Following up on yesterday’s weapons of Reach, we’ll take a look at some of the weapons of the UNSC and Forerunners in Halo 4. I’d suggest pulling up both windows to compare the weapons/art.
First the UNSC weapons:
The BR is back! Much to the happiness of fans, 343 put the BR back into Halo. The design is sleek. The cool greys of the art make this weapon feel like a cold hard machine of war.
New to Halo are weapons skins. Above shows the Arctic weapon skin for the BR. This was available through pre-ordering from Gamestop. It became available through the Halo 4 Game of the Year edition. There were some really great skins to come out of Halo 4. I hope in the next game skins can be recolored as well.
A concept of the nuke and on the underside of the Broadsword.
A more fleshed out and color version of the nuke. There is some good use of shading and highlights here.
Here are some of the base concepts of the bomb.
The magnum’s basic shape hasn’t changed drastically from Reach to Halo 4. It’s still very recognizable as the standard UNSC Magnum.
The Railgun is new to Halo, with Halo 4. I like the look of this and the feel of power. It does remind me of some of Bungie’s UNSC ship designs.
Here we have the SAW. The squad automatic weapon. It looks very much like the old Tommy-guns of the early 20th century.
Concepts of the SAW. I like the version we got in the final.
The auto-turret in Halo 4. This is most prevalent in Dominion. Though not a large shell based turret, it has the look of a Howitzer from the mid-20th century.
From greyscale to color to detailed concepts these show the progression of design and color choice.
Let’s take a look at some Forerunner weapons.
The Incineration Cannon, arguably the most powerful handheld weapon in all of Halo, this concept is similar to the in-game version. The addition of red lights into the final version gave it a much more powerful feel.
This is a beautiful rendering rendering. Not much more I can say about it. I’d love to have this as a print.
The Suppressor is the Forerunner’s Assault Rifle. This design is very futuristic. VERY Forerunner.
The Light Rifle is another of the sleek elongated weapons. I like the design. The thing that is different with this weapon than most others is the hovering scope.
This is the Forerunner’s rapid fire shotgun. More bulky than other Forerunner weapons, this is a great weapon for up close combat. Now doesn’t this kind of look like the UNSC Infinity with a trigger grip?
And finally for this article, the Forerunner automated turret. This weapon, while not terribly effective, does keep enemies at bay. That allows you to take down those enemies. It’s a different design and a little bit of a departure from what we know. VERY cool design.
Tomorrow we’ll start to take a look a various concept art from places in Reach. Followed by Halo 4 locations.
-Sal