Wednesday, July 18, 2007

No Online Co-op for Halo 3


In a disappointing announcement, Bungie says that there will not be online co-op for the Halo 3 campaign mode. While the lack of online co-op was the biggest complaint abotu Halo 2, the developers are saying they are having too many problems implementing online co-op and are cutting it(for now) to make their deadline.

Bungie has not ruled out the possibility that they would release a downloadable update which would implement online co-op sometime after the game's release. This announcement also squashes the online four player co-op rumors which have been circulating.

Halo 3 will still have a co-op mode, but it will be like Halo 2 - gamers can choose either split screens or a LAN connection.

There's a small possibility the developers could get the online co-op working before release, but most of them have turned their attentions to polishing up everything else to make the September deadline.

I'm definitely disappointed. I figured with a number of other games including two player online co-op nowadays, it wouldn't be a problem for Bungie. After all, they created one of the best online party systems for Halo 2. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I'm not holding my breath...

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Wait, lets clear something up here. From what I've heard, Frankie said "maybe" it will ship without co-op. I haven't heard a hard "no co-op" on ship date from anyone yet. Keep those fingers crossed.

Apparently this Halo will be different than the last two, where both players had to stay within the same checkpoints, otherwise one of the players would be teleported closer to the other. Now players can be separated by large distances (in miles) without any problems.

I don't think Halo 2 offered LAN co-op. I think that has to be split screen as well.

Anonymous said...

I saw that as well. That they were trying, but they would only have it if they could do it well, but they were concerned with how far away from each other the players could et on some of the levels, but on Crackdown you can be on opposite ends of the ma p so I'm not sure why that should be an issue.

E-goD said...

I don't think players will be "miles" apart, because - to me at least - that would imply that one character could stand still, and the other player could hold up on the joystick for 20 minutes without hitting the end of a map. That's not happening.

Unknown said...

Remember Eric, this is the 360 and not the Wii. Like jigsaw pointed out, Crackdown already does it. But I think the difference is that the enemies and NPCs aren't like a sandbox game, where they are generated based on your proximity. They are more like activated by your proximity.

E-goD said...

I don't care what system it is, you aren't walking for 20 minutes without hitting the end of the level.

E-goD said...

Oh, and this was the quote I stole from Kotaku...
“We’re not dumb. We know that people want it and we’re trying to make it happen. I think the biggest problem for us for online co-op is that we have a situation where you can be in a Warthog with five troops, almost a mile away from the other player. That’s a significant challenge. And there’s lots of design things you could do to prevent that from happening, but they would make it not feel like Halo anymore. If we can make it happen in a way that works well, we will - and if it works badly, we won’t.”
About a mile away. I'll give you that, but that's not "miles."

Unknown said...

I don't know, they are saying these maps are supposed to be huge and the MC is jogging more than he is walking so he could probably jog for about 10 minutes without hitting the end of the level.

E-goD said...

Okay, jogging you could probably go 2 miles in about 16 minutes. Still not 10.

Unknown said...

Apparently the game Skate has a map so big that it takes 15 minutes to skate across at full speed.