Halo 3 Mythic Map Pack Comments by Rob Fahey

Or it is free with the Halo Wars collector edition ;)

I don't think I'll ever pay for maps considering developers like Epic and Valve are happy to release new content entirely for free.

Bungie used to do that as well, until they went solo. :/

@Eraysor

EA / DICE also released the map pack for Battlefield: Bad Company for free. Word is that also Killzone 2's map pack, due later this month, will be free of charge.

Having had it for over a month now, yeah it's pretty damn fun.

I have to say I prefer Assembly to Orbital, but I see where Rob is coming from in that it's quite a confused map that doesn't know if it wants to have this epic scale or this tight, close-quarters combat. Bungie could've made it a bit more visually coherent TBH, I mean everyone else I know who has played on the Mythic maps just took one look at the factory in Forge and went "oh right, cool, Scarabs . . ." and never paid attention to it again.

EDIT: Also, gotta say that Bungie have released the Heroic map pack for free a few months after it's release, and will in all likelihood release the Legendary and later the Mythic map packs for free to keep spurring on interest in the game for those who don't want to pay. It is a really worthwhile bit of DLC though.

Assembly is so hard to score well in. You really need to be working as a team in it. Great fun!

I think, according to some achievement descriptions, that there are going to be three more new multiplayer maps shipping with Halo 3: ODST. They are called Longshore, Heretic and Sentinel if memory serves me right. Hopefully these can bring the 'headline addition' the article wishes for.

Orbital's my favourite. Don't like Assembly... much.

Ive had a go at making map in Unrealed and I appreciate its a real challenge to make a " Pro " looking map, however sandbox looks like it was made in about 10 mins by a 12 year old ...

"Ive had a go at making map in Unrealed and I appreciate its a real challenge to make a " Pro " looking map, however sandbox looks like it was made in about 10 mins by a 12 year old ..."

Yeah sandbox is shit, for those who haven't played it, imagine playing Sandtrap with only assault rifles, and next to no access to long range weapons.

Still its better than Tundra, a variant in the downstairs part of Sandbox, that looks like someone sat at the top and dropped boxes at random.

Sandbox isn't always AR spawn, and it's fine for what it is - you bet there'll be some awesome mod maps, just like Foundry. There are 4 LR weapons around each base, but I know how annoying it is ;)

As someone said, 3 more maps with ODST. Will ODST just use Halo 3 maps, or will it have more maps of its own? I presume the former.


+ Bungie released Cold Storage for free too. I like that map.

"Yeah sandbox is shit, for those who haven't played it, imagine playing Sandtrap with only assault rifles, and next to no access to long range weapons.

Still its better than Tundra, a variant in the downstairs part of Sandbox, that looks like someone sat at the top and dropped boxes at random."

Yeah Sandbox looks and plays a little blandly, but now that it's up for general release I hope that the mapmaker community will be able to come up with some interesting variations on it. The skybox at the top could be immense fun if done right :P

Also, the basement of Sandbox is perfect for Grifbal matches, which are as fun as ever :)

Sandbox is a joke map (or a template to build "something"), innit ?

All of them are a bit too small for me, hopefully the new maps on ODST will be bigger, though one of the achievements on the new ones is getting a sword spree and another for a shotgun spree so it’s doubtful they will be. More on a scale of Valhalla and Sandtrap would be appreciated!

Ooo, this will all be on ODST? Will get that then!

"Ooo, this will all be on ODST? Will get that then! "

I dont think so. This is the first of two mythic map packs. Theres 6 maps alltogether and the next three maps will be availaible with ODST. The first three is availaible for free via Halo Wars LE.

'All of them are a bit too small for me, hopefully the new maps on ODST will be bigger, though one of the achievements on the new ones is getting a sword spree and another for a shotgun spree so it’s doubtful they will be. More on a scale of Valhalla and Sandtrap would be appreciated!'

It doesn't sound promising for big maps, but remember maps like Headlong from Halo 2 had shotgun/sword as useful power weapons, but were massive.

'Longshore' sounds good for that, but who knows ;p

"Ooo, this will all be on ODST? Will get that then!"

All the Halo 3 maps will be on ODST along with the three new ones, so expect a large surge in multiplayer in September!

“It doesn't sound promising for big maps, but remember maps like Headlong from Halo 2 had shotgun/sword as useful power weapons, but were massive.”

True, it’d be a better idea to get some larger ones in if there is a large uptake in the multiplayer. Avalanche is pretty good, but then just having three maps for workable big team is a bit annoying.

Don't know... perhaps I should give Halo 3 still a bit online time. Never got too excited after it, Coh4 is too excellent online!

Longshore will probably be pretty huge.

Yeah, Rob's review suggests these are the last ever new maps for Halo 3, but Heretic (Midship remake), Longshore, and Citadel are coming with ODST. Possible (and unofficial, unconfirmed) revelations in the big spoiler below:

Heretic: Midship remake. The ONLY - and literally ONLY - difference any of us could find (we tested all the jumps) was that jump pad on top, where you can jump up and get the sword, it was bouncy whenever you jumped or threw grenades on it in H2. It wasn't bouncy in Heretic. Everything else was faithful. Programmed into the map is BR/plasma nade starts. The sky box when you look out the windows is AMAZING - it is a view of quite a few Covenant carriers and ships coming into possibly our Solar system, and you are looking out from the belly of another ship. There is one that is really close to you and you can see amazing detail on the ship. There is a planet nearby too.

Longshore: Wow. Easily my favorite map of all of them. This is a BTB map, and it is along the docks of OLD Mombasa (confirmed by Lars). There are even little maroon dinghies with small engines at a part of the map (I poked fun and said "I guess they never changed the design of small boat engines in 500 years, the employees got a laugh out of that). When you look out to the water, you see 2 LARGE carrier ships off in the distance, with pelicans and longswords and a couple other planes of some sort. It is AMAZING. There is a 2 story building on one side (base 1) with the roof also being accessible, and another 2 two-story buildings on the other side (Base 2). A center structure (kind of like a warehouse/boat storage facility) separates the two bases, and there is up at the WAY top of this structure an extendable bridge that drops on the roof of base 1. Lots of other buildings/crates/places to hide. One side of the map is all ocean, the other side is blocked by a large building that is part of the boat warehouse middle structure. This fish picture/drawing that was being handed out at PAX was a billboard on this map.

Citadel: I played this map with Lars. This map was LARGELY inspired by the level "The Covenant" when you were inside of the Forerunner structures, right after the battle with the Hunters who were below the elevator platform. When you have to go around and up an angled jump to battle a few brutes and buggers to get to the platform, that part is almost exactly in the map! It was really cool and was a good close quarters map. Two overshields spawn, and there is a central location with a small structure in the middle with Rockets on top. There are a lot of things hidden in here, very cool map."

And all of the maps to date will be in ODST: Heroic, Legendary, Mythic, and the original set.

Also, you are paying for these maps because Microsoft want you to, not because Bungie do.

Nice work, Longshore sounds pretty impressive so I’ll be looking forward to that one. Large maps and bases mean lots of objective based fun!

How does Yossarian know so much?

"Yeah, Rob's review suggests these are the last ever new maps for Halo 3"

I noticed that too. How misinformed is it possible for a gaming website to be? There is a lot of achievements connected to the remaining maps so its hard to miss the fact that there is coming three more maps.

edit: Good job Yossarian.

as good as halo

@Yossarian
Also, you are paying for these maps because Microsoft want you to, not because Bungie do.

Yeah, and the Braid guy wanted to charge 800 points rather than 1200 points (£10.20/€14.40) for the game but MS made him do it, that's why it's only $15/£10/€13 on Steam!

I'm kinda sceptical about "MS made me do it", I'm pretty sure Bungie had something to do with it too. :)

From: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/no-bun...

"These days we've got a smaller team focused on finishing the ODST campaign and all it entails while the rest of the studio continues making progress on other, larger, secret projects," [Bungie] community director Brian Jarrard told IGN.

"Overall though, we are viewing the ODST campaign and the included multiplayer maps as the final exclamation point in our ongoing efforts to extend the Halo 3 experience.

"We're really grateful to our fans for standing by Halo 3 for so long and continuing to show us such strong support," he said.

Bungie's currently putting together a Mythic map pack that will have three extra levels: Sandbox, Assembly and Orbital. These will be stuffed in the collector's edition of Halo Wars later this month for free, before they're released on Xbox Live Marketplace shortly afterwards.

It appears Rob is correct: these are the last maps for vanilla Halo 3. He did mention ODST and when it's released it'll have more but that's not Halo 3 (being an expansion pack on disk). ODST is the last ever. Or EVAR, depending on how strongly you feel. ;)

Edit: dammit, I am unable to communicate today for some reason.

All the Halo maps look great, but I don't play it often enough to justify paying. Therefore I'm "stoked", as the Yanks say, that they'll all be available for free with ODST later this year.

Incidentally, with ODST getting released within about the next six months or so, surely you'd have to be a massive Halo fanatic to pay for these now anyway?

Man this site can get boring when theres no controversial game reviews and no MS/Sony PR shenanigans. Think I'll check back in a month or so.

"Incidentally, with ODST getting released within about the next six months or so, surely you'd have to be a massive Halo fanatic to pay for these now anyway? "
Or you can get Halo Wars LE, which is an awesome game in its own merit and comes with some geeky goodies.

"Incidentally, with ODST getting released within about the next six months or so, surely you'd have to be a massive Halo fanatic to pay for these now anyway?"

I'd say I've played Halo at least once a week, if not twice a week, on average since its release. New content is always welcome. That said, I got my Mythic maps for free (and then gave my Halo Wars code to a friend), so I can't exactly complain about the price.

"I'm kinda sceptical about "MS made me do it", I'm pretty sure Bungie had something to do with it too. :) "

Their philosophy has always been to release map packs at a price, but with the caveat that if you wait a few months (3-6 was usually the time frame) you can get it for free. Pay now, or wait: that was the way all the Halo 2 maps were released, and that was the way the Heroic map pack for Halo 3 was released.

The Legendary pack has been different, because their relationship with Microsoft has become a little strained, examples of which are too boring to go into at length here (like the wrangle over 'free' map Cold Storage, which Microsoft allowed provided it wasn't put into any playlists which didn't also require Legendary DLC, so in essence is not 'free' for matchmaking, unless you play custom games on it). Suffice to say that if Bungie had their way the Legendary maps would be free by now. Also, the Mythic maps were finished and ready for release around last September time, but Microsoft held them back because they were afraid it would affect sales of some of the other big shooter IPs coming through (notably Gears of War 2).

There are examples of free content for big IPs out there, but these are usually fought for by the developers, and tied to title updates. See: Burnout Paradise, and the forthcoming Left 4 Dead DLC.

Importantly, Microsoft own the Halo IP, and so they decide what goes, and at what price.

If I was MS I'd do everything in my power not to fuck Bungie around ;)

How misinformed is it possible for a gaming website to be? There is a lot of achievements connected to the remaining maps so its hard to miss the fact that there is coming three more maps.

QFT.

Don't play Halo 3 online much, but think I'll give it a go soon. have got all the maps recently & I'm quite excited.

"Bungie are the SINGLE greatest developer in the world today"

They certainly have the skills where it counts. There isnt another developer that comes even vaguely close on gameplay elements like sharp controls and enemy AI, and their multiplayer is matched only by CoD.

It will be interesting to see what they come up with when they develop a current-gen engine as Halo 3 ran on a modified Halo 2 engine. Halo 2 was the most technically advanced shooter of the last generation so Bungie have proved they have good engine developers.

I'm afriad it wont be Bungie who make Halo 4

Nobody let that man near a picture caption again. The pharoah one was just too much.