First solid Halo 3: Recon details revealed

The first solid details on the much hyped Halo 3: Recon have been revealed.

Speaking during a group meeting with press at the Tokyo Game Show, developer Bungie revealed that the Halo 3 expansion will be a standalone retail disc that will be sold in shops, is a first-person shooter and is not a squad-based shooter.

You’ll play an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST), an elite UNSC group who aren’t anywhere near as powerful as the Spartans but compared to the likes of you and me, they may as well be.

Recon, which Bungie had hoped to reveal at E3 last July, was finally revealed at the Tokyo Game Show earlier this week following the release of a teaser trailer which set fans and the internet ablaze with speculation.

As reported by Joystiq, Bungie writer Luke Smith and community and PR director Brian Jarrard said: “As an ODST, compared to playing as in invulnerable Spartan, you are going to have to sort of pick and choose your encounters a little bit differently.”

The pair added: “It is going to very much feel like Halo. Full feature parity.”

Players won’t run into Master Chief and co, either, the pair told Kotaku. And that’s because during the time Recon takes place he’s on Delta Halo saving the world.

According to Kotaku, it’ll come with Achievements offering 1000 Gamerscore points, and the single-player campaign, which sees you sorting out a Covenant infested city in New Mumbasa, will feature loads of night time missions.

However, fans should not consider Recon to be a full game, according to Bungie, rather an expansion. “I would think of it as our Frozen Throne (Wrath of the Lich King),” Luke Smith told Kotaku.

Recon’s multiplayer will be a similar offering to Halo 3’s multiplayer, with new maps, saved films, four-player co-op and Forge.

Jerrard also told Joystiq that Recon isn’t the only game Bungie has in the works, and said that Recon was being developed by a “small agile team” made up of a “bunch of elders” who started the Halo franchise with Combat Evolved on the original Xbox seven years ago.

Halo 3: Recon is scheduled for release in autumn 2009 on Xbox 360.