the Master Chief and his fellow genetically altered SPARTAN troopers. Also known as "Helljumpers," the all-volunteer ODSTs are the paratroopers of the future, traveling to planets' surfaces in one-man reentry modules, much like the soldiers in the original novel Starship Troopers.

As for the render, Bungie said, "It's technically not a screenshot, since it's not an actual gameplay moment." However, they assured gamers it was an in-engine image, and it contained "various 3D models and wireframes that were created during the development of Halo 2." The Xbox-only Halo 2 is currently set to hit store shelves this fall.