There’s just over a month left before the Halo: Reach public beta begins, so more and more details are being divulged by Bungie with each passing week. On the newest episode of the Bungie podcast, multiplayer designer Chris Carney and sandbox lead Sage Merrill answered a wide variety of fan-submitted questions, revealing a lot of new information in the process. It’s a good listen whether you’re simply looking to hear something new about Reach or even if you’re not fully caught up on everything that Bungie has made public.
Fall damage is making a return to Halo multiplayer in Reach, along with the accompanying stun that long time Halo fans will be accustomed to. There will be ways to mitigate the damage you receive as the result of a high fall, but it was made clear that you’d need to be “trying to hurt yourself” in order to actually suffer any fall damage — don’t expect to die by jumping out of a second-story window.
The ability to play as an elite is returning to multiplayer, as we already know, but now we also know how Bungie will compensate for the Elite’s larger model: Their shields and health will be able to sustain more damage. This won’t turn Elites into a juggernaut by any stretch, though it should level the playing field for people who opt to play as those big-headed aliens. In order to ensure that no one has an advantage one way or the other, Arena mode won’t allow players to choose between playing as a Spartan or Elite. In the public beta, Spartans will be the only choice when playing Arena, whereas there is a possibility that there will also be an all-Elite Arena mode when Reach is released.