Going into E3, we all knew that the next chapter in the Halo saga would be dropping this Autumn in the form of Halo 3: ODST. What we didn’t know, however, is that bundled with the game would be an invitation to play the multiplayer beta for Halo: Reach, a new title announced by Bungie Studios at Microsoft’s press conference earlier this week. Beyond the official trailer, little was said on the details of this new chapter in the Halo universe, but the message boards and blogs have been hard at work trying to piece together any further details regarding the game. The first and most obvious of these details comes from the title. Halo: Reach is most likely referring to the Covenant attack on the planet Reach before the events of the first game. Author Eric Nylund in his book Halo: The Fall of Reach has already fleshed this storyline out. Evidence to support this assumption is all over the trailer, which shows a planet being attacked and the words “Halo: Reach falls 2010.” Going from this tidbit of information, we can now place it in the timeline for the Halo universe.
Halo: The Fall of Reach was set prior to the events of the first game, so therefore, Halo: Reach will most likely be a prequel to the previous trilogy. Knowing this, it is important to note that Reach was served as the headquarters to UNSC military operations and was the second most inhabited planet by human forces (first being Earth, of course). Towards the end of the Covenant War, the alien forces discovered Reach and destroyed it. The event is now referred to as the “Fall of Reach” and is remembered as a tragedy for the human race, as a shot in a recent Halo: ODST trailer shows a piece of graffiti that reads “Remember Reach.” So, what does this mean the game will be like? Well, for starters, because of its place in the timeline, there are a good number of Spartan-II units still alive, and these soldiers are referred to at the end of the trailer when a voice with the call sign Sierra-259 says “You’ve got Spartans on the ground, sir.” This means that there will most likely be a good number of Spartan units this time around, and it is important to note that the call sign “Sierra” has only been used in reference to Spartans thus far in the Halo universe.
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