Just a quick heads up that Bungie have decided to rename their upcoming expansion game to Halo 3: ODST. This makes sense I suppose since you do play as an ODST but am I the only one who thought Recon just sounded cooler to say? I imagine Bungie have some tricks up their sleeve to get people interested in this expansion as it draws closer to release, which is pretty much why I’m following the title even though I only occasionally play Halo 3 nowadays.

Also, hit the jump to read about how Halo: ODST goes open-world.

Yup, the expansion will have open-world gameplay, and no it’s not trying to be Grand Theft Auto so don’t start with that. You’ll be dropping into New Mombasa and going by the name of ‘The Rookie’. Once you arrive, you can take any path you want but your main objective will be to locate the last known positions of your four squad members. Upon reaching these positions, you’ll enter flashbacks where you get to play as that squad member and see what happened to them through their eyes.

Seems like you’ll be using equipment such as the already mentioned silenced weapons, a PDA to help plan your movement and a visual mode where enemies are highlighted with a neon effect as seen in the trailer. ODSTs will be slower and shorter than the Master Chief, while also lacking the motion tracker and dual-wielding ability. CVG points out that as the Master Chief fighting a Brute with a gravity hammer may have been exciting yet easy since you could usually run rings around them, but these methods won’t work as an ODST where the enemy Brute will be faster, bigger and stronger than you. More details in the original CVG article ‘Halo 3 Recon goes open-world‘.