Halo: Reach presents fans’ first opportunity ever to explore other Spartans, besides the Master Chief, outside of the Halo novels. The members of Noble Team include five Spartan IIIs – including the playable character, Noble 6 – and one Spartan II, all of which are unique to the game, having never been mentioned in any prior Halo lore.
“The prequel gives us a chance to deliver on something that fans have wanted forever, which is to be able to go into battle with a squad of Spartans and not just be this lone, last Spartan remaining,” Brian Jarrard, Bungie’s Community Director, told us when we spoke with him last week in San Francisco.
Originally, though, Noble Team included even more Spartans than the six in the game. “At one point, in the very early part of the game, the Noble Team design was going to include more than just the five NPC Spartans that we have right now,” Jarrard continued.
So what happened to them?
“Along the way, those other Spartans kind of fell out of the mix,” he conceded. “I think it just became a matter of finding the comfort point with, how many characters can you really, truly introduce, get your head around, create a relationship with? And looking back, that’s probably something we’ve learned from some of the other Halo games, where at times, there’s just too many different characters, too many different stories, too many different threads going on, and it was just hard to keep track of it all.”
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He may be referring to the introduction of the Arbiter, the playable Elite in Halo 2 campaign, whose inclusion split the game in half between his and the Master Chief’s missions. Fans were polarized, some excited to see the conflict from another point of view, and others insistent that all they cared about was the Chief.
Who were the other planned members of Noble Team? Would fans have recognized them from the novels or other glimpses into the Halo universe? When I asked Jarrard, the answer was a resounding, “No.”
“It wouldn’t have been, like, Fred and Kelly and Linda and those types,” he said, “because these are still these Spartan III, different characters that we were creating, and we wanted to tell something that was different than what people have come to know and love.”
Jarrard admitted that it’s a possibility that more familiar Spartans will appear in future games, though Bungie won’t be involved, as the studio has repeatedly stated that Reach will be their last Halo game. “Who knows?” Jarrard said. “Maybe that will factor into some future plans for the Halo.”
Check out both parts of our full video interview here and here, and the rest of our hands-on coverage with the game, as well.
