Halo: Reach Set For Natal + Halo 3: ODST Details News

Halo 3: ODST is set to offer a more open experience then its tightly driven, linear predecessors, according to comments made to the Seattle Times by Bungie writer and creative director, Joseph Staten.

The Seattle Times claims that the single player campaign begins in a dark and most empty city, which players can freely explore.  Those wanting to just jump straight into the action can jump to sites that trigger flashbacks, which provides classic Halo styled action, but there will be clues to discover to solve the mystery running behind the game.

"We're doing a lot of pretty neat things in terms of mixing it up, introducing some non-linearity, some free exploration," Staten said. "This is also a mystery story so there's a lot more clue-finding and mystery-solving than you would normally find in a game of this kind - nothing that strays too far from the fun 'Halo' experience, but we definitely decided to take a little bit of risk and have some fun with this one."

Moving on, the article provides the suggestion that Halo: Reach could feature compatibility with Microsoft's motion-sensing Project Natal.

"I absolutely think 'Reach' could be enabled with it," Bungie president Harold Ryan claimed.

According to The Seattle Times, Bungie received an early look at Project Natal before its unveiling at E3 and seems to be pretty enthusiastic about the device.