Firefight

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ODSTs facing a Brute Chieftain and a Jackal in Firefight.

“Built on top of Halo 3: ODST's campaign, Firefight is a cooperative game mode that lets you and up to three of your friends put your skills to the ultimate test. It allows you to jump straight into the heart of Halo and experience traditional Halo sandbox encounters with a new, high octane twist. Though you’ve squared off against most of the enemies you’ll face in Firefight before, you’re not going to be able to rely on your past experiences alone to guide you through all of the action. In Firefight, even the most "harmless" enemy can become a dangerous threat when you’re low on ammo, low on lives, and have your back against the wall. Throw game play modifying skulls into the mix and you'll find that the combat can become even more interesting and intense.”

— Bungie.net: Drop into Firefight

Firefight is a single or cooperative campaign mode for Halo 3: ODST, where up to four players can co-operate with one another via System Link or Xbox LIVE and fight against Covenant war packs. This mode allows them to battle in multiple environments based on campaign maps, on foot or in vehicles, and against increasingly difficult waves of Covenant attackers.

Gameplay

“Problem is, we got alien bastards in the house. Each new wave means more bad guys. Five waves make up a round. Three rounds in a set. Sounds easy, huh? Wrong! See these skulls? When they activate, they turn a casual Covenant make-out session into a full-on test of your manly prowess!.”

— Sgt.Johnson, Speech from Halo 3 ODST ViDoc Bip. Bap. Bam

A Jackal lance on Windward.

Firefight has no limit of waves of enemies, and continues until the squad has completely run out of lives. There are five Waves in a Round and three Rounds in a Set. The Set, Round, and Wave can be seen at the top left side of the player's screen. The Set number is represented by a number from one to infinity; the Round is represented by a circle, going from left to right; the Wave is represented by five slanted vertical boxes, going from left to right.

In the beginning of Firefight, the squad will share seven lives between all of the players.

At the end of a round, there will be a brief pause where the players will be allowed to collect ammo and regroup with their squad mates. Their scores are shown in the top right of the screen, with the team score being on the top.

To increase difficulty throughout the game and increase the multiplier for kills, skulls are activated between rounds and sets. Three skulls are assigned to rounds (Tough Luck, Catch and Black Eye), three skulls are assigned to sets (Tilt, Famine and Mythic), and one skull assigned to the Bonus Round (Iron). Regardless of the difficulty, the Tough Luck skull will be enabled from the start. With each new round and set, more skulls become enabled, more than one at a time. If one person can stay alive, they will be awarded with higher scores and medals. Though each enemy class is worth a base number of points, earning medals can modify the player's tally as they go.

Additionally, once a team has survived a Set, they will go on to the Bonus Round. Because it is only a Bonus Round, any deaths will not be subtracted from the overall life pool, and as the Iron Skull is activated at the start, the player cannot respawn until time runs out. The Bonus Round provides players a chance to earn extra lives before the next Set. Extra lives will be unlocked every 2,000 points scored after the beginning of the round. The Bonus Round consists entirely of Grunts while all the skulls are turned on.

If one scores a total of 200,000 points on any map in Firefight, they will unlock an achievement which is available for every map (except for the "night" missions, which will unlock an achievement for their daytime counterparts), making Firefight have a total of 8 achievements worthy of 10 points each.

Characters

Players who pre-ordered a copy of Halo 3: ODST received a code to play as Sergeant Johnson in Firefight.

The playable characters in Firefight are acquired by different means, most of them unlocked by earning achievements. Players are allowed to customize their emblem, background, color (which now includes formerly unavailable ones: black, olive, etc.) and Service Tags (which now allow any combination of up to four characters) , much like in Halo 3 multiplayer. The player's helmets are removable (with the exception of the Rookie, who never has his face revealed, and Johnson, who does not have one), but it has no effect on game play in any way: your VISR is still available, even though it is the vision mode of the ODST's helmet.

• Rookie: Unlocked by default.
• Dare: Complete the Campaign on Legendary.
• Buck: Unlock the Tayari Plaza Achievement.
• Dutch: Unlock the Uplift Reserve Achievement.
• Romeo: Unlock the NMPD HQ Achievement.
• Mickey: Unlock the Kizingo Boulevard Achievement.
• Sgt. Johnson: Unlocked by pre-ordering the game.

Maps

Firefight has ten maps to choose from (some are acquired by unlocking achievements). The maps are as follows:

• Alpha Site: Unlock the ONI Alpha Site Achievement.
• Chasm Ten : Unlock the Data Hive Achievement.
• Crater: Unlocked by default.
• Last Exit: Unlock the Coastal Highway Achievement.
• Lost Platoon : Unlock the Uplift Reserve Achievement.
• Rally Point : Unlocked by default.
• Security Zone : Unlocked by default.
• Windward : Unlocked by default.

Trivia

• Firefight plays out like Survival Mode from the Marathon games, Nazi Zombies from Call of Duty: World at War, Invasion from Unreal Tournament 200X, Survival Mode from Left 4 Dead, and Horde from Gears of War 2 in that they all have you try to survive and beat countless number of enemies over a long period of time. It is also similar to The Mercenaries from the Resident Evil series, as it allows the player to unlock and use different characters online.
• The player can turn on any of the four Silver Skulls at the start: Blind, Cowbell, the Grunt Birthday Skull, and IWHBYD; their effects are the same as in Halo 3.
• The Firefight maps use exact geometry from the Campaign.
• Even in the bigger ones, every map only has four Health Packs that can only regenerate at the end of each Round, so it is wise that each player grabs only one Health Pack instead of competing over them.
• No map in Firefight features the Assault Rifle or Flamethrower. These weapons appeared in ODST's campaign but were excluded from Firefight.
• Firefight was originally meant to be in Halo 3, but due to time constraints it was never included.
• Sgt. Johnson is available for download on Xbox.com for 9999 Microsoft Points

Gallery

Sgt. Johnson in Firefight.

A player participating in the Bonus Round.