FEATURE CREEP

Beyond the campaign and multiplayer, Reach packages together disparate features reflecting trends when it was made and indicating where games might have been headed. Firefight is a cooperative horde mode where players work together, sharing a pool of lives and the occasional ordnance drop, to defend a point from waves of enemies. Theater’s replay editing tool seems to prefigure the next generation’s emphasis on share buttons and photo modes, and acknowledges Halo’s strong machinima community. That focus on user-generated content shines through in Forge mode, which lets you customise maps and create your own game modes, shareable through an in-game browser. None are unique to

Reach, but it was the first time all three appeared in a single Halo title.