Halo 3 trailer goes live

By Tom Bramwell Published 5 December, 2006

As does US beta registration.

The much anticipated Halo 3 trailer has gone live - you can watch it on Eurogamer TV and it's also available in high definition through Xbox Live Marketplace.

The 60-second spot offers a glimpse of the Master Chief caught up in battle on Earth, using a new kind of shield to avoid a blast and then... well, we'll leave you to analyse it obsessively.

But several observers have already questioned whether one or other of the "new things" in the trailer might be the fabled X-button move, which Bungie has yet to reveal.

Last night also saw the official sign-ups for Halo 3's multiplayer beta go live in the USA, although as mentioned last week you'll need to hang about for a bit if you want to get in on the European version.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (45) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • morriss #1 6 years ago

    "European Gamers

    Europe will soon have the chance to secure their place on the Halo 3 multiplayer beta, scheduled to start next spring. Keep an eye on your local Xbox community site for more details.

    * Limit one registration per person/Xbox Live gamertag. If selected, your invitation is non-transferable and cannot be redeemed for cash. The beta is available in English only."

  • Zomoniac #2 6 years ago

    The trailer's too short. The end feels rushed and cut off (not wholly dissimilar to Halo 2!), but it looks great and is well directed. There is lots of starfog in the opening scene so those kids aren't on earth, I think the boy is John (MC) and the girl Kelly (I think), so I guess they're on Reach and MC is recalled that convo he had in that same place.

    That new grenade thing is ace, I really hope that makes an appearance. So the "X-move" could be (based on that trailer) remove/put on helmet, put gun onto back, use magic shield grenade or drop-kick off a cliff into a pile of brutes. Ah, hype and trailer analysing, I never cease to amaze myself with sadness :)

  • Max_Powers #3 6 years ago

    Anticipation rising!

    Ranked team based matches FTW!

  • JediMasterMalik #4 6 years ago

    Was nice, not amazing, but far better than the real-time one. At least something happened. I agree it was too short though. I wanted to see the cheif kick some arse.

  • phAge #5 6 years ago

    Sweet.

  • Moonprince #6 6 years ago

    Finish the fight? Shame. I always liked the idea and story of Halo, epic battles etc. Not a bad character either.

  • Tonka #7 6 years ago

    I love it. I think it's cute as a button.

  • morriss #8 6 years ago

    "Finish the fight? Shame. I always liked the idea and story of Halo, epic battles etc. Not a bad character either."

    Only the current story arc, there'll be more to come, don't worry. :)

  • Thamuhacha #9 6 years ago

    >might be the fabled X-button move

    Fabled how? Can someone explain this?

  • skillian #10 6 years ago

    It's been spoken of in hushed tones around campfires.

  • binky #11 6 years ago

    Have to say, I really like that as a trailer.

    The movement of the Chief and expressions on the kids faces as they talk is bloody brilliant!!

  • neilka #12 6 years ago

    The press releases said this was a mix of live action and CG but it all looks CG to me - although the kids at the beginning are very realistic, they still look CG (although the darkness makes it difficult to tell).

  • SBfistfun #13 6 years ago

    "might be the fabled X-button move "

    Wow next gen is here!

    "press x to kill baddie"


    zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  • Tonka #14 6 years ago

    No you nutcase. Press X to engage temporary shield.

  • Dezm0nd #15 6 years ago

    Wasnt expecting much from this trailer but it surprised me, really tense action for the few seconds it's on.

    Awesome, didn't get on with Halo 2 that well but i'm still hyped for this one.

  • Glitch #16 6 years ago

    Well im glad I now have something else to look forward to now that GoW is out, trailer looks top class, more action needed tho, i cant wait!

  • Downside #17 6 years ago

    Get onbaord the Hyperbole Bus on our way to Halo Town, there's gonna be party. Should reach it sometime in 2007.

    It looks great, what's not to like, Halo on the 360, it's hardly going to suck, is it? 8/10

  • kangarootoo #18 6 years ago

    "This and the Gears of war trailer are the greatest ever made"

    Are you suggesting that trailer was one of the greatest ever made?! I mean it was nice and all, but it was nothing that special and pretty short. As trailers go there is some stunning work out there. Nice as it was, this trailer was not one of them.

  • Crashmasters #19 6 years ago

    Pre-rendered stuff. Who gives a s***?
    The final game will never look this good.

    Would be fun though if the Halo movie was entirely CG.

  • Xerx3s #20 6 years ago

    H3 storyline in a nutshell: MC get's back to earth, kicks arse on it for 2 levels, goes inside the giant structure, finds out that earth is in fact also a shield world, finds a slipspace device that sends him to onyx/paralel/compressed space, finds the others and together they kick some more arse and save the universe yet again.

    Alternate endings: A) rings fire, mc kicks back and relaxes a bit. B) Mc gets into a relation with cortana. C) Humans & elites jump in bed and kill the other races.

    It will be interesting to see how the arbiter story starts off. Technically, he should kill the other humans standing next to him. Would be a short story though. ;)
    Edited by Xerx3s at 05/12/06 @ 11:57

  • the_sas_man #21 6 years ago

    Before people start saying negative stuff let me pre-empty those thoughts:

    1) Yes it was CGI and not real time - remeber this is an advert being shown in America for a football game. They wanna try and make it look the nuts

    2) Yes it is short - but then it is only an advert for a game most likely 6 months away from release. They offer a glimpse of the story which already looks exciting. If you read it, they call it "advert 1" so I'm assuming we are gonna get far more of these!

    3) To say it doesn't look all that great is quite funny. It looks amazing. It's CGI! The Cheif at final last has a human touch to him. In previous Halo's he just looked so mechanical, but this advert to me proves Bungie really wanna get the human side of him shown. Just look at how he runs and dodges the grenade!

    The most exciting thing I find about the whole trailer is the actual story. Clearly there is some kind of flashback taking place here. Irnically, I thought it looked just as good as the Killzone trailer that Sony was so dam keen to shout off about!

  • L42yB #22 6 years ago

    Isn't it all still the ingame models and stuff... just pre-rendered for hours and hours... so the game will look like that, just won't be rendered to the same detail...

  • Carrybagma #23 6 years ago

    As a 1 minute piece of Halo hype, I thought it was pretty good.

  • Muddtallica #24 6 years ago

    Stylish trailer, and it does raise my anticipation levels quite a bit...though in my case, it only takes that music to make me happy, regardless of the actual video content. :p

    Still, there's no denying it felt short and a bit truncated. That could have been a great opening to an unbelievable two-minute trailer...on its own, it's merely good...

  • Xerx3s #25 6 years ago

    For the people saying that it's quite short, it's twice the size of a normal add space. Any idea how much that would costs for a highprofile spot that it got? And the subsequent tv followups? Every second extra could costs a great sum extra.

  • holy_bazooka #26 6 years ago

    that was it.
    i hoped it would be a little longer, well.
    multiple viewings do show it to be full of little things.
    but the first one was freakin awesome, made me wanna kick some alien ass.

  • decibel #27 6 years ago

    no reason to complain about it's length.

    i thought it was beautiful, non-revealing (which is a good thing sometimes, people. mystery is the essence of hype.)

    Bungie are masters at what they do, that much can be said.
    As for the game, I just can't wait now!

  • Xerx3s #28 6 years ago

    Btw, did anyone else notice that the moment he jumps down to the brutes, the sky in the distance shows the same spinning cloud from th 1st teaser (above the structure)?

    /sad

  • captainrentboy #29 6 years ago

    I guess it's quite sad that I got slight goosebumps of excitement from that small trailer :)
    If only it was going to look anything like that ingame:/

  • Carrybagma #30 6 years ago

    It was the little shot from behind the MC as the vapour trails from the missiles started to arc that got me. Very gulf war. I thought it was going to be another dull drip from the Hype3 machine, but it was better than that.

    I really don't want to see any in game stuff at all, 'cos it's probably predictable and if it's at all interesting it will probably be spoiling. The odd one minute teaser with high production values and a hint of the narrative sounds just fine, at least to a humble non-fanboy like me.

  • Carrybagma #31 6 years ago

    I'll have to look for that. I think I prefer Halo CG trailers to the game itself..

  • prettyboytim #32 6 years ago

    I've got timber.

  • thinktank #33 6 years ago

    i agree its sad we all get excited by any small tit bit of halo hype,

    but there's just been nothing quite like halo in recent years. well for me any way.

    Looking forward to the 8 out 10 review with some comment about originality followed by the 9 out 10 review for splinter cell 6.

  • bdc #34 6 years ago

    So true Thinktank, so true...

  • Jo0j #35 6 years ago

    -liked it when he shot a few rounds with new rifle(00:50), sounds like it has a bit more ''balls'' over the old one. can't wait. awesome.

    -for Mac friendlier versions go to http://www.Gamevideos.com or http://www.Gametrailers.com
    Edited by Jo0j at 05/12/06 @ 16:56

  • Xerx3s #36 6 years ago

    Yes. And MS/Bungie are also know to be tight on cash.

    Not really but even they have a) a budget and b) spending a massive amount of money on a pr campaign this early is absolutely pointless. And in what way was it an excuse? It doesn't need a excuse as it kicks ass. I was merely commenting on the people who said that it was too short.

    tjees.

  • Moonprince #37 6 years ago

    -liked it when he shot a few rounds with new rifle(00:50),

    Are we watchnig teh same vid??? :p I see and hear the explosion of a shell but gunshot I do not

  • Rich72 #38 6 years ago

    "I see and hear the explosion of a shell but gunshot I do not"..... mmmmm strange way of talking you have, strong with the force you are not.

  • Rich72 #39 6 years ago

    ... anyways.... what are those things with the Brute at the end? Brutes or grunts they're most certainly not.

  • Moonprince #40 6 years ago

    Rubbish!

    ...You are ;)

  • J*C #41 6 years ago

    Looks great, but im not happy with it. the sony owners (idiots) got tricked into thinking PS3 killzone was in realtime, and now bungie have done the same. we want to see the game running proper guys come on!

  • crazyhorse174 #42 6 years ago

    "Yes. And MS/Bungie are also know to be tight on cash.

    Not really but even they have a) a budget and b) spending a massive amount of money on a pr campaign this early is absolutely pointless. And in what way was it an excuse? It doesn't need a excuse as it kicks ass. I was merely commenting on the people who said that it was too short."

    Wasn't the first comment meant to be sarchastic??

  • effinwooly #43 6 years ago

    JC = They said BEFOREHAND that it wasn't real ingame footage, just a teaser........... thats a BIG difference in what SOny did with Killzone 2 'trailer'

    Nice trailer BTW

  • NegativeZero #44 6 years ago

    This is not a Halo 3 trailer. It's a 'Halo Franchise' trailer - it serves as a reminder that Halo 3 will ship next year come hell or high water, but this is not really a trailer for it, thus the use of prerendered CG. Remember there are two other Halo games in production, the RTS and Peter Jackson's offering.

    I really, really hope that that shielding grenade thing is just that - a grenade. Putting it on its own dedicated button is stupid. If they do that, I'll be really disappointed.

    Currently I'm hoping that the fabled X button is a proper dual-wield button. The whole switch-to-a-one-handed-weapon-and-run-over-another-one-while-holding-x mechanic is terrible, really. Instead you should be able to have a one-handed gun in each slot, and use that button to pull out the one you're not currently using in your off hand. Then press it again to holster so you can biff around a few grenades.

  • sanctusmortis #45 6 years ago

    Actually, what they did was use the in-game assets and then pass it off to the CG people who worked on the Matrix trilogy to give it more polish.

    That's an ONI shield grenade, possible grenade type 4 in the new game (Brutes supply sticky nailbombs as grenade slot 3 IIRC). X is rumoured to be a dash button, similar to Gears' Roadie Run.

    Like has already been said, that's a very long advert. Not trailer - THAT would be the difference here - but adverts typically weigh in at 30 seconds. All the PS3 ones, for instance. For a game estimated for release November 07, that's pretty impressive.

    MS have this whole advertising thing down pat, it seems; they're all over UK TV at the minute. Hardly seen the Wii one lately.