Official Halo Wars Thread
Official Website: www.halowars.com
Gameplay
Halo Wars is a three dimensional real time strategy game that uses species and vehicles seen in previous Halo games as well as new units.The controls use the A-button primarily for selecting via 3 methods; tap to select one unit, double tap to select all units on screen or "paint brush" which selects all units that the "brush" is dragged over. Selecting a unit gives the player the option of commands and selecting certain buildings brings up a "circle menu", taking up the whole screen which is used for creating units and buildings. Graeme Devine has said that the emphasis is more on combat than economy, it is necessary for the player to "manage a battle instead of watching it", and while resources are still present they take alternative forms such as time and the number of units present.
Story
Halo Wars will take place prior to the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, set in 2531. It follows the story of the UNSC's discovery of a Forerunner artifact and the first battles with the Covenant on and around the planet Harvest. It will allow the player to control the crew and vehicles of a UNSC ship, CFV-88 Spirit of Fire, and receive instructions and commands from its AI Serina.
Vehicles
Hawks, Wolverines, Rhinos...Halo Wars has a zoo of new vehicles, all needed to help balance the game for real-time-strategy purposes. The Hawk is a new Marine plane, and the Wolverine is a Marine anti-aircraft tank...useful, of course, for dropping Covenant Banshees, since most of the other human units don't shoot upwards very well for gameplay-balance reasons. The Rhino is a new Marine tank, but we didn't get to see it in action.
We confirmed that energy swords will be in the game; the Scarab is a controllable unit (which indirectly confirms the Covenant is a playable side); the game will support two-player co-op through the campaign; and the Marines have a new tank called the Rhino.
Halo Wars Timeline
2531
The Battle of Harvest:
Admiral Cole's war fleet engages the alien warship responsible for the decimation of the colony, scoring a victory (though the battle cost Cole two-thirds of his battle group). Only a last minute tactical inspiration turned the tide of battle. After returning to Earth, Cole-promoted to Admiral-learns that a number of outlying colonies have been destroyed, leaving behind no survivors. Cole begins to move his fleet around, trying to intercept the invaders. Ground and ship-to-ship battles begin in earnest, raging throughout the Outer Colonies. During one ground engagement, Human forces capture one of the aliens. Before succumbing to his wounds, interrogators learn that the aliens refer to themselves as "the Covenant" (roughly translated).
2535
The Outer Colony Massacres:
Over the next four years, Cole's forces were hammered, despite his excellent leadership and tactical brilliance. It was simply a matter of being outgunned; Covenant kill ratios tend to top four to one in ship-to-ship combat.
By November of 2535, virtually all of the Outer Colony worlds had been destroyed by the Covenant. The "Cole Protocol" was established by military order: All human vessels must ensure that Covenant forces do not find Earth. Human ships—when forced to withdraw—must not travel on an Earth-bound vector, even if that requires jumping into Slipspace without proper navigational calculations.
If blind jumps are not possible, the ship's captain must order self-destruction if capture is imminent. In addition, it is also imperative that the powerful ship AI data cores not fall into Covenant hands, so part of this protocol involved either the removal or destruction of the ship's AI in extreme situations.
2536-2552
The Siege of the Inner Colonies:
Covenant forces swarmed into the Inner Colonies. For several years the war fell into a pattern: humans emerged victorious from isolated battles—typically during ground operations—but at a horrible cost. In space combat, the humans lost at a precipitous rate, and one by one, the colonies fell.
2552
Halo:
Covenant forces arrived at Reach and obliterated Earth's last major military stronghold. The battered cruiser, the Pillar of Autumn, fled the devastation, carrying with it the sole surviving SPARTAN. The SPARTANs—an elite unit of super commandos, equipped with the fearsome MJOLNIR assault armor—were created as the ultimate soldiers.
Now, only one SPARTAN remains to carry the fight to the enemy. In accordance with the Cole Protocol, Captain Jacob Keyes—the Autumn's commanding officer—plotted a random, long-distance jump, hoping to lure the Covenant fleet away from Earth.
After deactivating the drive, the Autumn dropped into a distant, uncharted system. There was a Covenant fleet in the system as well, near a planet-sized ring-shaped construct, "Halo."
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