Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the next Halo game — Halo: Spartan Assault. Due on July 2013 for Xbox 360… Xbox One… Windows 8 devices — seriously? — Spartan Assault is developed by 343 Industries and Vanguard Games. It marks the first time that a Halo game will be on a touch-based device, as it's only available for Windows 8 PCs, tablets and Windows Phone 8.
Halo: Spartan Assault takes place between the events of Halo 3 and Halo 4, exploring the first missions of the Spartan Ops program and diving deeper into the backstory of the Human-Covenant wars. It plays as a top-down, virtual twin-stick shooter, where you experience the game through two characters: Commander Sarah Palmer or Spartan Davis.
There's 25 missions, both touch and keyboard and mouse controls, leaderboards and achievements to compete with friends in Weekly Challenges, and you earn XP, achievements and emblems for your Halo 4 Spartan career. Of course, there's in-app purchases for boosts, weapons and armor abilities.
The problem is that it's only for Windows 8. I don't know anyone that owns a Windows 8 phone or tablet, and only one person that owns Windows 8 — and he hates it. So I don't think many people are going to be playing, mainly because no one is going to buy a Windows 8 device just for this exclusive. I could be wrong, but I'm not. That said, it'll have more success on PCs with Windows 8.
Halo: Spartan Assault releases July 2013 and will cost $6.99.
You can follow Senior Editor Lance Liebl on Twitter @Lance_GZ. He likes talking sports, video games, movies, and the stupidity of celebrities. Email at LLiebl@GameZone.com
